Late start couldn’t stop Owino’s drive to make a difference
Thierry Ntwali, the ITF Development Officer for East and Central Africa, jokes that Kenya will need programs to attract boys to tennis since all the leadership positions are occupied by women – the general secretary of the federation, technical director, national coach and JTI coordinator.
At last year’s Worldwide Coaches Conference by BNP Paribas in Bangkok, Thailand, the Kenyans also sent an all-female contingent: Veronica Osogo, Evelyn Otula, Caroline Oduor and Rosemary Owino, her country’s Davis Cup and Fed Cup captain and coach since 2015.
The Kenyans dazzled in their scarlet team uniforms – not least their technical director Owino, 38, whose own tennis journey is worthy of a movie.
Growing up in Kisumu, on the shore of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, Owino stumbled upon an ‘ancient’ tennis court, built by the British, in her last year of high school. The surface was not the ubiquitous native clay-dirt known as maram but old asphalt – “like a rough road,” she recalls, complete with pot-holes. The old racquets “were not really complete; there were like five or six strings at each end…”
Despite these inauspicious beginnings, Owino fell in love with the game. “The most important thing for me when I tried it out was how much discipline it requires and commitment to learn it,” she said. “And I just loved running around chasing after the ball. From then on, I thought: Why not?”
Owino couldn’t fathom how tennis had been invisible to her, as she played hockey, netball, basketball and volleyball at her Catholic school. She had never even seen the game on TV. “No! That’s the thing – 18 was my first contact with tennis. That’s why I felt motivated to make sure that that doesn’t happen to somebody else, because, I don’t know – maybe I could have played [professional] tennis, maybe not. But I would have loved to have had the choice. Because as soon as I started, I never stopped.”
Missing out on a pro career, Owino nevertheless proved an insatiable student of the game, going from late beginner to Davis Cup coach inside 20 years. In Bangkok, she was part of the round table discussion on women coaches.
Her goal in travelling to Thailand was “Coming out to get information, travelling outside the country to try to make sure I’m able to answer the question: What is the path that someone can take?” That, she says, is the value of cross-cultural gatherings like the WCC: “I’m able to help a player understand the best that they can achieve.
“For me, it was a matter of, OK, I’m never going to play that great, but at least I will make sure I get to the best I can be and make sure nobody else loses out on that opportunity, whether it’s starting age or becoming as great as they possibly can.”
For Owino, the transformative power of tennis reaches beyond the elite level. “It’s never really about turning pro,” she said. “But if that’s what a player can do, then why not? Is it about going to college? If that’s the best they can do, then why not? Is it about just playing for fun, playing to stay healthy? If that’s the best they can do, then why not? Those options need to be accessible to people.”
After high school Owino moved to the capital, Nairobi, studied IT and lived with her eldest brother, whose neighbour Peter Wachira was a tennis coach. She followed Coach Wachira to the Public Service Club and hit against the wall for a year. Owino’s daily routine involved footing it – “I didn’t have transport money” – between her brother’s house, college and the club. “I was at the club every day. I woke up and went to the club. I didn’t even have a racquet.”
In the end, Coach Wachira gave her his racquet – “A purple Wilson,” she recalls.
Owino’s first coaching role was rolling balls to a three-year-old girl whose older sister was having lessons at the club. Then Wachira sent a couple more pupils her way and asked her to assist with under 18s training. After about a year, a colleague at the club, Wanjiru Mbugua Karani – now general secretary at Tennis Kenya – offered to hit with Owino on the court and informed her that she’d signed her up for a coaching course.
“For the first time somebody offered to play with me,” Owino said. “Since then I don’t think we’ve played again over all these years, but I remember that so clearly because somebody went out of their way for me. I wasn’t used to that. It was probably one of the most important moments of my life; somebody went out of their way for me. And this girl was one of our Fed Cup players. This was a big thing for me. After she hit with me, she went back to the office like it was the most normal thing. It wasn’t for me.”
After graduating, Owino faced family conflict over her career choice. Her mother and brother, both bankers, each found positions for Owino in a bank. “When I finished my degree it was like, ‘Here’s a job for you, now you can stop the tennis nonsense, get going.’ It was a big thing, a job at the bank. And I was like, ‘No, I’m going to do tennis.’”
The youngest of five children, Owino lost her father at age three. Her eldest brother, with whom she lived, felt responsible for her. “My brother thought I was mad. I borrowed $200 from my other brother to go to a course in South Africa. I remember telling them this will change my life. And my [eldest] brother thought I was crazy. It’s like, ‘Are you mad? It’s $200, a lot of money. There are better things you could do with this money.’
“I remember that day, my brother broke his phone. Because I just couldn’t get it, according to him. But to me, he didn’t get it,” Owino recounts with emotion. “Because tennis is what I wanted to do. So, I took a bus to South Africa, to the course in Pretoria. It was I think the best thing I ever did.”
Owino’s experience highlights the high level of motivation women coaches bring to their role, alongside the sacrifices often made when there’s no easy path into the game. Women don’t sacrifice family time and harmony just to be an ordinary coach.
“To make a difference is the important thing,” agrees Owino. “If we’re going to do it, we need to do it to make a difference. Not necessarily for us. I mean, I like that this sounds like it’s great for me, but you have no idea how much difference I think I’ve made in one child’s life. That’s what keeps me going. Otherwise there’s no point in doing all this. I could have just been working in a bank, peaceful life, no stress, you know?”
Just one year after Spain’s Gala Leon Garcia was appointed the first woman captain of a Davis Cup team, Owino followed in 2015; unlike Leon, she is still in the job. Owino coached but didn’t travel with the team for two years. Though she’d trained many of the players since their junior days, nothing could have prepared her for the charge of being on the bench with her team in live matches.
“That first year [2017] with me on the court in Egypt, it’s hard to accept but it was tough,” Owino admits. “Like I say, for us women, even if you know something, it’s tough to just say it. I have to look and see if the players accept what I’m saying. On the court, I have to be very gentle with my feedback.”
It took one comment from her No.1 player, Ismael Changawa, to confirm Owino had the team’s respect. “This sounds awkward, but I was talking about what I felt he had to do, and I asked him, ‘Ismael, how do you feel about what I’m saying?’ And he looked at me, he was really nervous. He says, ‘Coach, just tell me what you want me to do and I will do it.’ That statement changed my life.”
Owino’s family is these days thrilled with her unusual career. Her late eldest brother, who tried to dissuade her from what he saw as a risky path, “would have been the most proud person right now,” she said.
“My whole family came for Davis Cup this year, the first time my mother had ever seen tennis,” she said with a laugh. “She was like, ‘I cannot believe that this is what you do.’ She loved it.”
The brother who lent Owino $200 for her first coaching course now lives in the US. “My other brother also came, watched tennis for the first time. He watches on TV but never watched it live. My sister is my biggest supporter. She comes with a crowd of people – she never comes to tennis at any other time, only Davis Cup.”
If her family was not supportive in the beginning, in hindsight Owino can understand why. “They just wanted to know this is what I want to do, because to them, no woman does this. I had to show them this is what I really want to do.”
For all her support of women coaches, Owino is at pains to credit many male mentors and colleagues for where she is today. From countrymen Peter Wachira and George Oyoo to the ITF’s Dermot Sweeney and Miguel Crespo.
“It’s been a lot of information that has come to me and I’ve gone an extra mile every time because of it,” Owino said. “There’s so many women out there who can do good, sometimes they just need to be reminded they can. I had people who reminded me along the way. I am a product of a village.”