By Rita Maloof, ALTA President
On Jan. 27, 2025, we unexpectedly lost our dear friend and ALTA First VP, “Kindness is free, so give it away” Loretta Phillips. In 1992, Loretta began her volunteer career of 33 years with ALTA in the Sunday Women’s league where she served as coordinator, overall, and league VP. In 2017, Loretta was inducted into the ALTA Volunteer Hall of Fame after 25 years of service. Most recently, she served on the Executive Committee, Rules Committee, ALTA Board of Directors, and had been elected ALTA’s 2025 First VP and 2026 President-elect.
Loretta had a profound impact on ALTA and the Atlanta tennis community. She will be truly missed. In recognition of her achievements, the coveted ALTA Sportsmanship Award has been renamed the Loretta Phillips Sportsmanship Award.
Good sportsmanship, kindness, joy, and humility were always at the top of Loretta’s lists both on and off the court. For 36 years, she and her husband, Carlton, instilled these values along with a deep belief in faith in all six of their children and everyone else around them. When not with her family or involved with ALTA, Loretta could always be found in an umpire’s chair for Special Olympics Georgia, teaching tennis at Richard Craig Park for Above the Net (a non-profit for tennis in McDonough) or coaching the tennis team at Henry County High School. She loved to dance, and her “biker chick” antics kept us all in stiches.
The first recipients of our newly named award would make Loretta proud. Working together, these teams were determined not to let Mother Nature ruin their tennis. After reviewing these nominations, we felt both teams — the nominee and nominator — deserved to be recognized for their outstanding acts of sportsmanship. Congratulations to all!
Nominations can be made at any time and are reviewed seasonally. Award winners receive a letter from the ALTA president, a sportsmanship bag tag, and are recognized in Net News.
Senior Mixed: Brookstone 3 C1,
Jill Lambertson and Kristy Bishop
Senior Mixed: Kennworth Tennis Center C1, Jeff Dickinson and Cassie Brown
Nominated by: Cassie Brown, Kennworth Tennis Center
In my opinion, this is the epitome of being determined to play and a definite show of sportsmanship, so I wanted to share. We are in C1, Senior Mixed. Jeff Dickinson is our captain, and I am co-captain of the team. Today we, Kennworth (visiting team), arrived at Brookstone 3 at 11 a.m. to rain-soaked courts. Both teams showed up armed with squeegees, towels, and blowers. One of our teammates even retrieved his big bad machines that helped beyond measure! After two hours of work, we were able to begin and complete our matches! No make up needed! I took lots of pics that I just wanted to share.
Senior Mixed: Silver Ridge A5, Brett Ray and Ellen Comeaux
Senior Mixed: Doublegate A5, Bea Kay Freeh
Nominated by: Bea Kay Freeh, Doublegate
As we all know, the weather this season has been a challenge. We were the home team for week three, but the rain kept us from our 11 a.m. start. Almost everyone wanted to try to get the match in that afternoon because we all knew the forecast was terrible for the week ahead. Unfortunately, we had a playoff match scheduled at our courts so playing at home was out. Brett and the Silver Ridge team graciously took on the challenge of having us play at their courts, putting on an all-out assault on their wet courts with blowers, squeegees, fans, towels, you name it! It was amazing! They all worked very hard and, miraculously, we were able to get in four of the five matches that day. Our team did help, but they all did the heavy lifting! And with such positive attitudes!
