Members of the club hail from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and Cuba, among other places. Few have any relationship outside of the green tennis court. Inside, however, the bond is strong.
Rocky Garcia, a retired union representative, stretches after playing a tennis match in Downey last month. He meets several other mostly retired people here to play tennis about twice a week.
The Downey Club is an unofficial group of mostly retired seniors who play every Tuesday and Thursday at this park in Southeast Los Angeles County. In this suburban ecology, Garcia, a Long Beach resident, is the proverbial guy who “tells it like it is” and cracks a lot of jokes. He teases his opponents with playful, sometimes brusque humor. Not everyone likes it.
For some of the players, tennis is a refuge. It serves as therapy and keeps them healthy. It gets their endorphins pumping during lunch hours.The 58-year-old is a self-described “tennis junkie” whose father taught him to play as a teenager in Mexicali, just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. He got so good he won third place in a tournament once.Life hasn’t been easy for him. For the last seven years, Mendizabal has lived in his van. Most nights he parks it in Norwalk.
Patricia Rodriguez plays a doubles tennis match in Downey. She is the only woman player in a group of mostly retired men who meet twice a week to play tennis.
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