Sports provide all kinds of benefits. Sometimes, they even connect people and result in lifelong relationships. Norvell and Andrea Brown, who met playing tennis and have cherished their married lives together for 30 years, can attest!
In tennis, scoring “love” means nothing. For Norvell and Andrea Brown, tennis brought them together 30 years ago for love and a lifetime of fitness, and that means everything to them.
Norvell and Andrea Brown
“I was on a tennis trip with girlfriends, and he was at a USPTR (US Professional Tennis Registry) annual tournament in Hilton Head, South Carolina,” Andrea recalls. “I was divorced, and he was a widower. We just happened to meet.”
Andrea, who is 71 and took up a racquet at age 30, lived in New Jersey, and Norvell was in Maryland. Now 87, Norvell began playing at 22 after he saw some kids playing tennis and was intrigued. “I didn’t know, to be honest with you, that Black people could play tennis that well,” he says, “So I thought perhaps I might want to try, and I did.”
Norvell fell in love with the game and began an upward journey that took him to a ranking as high as 4.5 and many successes on the court. Equally significant was the acquired passion to teach and coach others, which earned him a USPTA (US Professional Tennis Association) Southern High School Coach of the Year award.
However, he didn’t know he wanted to teach at first.
“I became interested only because someone thought I was a good player and asked me to teach the members of their club,” the Army veteran explains. “Otherwise, I would have never thought about doing it.”
It was his court performances and his decades of coaching others that resulted in his induction into the Black Tennis Hall of Fame in 2019. “It was my lovely wife who nominated me and believed in me when I did not believe in myself. She’s my rock down here on this earth.”
Andrea, who discovered the Senior Games movement and got the couple qualified in New Jersey for their first National Senior Games, gives Norvell a doting look and adds, “He’s my lifetime partner in tennis and in life.”
Norvell has always advocated tennis as a lifetime sport for health and well-being, and he now has proof, saying, “I’m a prime example at 87. And oh my goodness, I think it has kept my stamina going. My endurance, physical and mental health have stabilized at my age. And it just keeps me going.”
By: Del Moon
