Heavenly Tennis
By Steve WalkerI admire the great good Gene has done in our world. I can’t drive up Provo Canyon without appreciating his good effects on our environment, can’t go downtown without thinking the new library ought to bear his name, can’t read an academic article, especially one which bears on my faith, without thinking Gene’s essays had more positive impact on Mormon thought than those of anyone else I know. I admire the Professor England of pen, lectern, and pulpit, but I like Gene best where I knew him best—on the tennis court.
Gene was a passionate player, always competing with fierce intensity. I loved to see him loping to the net to smash overheads into our chests, lofting wicked lobs over our heads, and when we’d take even one slight step toward the middle, lashing his lethal backhand past us down the line. We used to kid him that he took advantage of his superior spiritual insight to hit the ball where we couldn’t return it.
Gene’s tennis style made me think C. S. Lewis might be right, that the most fundamental virtue is courage. I like Gene’s brand of courage, the never-say-die, Downey, Idaho, kind, the don’t-quit-no-matter-what Mormon pioneer variety. Many times playing doubles together, we’d be down, and Gene would say, “Time for our patented comeback.” and we would actually pull the match out. Our winning percentage when we partnered, as I always liked to, was probably over ninety percent, because the man just wouldn’t quit.
Gene played passionately, but I liked his passion all the more because it was compassionate. We love him like a brother because he was always, even on the court, a brother to us. As fierce a player as I’ve played with, Gene was also superlatively kind. In our league, we play hard but none too well, and because some of us don’t see very well, a whole match can come down to a single bad line call. Feelings can and often do run high; sometimes there’s more debate than play, and the debate can get intense. Yet in more than a quarter century of tennis, averaging I’d guess a match a week, I never once saw Gene angry, never saw him contest a line call, never saw him upset. You’d have to know how much some of those games meant to us to know how much Gene’s demeanor meant. In a situation where sometimes not much love was lost, Gene managed to love us more than tennis. And, believe me, he loved tennis.
I like the way Gene loves. He shared my tendency to want to keep on playing and would usually second my pleas for “just one more set.” But some nights he’d say, “Got to go. Got to get some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and eat it with Charlotte.” I would picture them eating the ice cream in bed together, and I liked the picture. The way Gene and Charlotte love is the way love ought to be.
Gene’s love has always been so generous, so helpful. A few years back, I experienced serious professional pressures, compounded by financial difficulties. When I mentioned my frustrations during a tennis game—really just venting—Gene offered to lend me enough money to solve my problems. I couldn’t accept the loan, but Gene’s large-hearted offer—and it was, as always with him, a sincere offer—was a huge deal to me: not just more than my net worth, more than I then thought my soul was worth. I’ve been blessed with good friends over the years, but characteristically, typical of the down-to-earth helpfulness of his solid brand of loving, Gene England is my only $50,000 friend.
Gene lent me more than he knew, my life is the better for what’s left of Gene in it. I’ve always been sure there’s a heaven, but I haven’t always been sure I wanted to go there. Some of the people who seemed on their way to heaven didn’t seem to be having much fun. Playing tennis with George Eugene England Jr. has expanded my tennis testimony. Having played with Gene, I’m absolutely sure there will be tennis in heaven. These past months, the tennis courts have seemed awfully empty. I am profoundly pained to think of playing tennis the rest of my life without my great friend. Some of us played recently on the Pleasant Grove courts where Gene liked best to play, and when we’d hit a particularly vicious shot, we’d dedicate it as the “Gene England Memorial Tennis Shot.” But without him, it really isn’t the same. It will never be the same until Gene and I get to play together again: there’s a huge hole in my life where Gene was. I would give more than he offered to lend me to see just one more time that great Gene England grin as he drives the ball by us down the line.
—Steve Walker
from Sunstone 121 (January 2002): 20