My family and upbringing made me not only the player I was, but the person I became.
I was one of five children raised by my mother, Colette, and my dad, Jimmy, in Fort Lauderdale. He taught tennis and ran the facility at the Holiday Park Tennis Center. My dad was a very good player who won the Canadian Championships in 1947. He thought tennis could bring us a healthy life. He was my coach as well as my father, first bringing me into the sport when I was six.
While tennis really wasn’t a choice for me or any of my four siblings, the reason my dad got me and my brothers and sisters to play tennis was not to be No. 1 in the world or win big titles, but to provide a safe haven for us—to keep us “off the streets,” as he put it. We would go to Holiday Park daily to play tennis after school, and my dad kept an eye on all of us—including the other children.
He was very proud to create two world-class professional athletes in me and my sister, Jeanne, who made it to No. 9 in the U.S. and No. 28 in the world. But he was just as happy that my three other siblings all got scholarships and played No. 1 for their colleges. We were all very supportive of each other and there were no jealousies among us. We put family first, and I feel that impact to this day. My brother John and I created the Evert Tennis Academy about 30 years ago, which is also a family environment, inclusive of parents and mentoring the kids.
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