Conner Pickering spent the best part of his high school tennis career playing in the shadow of St. Edward’s teammate Andrew Butz.
For good reason, too: Butz was better.
“There was a difference, absolutely,” said Steve Milliman, who coached the St. Ed’s boys’ team in 2010, when Pickering and Butz were seniors. “They were both good players, but Andrew was clearly better, especially in singles.
“Conner really stepped up his senior year – and playing No. 1 doubles with Andrew really helped his game – but he couldn’t beat him.”
So Butz played No.1 singles, won back-to-back state high school championships at that position, and went to the University of Florida on a tennis scholarship.
Pickering played No. 2 singles, lost in the state final as a senior and, after graduating from St. Ed’s, spent a year playing in USTA tournaments and taking classes at Indian River State College before finally being offered a tennis scholarship.
That scholarship came from Bluefield State College, an NCAA Division II school in West Virginia – a school he had never heard of, a place he had never visited.
“I played a tournament with a guy who played college tennis with the Bluefield State coach,” Pickering said. “They offered me a scholarship and I took it. I didn’t really have a lot of options, so I was kind of desperate, but it turned out to be the right move.
“I’m glad I had the chance to play college tennis,” he added. “I had a great four years there.”
Bluefield State reached the NCAA regionals in each of Pickering’s four seasons, advancing to the Division II nationals the last three and reaching the quarterfinals last year.
Though he played at the bottom half of the singles lineup and at No. 3 doubles, Pickering continued to improve throughout his college career, prompting his college coach, Louis Belt, to tell the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in May that his lone American player “embodies” the team’s progress the past four years.
Pickering also earned a bachelor’s degree in social sciences.
“Unfortunately, I missed graduation,” he said. “We were flying back from Nationals in Arizona and we got stuck in Texas because of the flooding they had there last spring.”
Now, he’s back – back in Vero Beach, back at the Twin Oaks Tennis Club and back, he said, “where I grew up as a tennis player.”
After graduating from Bluefield State in May, Pickering returned to the club where he learned how to play a game he knew little about, accepting a job as an assistant teaching pro who works extensively with juniors.
“When Conner first came here, he didn’t know which side of the racket to use,” said Alain Mignolet, Twin Oaks owner and head teaching pro. “He was 12 years old, so he started late, but he was a hard worker and he loved to play.
“He certainly made up a lot of ground quickly.”
It’s Pickering’s love for the game that brought him home: He wants to teach tennis as a career, and he knows he can learn much from Mignolet, who has worked with touring pros, an Orange Bowl winner, Easter Bowl finalist, foreign national champions and more than 250 ranked juniors.
Mignolet, in fact, taught both Pickering and Butz as juniors.
“He had helped me with my summer camp last year, and he did such a good job that I told him he could have a job here when he finished college,” Mignolet said. “To be honest, I wasn’t really looking for anyone, but I thought he was wonderful with the kids and I created a position for him.”
Pickering, 23, said he took up tennis because he has a friend who was taking a clinic at Twin Oaks. It didn’t take long for him to fall in love with the game.
Playing with an old Dunlop 300G racket given to him by his godparents – Vero Beach’s Tom and Sally Fish, parents of former top-10 tour player Mardy Fish, who used that model –Pickering was a fixture on Twin Oaks’ Har-Tru courts.
“I played here every single day, and it was the most fun I ever had,” Pickering said. “I loved tennis then, and I still do. I love playing, I love teaching and I want to do this as a career. I want to do something I really enjoy.
“Really, I’ve been teaching since high school, here with Alain and I also did a kids clinic at Quail Valley, but I’m still learning,” he added. “I’m going to learn as much as I can from Alain, but, at the same time, I want to try to give something back.
“As much time as I’ve spent here, I feel I owe something to this place.”
Mignolet said Pickering again worked at Twin Oaks’ junior camp last summer and is now teaching, running a women’s clinic and trying to develop a junior program.
Pickering plans to get his U.S. Professional Tennis Association certification, which is required by many clubs. Eventually, he hopes to become a head teaching pro somewhere.
“You really can’t teach someone how to be a teaching pro,” Mignolet said. “He knows the game. He knows how to teach the game. In time, he’ll develop his own style. And in the meantime, if he has any questions, I’ll help him.”
Just as he has since Pickering first showed up at Twin Oaks with an old Mardy Fish racket, caught tennis fever and played all the way to Bluefield and back.
