Tennis player-priest starts team at Little Rock Middle School

As Father Daniel Velasco, pastor of Our Lady of the Holy Souls Church in Little Rock, stands on the spongy court at the Rebsamen Tennis Center on Oct. 10, he adjusts his hat to block the sun and taps his clipboard, while eight boys gather around him.

Father Velasco tells sixth through eighth grade students who is playing who on which court.

Father Velasco founded the Holy Souls School tennis team in August. And although the tennis team and league are not regulated by the Arkansas Activities Association, the team has given students the opportunity to try out a new sport and make friends with students from other schools.

“We started this year thanks to some volunteers who helped me coordinate and talk to the other coaches,” he said. “…I am responsible for the lineups. There’s a lot of coordination going on behind the scenes. We have some parents who get involved and that’s the reason we can do it.”

Father Velasco said the Holy Souls team will play informally against private schools in Pulaski County, including Anthony School, Pulaski Academy and Episcopal Collegiate School.

On October 10, the Holy Souls team, in their white tennis uniforms, competed against St. Anthony School in bright red, spanning four adjacent courts.

“This is our third game,” Father Velasco said. “We played Anthony School last week, then Little Rock Christian Academy last Tuesday. This is our third game and we are playing Anthony again. I think we’ll have about six games total.”

For Father Velasco, tennis is much more than a hobby.

“It’s definitely a lot of fun,” he said. “Because, as some people may know, I played college tennis.”

Father Velasco is originally from Puebla, Mexico. His tennis skills brought him to the United States in 1993 when the tennis coach at Harding University in Searcy was impressed with his skills during a recruiting trip and offered him a scholarship. He played on the Harding tennis team for four years until graduating in 1997. Since his ordination in 2020, Father Velasco has been encouraging students and parishioners to play tennis.

In 2021 and 2022, Father Velasco, then chaplain at Trinity School in Fort Smith, helped coach the middle school’s 15-member coed tennis team to win the championship.

His talent as a coach was evident on October 10, when several teams showed impressive volleys and even came from behind to win their games.

The doubles partners, sixth-grader Tucker Norton and eighth-grader Cade Cosse, lost to Anthony School 4-2 when the two came back to win their match in a 7-point tiebreaker. The tiebreaker provided a learning opportunity for the Holy Souls players, as parents and Father Velasco taught the students the rules of the tiebreaker during the game, as the students had never played a tiebreaker before.

“I just really like the sport; It’s fun to play,” Norton said Arkansas Catholic after winning his match. “I think I did well, but I could have done better.”

Norton’s mother, Barrett, who plays tennis, helped teach students on both teams how to play the 7-point tiebreaker. She said Holy Souls played well and noted that the atmosphere was not about winning but about having fun.

“They have this camaraderie with their teammates and get along and talk,” Barrett Norton said.

Norton’s teammate Cosse analyzed Norton and his performance after the game.

“I feel like we could have done better, we definitely could have grabbed the ball more,” he said. “Overall we played really well and I told (Norton) ‘Don’t give up’ because they beat us and I thought ‘We’re going to beat them’ and we did. We just had to keep at it.”

Cosse, who has been playing tennis for four years, said the sport as a whole is as much about mental endurance as it is physical endurance.

“Listen to your coach,” he advised new players. “It’s a very frustrating sport. It’s very mental. It will go to your head. You have to stay cool, be strong.”

Father Velasco said the tennis matches provided players with a great opportunity to make friends and develop their skills.

“We play against other schools where some kids play tennis and we agree we will play against each other and have fun,” he said. “There is no trophy, but I would like to record the score in my notes. It gave me the opportunity to interact with the children in a different environment. Of course I’m still their pastor, but on the court I’m their coach and they listen and they’re good kids.”