Chuck Narvin, director of tennis at the Delray Beach Club, with a few of his students.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Steve Pike
Chuck Narvin’s life is a moveable feast — from the high-school football fields of Pittsburgh to the basketball court at Clemson University to the buttoned-down offices of the Ford Motor Company, and finally to the tennis courts of South Florida. Narvin never has been a man who lets time pass him by.
At 72, he’s going into his fourth year as tennis director at the Delray Beach Club, where he manages the club’s year-round instruction, leagues and social tennis programs.
Not bad for a guy who “retired” to the good life in Phoenix in 2004 after 30 years as one of the leading forces of tennis in South Florida.
“I like to teach and market and promote,” said Narvin, whose company A1A Tennis holds the tennis management contract at the Delray Beach Club as well as several other clubs in South Florida. “We have a very active club here. Our (fall and winter) tennis calendar starts in November and goes through April. We do a lot with two courts.”
Narvin founded A1A Tennis with fellow tennis professionals Dennis Grainer and Blake Merrell in 2008 while he was head tennis professional at Trilogy at Vistancia in Peoria, Ariz., He and his wife, Brenda, moved to the desert in 2004 after Narvin’s decision to retire from the South Florida tennis scene.
A high-school quarterback and college basketball player for Press Maravich (father of “Pistol” Pete Maravich) at Clemson University, Narvin began his professional career about as far removed from tennis one can get.
Armed with a degree in economics from Clemson, Narvin took a job in the early 1960s in the finance department in Ford’s aerospace division in Palo Alto, Calif.
But with the fire of athletic competition still burning under his business suit, Narvin took up tennis — a sport he dabbled in as a youth.
By 1974, Narvin decided tennis was more interesting than satellites.
“I saw my boss chain-smoking and looking like hell,” recalled Narvin, who accepted a position as assistant professional at the Inverrary Racquet Club in Lauderhill and eventually the head tennis positions at Woodmont Country Club in Tamarac and Gleneagles Country Club in Delray Beach.
While at Woodmont, Narvin worked with touring professional Harold Solomon on the latter’s End World Hunger charity events, and he also founded the Florida Division U.S. Professional Tennis Association Grand Prix.
At Gleneagles, Narvin worked with legendary tennis stars Ivan Lendl and Steffi Graff on tennis camps and exhibitions to help market the property.
He also started the Palm Beach County Senior Tennis League, which has grown to more than 35,000 members.
Narvin left Gleneagles in 1994 for a 10-year stint as director of tennis at the Racquet Club of Boca. And then it was on to his “retirement” years in Phoenix, where he coached high school tennis and was head tennis professional at Trilogy and Anthem Country Club.
When his company put in a proposal to manage tennis operations at the Delray Beach Club, the club wanted an assurance that Narvin be its tennis director.
So he returned.
“I’ve enjoyed it all tremendously,” Narvin said.
Indeed. Regardless of his location, Narvin’s teaching philosophy mirrors his professional life: Have fun with whatever you’re doing.
“Tennis is not like a team sport. You’re out there on your own,” he said. “Whatever you get, you deserve. If you play well, you win; if you don’t, you lose. I enjoy that.”
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