Dave Smith didn't always play tennis. But once he did, it was hard to stop him - and later, his involvement in the Whitehall tennis program.
Smith is now 90 years old, but retains a relationship with the Vikings through his longtime friendship with coach Greg McManus. The two met back when McManus was a Whitehall player and the Vikings would host open play Tuesday and Thursday nights at the tennis courts during the summer.
"It was mostly Whitehall tennis kids, but Dave would come around and he would come play," McManus said. "I got to know him and enjoyed being around him. He was the stringing guy. I broke a lot of strings on my racket in high school, so he said, 'You can come use my stringer.' His wife (Pat) was super nice and she was always making bread or a pie and saying, 'Well, if you're hungry...' It would always smell like wood burning and food (at their house). He was always so hospitable."
Smith didn't take a traditional path to being the tennis buff he was by the time he met McManus. In fact, he didn't start playing the game until he was in his 50s. At the time, he and Pat, who raised their kids in the White Lake area, were living in Florida. When Pat took a job as a chef at the then newly-built Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Smith was asked if he wanted a job as well. Unsure at first whether he wanted one, Smith ended up becoming a maintenance worker on the tennis courts. He would occasionally fill in if a customer wanted to play, and he found a niche as an expert racket stringer. So gifted at the craft was Smith that he strung rackets for some big names who came through to run tennis clinics - legendary stars like Australian icons Rod Laver and Evonne Goolagong.
"It was always exciting," Smith said. "Working on the courts at the Ritz-Carlton is one of those jobs you were happy to wake up and go do. It was a great job."
"(Goolagong) had a beautiful ground stroke and movement on the court," Smith added of the Australian women's player, who secured seven Grand Slam singles titles in her career.
McManus and Smith actually crossed paths at the Ritz-Carlton due to Florida spring break trips the Vikings took the last couple years of McManus' high school career. McManus remembers marveling at the caliber of tennis courts at the hotel.
"I'd never gone anywhere for tennis, and then to go to the Ritz-Carlton, which was really ritzy and super cool, it felt like a treat," McManus said.
It was that kind of experience that Smith had in his back pocket when he and Pat returned for summer visits to the White Lake area. He came to the open courts and played with McManus through his Viking playing days and when McManus was playing at Grand Valley State University. Because they were friendly, Smith reached out to McManus again when the latter first became the Whitehall head coach in 2008, offering to be an assistant.
"He was always taking care of the stringing for the team, working with the younger kids," McManus said. "He'd do the Tuesday and Thursday nights as well. and he was always working to help develop the team when I wasn't there. For practices, he'd come make sure my nets were the right height. He'd do all the little things I didn't have time to do."
For 10 years Smith filled that role, even accompanying the team on occasional road trips to Lansing and Traverse City. He only slowed down his involvement with Viking tennis when he and Pat transitioned from being snowbirds to full-time Florida residents. McManus said because Smith didn't grow up playing the game, he had an unorthodox stroke - but he could still teach.
"He's never had the prettiest stroke, but he knows how to teach it, and he's very athletic," McManus said. "He's a big guy, but he understands and loves the sport. He just knows the mechanics of it and the fundamentals of it, and he knows how to teach it. They don't have to be pretty for him to be a good teacher.
"He'd always talk about playing these old guys, and he's the oldest one there, outrunning them and outmoving them. He's always saying, 'You've got to take Vitamin C, or this natural stuff.' He's that guy drinking the castor oil. Obviously it's helped, because he's still moving around really well."
For Smith's part, he gets some benefits out of his time on the courts too. He enjoys being around younger players, fielding their questions and explaining the game. McManus said Smith is a voracious reader of tennis magazines and will pick up and share tips from them. For years, he had a subscription to one of them sent to McManus at the school.
"They'd ask old Grandpa different questions," Smith chuckled, recalling his days with the players. "They were always inquisitive...We have tennis three mornings a week. I'll be playing there when I get back (to Florida). It's on clay courts, which makes a difference. It's softer on your ankles and knees. Most of the guys are younger than I am."
To this day, Smith still plays at his retirement community in Florida, though age has limited him to doubles play now. He jokes that he'll play pickleball, the smaller-court variant of tennis that's grown in popularity due to it requiring less movement, "when I get old."
The same year Smith moved to Florida full time, as fate would have it, McManus said, he met Roy Salazar, a current Viking assistant who is Smith's spiritual successor in terms of filling in the gaps wherever McManus needs him to. He met Salazar while working as a pro at Norton Pines Athletic Club (it has since closed), and after getting along with Salazar in a few brief interactions, invited him to help with the tennis program if he was interested.
"I told him that on a Saturday, and that he'd have to be fingerprinted at the school (for a background check), and the next Monday, I got a call from the athletic office about him coming in to be fingerprinted," McManus said. "It was almost a handoff from Dave to Roy...I live in Spring Lake, so he'd run to the courts for me (when I needed him to). He's helped me ever since. I'm really lucky to have these guys around supporting me."
Smith returned to the White Lake area briefly in 2024 for Pat's funeral after she passed away, the first time he'd come back in years. He has since returned each of the last two summers to stay with his son, also named Dave, who lives in New Era. While in town, he's given McManus a call and reunited with him for some of the team's summer activities. It's been just like old times again.
"It's almost surreal that he's still around at 90 helping out," McManus said. "It's just a really cool experience for me, and I think for him. I used to string rackets in his basement when I was in high school, so it's just a really cool full-circle (moment), for the second time."
