Making The Sacrifice Medical Lake Senior Josh Greene Gave Up Other Sports And Free Time To Focus On His Tennis Game

Josh Greene was a soccer player at heart when he signed up for tennis camp back in 1991.

But Medical Lake High tennis coach LeRoy Lemaster saw something more.

During the summer camp, Lemaster saw something special, even in Greene’s first uncertain groundstrokes.

“He just had that natural flow of footwork and eye coordination that went with the game,” Lemaster recalls. “I told him, ‘Josh, I hate to tell you this, but you’re a tennis player.”’

Greene, now a senior at Medical Lake, remembers that introduction to the game almost as if fate had intended it.

“Coach said I had something in my eyes,” Greene says.

Soccer, it seems, was doomed all along.

Nearly six years later, Greene, 17, has been to the state A high school tennis championships three years in a row. His freshman year he was nervous and finished 16th out of a field of 16. Two years ago, he improved to fourth place and last year lost in the semi-finals to the eventual state champ, Chris Lewis. Greene wound up finishing third.

Stronger, taller and with a better serve this year, Greene has dedicated his season to beating Lewis should the two meet again at state. It’s going to be tough, Greene says. After all, Lewis, a student at a private Seattle prep school, is perhaps the best player in Washington.

“I think it has a lot to do with match experience,” Greene says of his 6-1, 6-1 loss last year to Lewis. “It wasn’t as if he blew me out of the water, like it sounds. But he was more consistent than I was. I went for too many winners.”

After five matches this season, Greene has only given up three games. Last week’s 6-0, 6-0 victim - the No. 1 singles player from the GSL’s University High School marked only the latest humbling of Greene’s larger-school opponents. He’s also beaten the top players from West Valley, Riverside, Clarkston and Pullman.

To counter the fact that many of his matches are relatively short affairs - not the best preparation for the elevated competition at state come May - Greene plays nearly every day at the North Park Racquet Club, either with private coach John Gant or a couple of friends who play at GSL schools.

“He’s one of the top two high school players in Spokane,” said Gant, the former pro at North Park. “He’s just not as well known because he’s playing in (a smaller) league.”

What has separated Greene from many of the other junior players in the area is his dedication, Gant says. That’s not to say Josh isn’t gifted with athleticism. He just combines talent with hard work.

“His work ethic is the biggest thing about his game,” Gant said. “He’s always prepared.”

Four years ago, when Greene was just an eighth grader and had been working with Gant a short time, Gant remembers the youngster as “just another player.” Good, maybe even better than good. But nothing sensational.

Then, one day in the middle of practice, Greene announced quietly that he’d quit the soccer team.

“It didn’t phase me until a bit later, what he’d given up, because Josh was really a premier soccer player,” Gant says. “But it showed me Josh is one of the few kids around who really want to be a good tennis player.”

Next year, Greene hopes to play tennis at Gonzaga University, which Gant said shouldn’t be a problem. After enrolling in the Community Colleges of Spokane Running Start program this year, Greene is hoping to begin college with his Associate of Arts degree already behind him.

“I’m always on the go,” Greene says, admitting that he knows he’s missing out on some of the joys of a senior year.

“I go to school, drive to tennis practice, go home, play tennis again from 7 to 9 at night at the racket club,” he said. “I’ve kind of lost touch with my friends.”

But knowing he’ll have English literature, paleontology, a health class, speech communications and sociology behind him when he begins college, Greene’s not complaining.

“I’m working hard, playing tennis,” he says. “I think it’ll pay off in the end.”