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Richard Bulbring draws on extensive sport and tennis background
2022-12-22
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The fact that Richard Bulbring should find himself working in sports on a full-time basis is hardly earth-shattering. The fact that his sport of choice is tennis – well, that wasn’t always a given.

The first tennis pro hired in Sudbury in several decades, according to those who should know, Bulbring is a native of South Africa who arrived with his family some nine months ago.

The youngest of five children born and raised in Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) on the very southern tip of Africa, the now 46 year-old father of four was surrounded by sport in his youth, following in the footsteps of a wind-surfing brother who sailed internationally and another who was a national champion cyclist.

For his part, Richard was immersed in rugby and cricket, tennis and golf, actually pursuing a pro career in the latter until burnout took root in his early twenties. “I started pursuing a coaching career in various sports and studied Sports Administration and Marketing,” noted the man who now heads up the bulk of a rapidly expanding network of programs at the Sudbury Indoor Tennis Centre.

“I was working at as a school as their sports administrator and coaching tennis on the side – but it grew and grew and grew. Eventually, I was coaching all day, every day.”

Not one to let the sand sit still under his feet, Bulbring would parlay a contact in the Carribean a few years later, spending three years on Grand Cayman Island, making his way up and down Seven Mile Beach with his new bride, teaching tennis to “all of the kids of the lawyers and accountants”.

When they decided to start a family of their own, the Bulbrings would make their way back home, Richard making finding work at Collegiate High-School, an institution that was home to no less than 16 tennis courts.

“There are some really good schools in South Africa with incredible facilities,” he explained. “Winter temperatures range from 10 to 24, summers are 17 to 18 – it’s the third most moderate climate on the globe. Eventually, we had six schools, upwards of 35 courts and seven full-time coaches – and I ran the whole thing.”

“It was highly stressful, extremely taxing.”

And for as much as there was plenty to like about the role that he undertook for the better part of 15 years, it was time for another change. Thankfully, his network of contacts had continued to expand, a group that included Fransua Rachmann, a prominent tennis coach in North Bay, the two having worked together south of the border at one point.

It was Rachmann who alerted Bulbring to the opening at the SITC, and while a snow-covered Christmas might be something of a novelty for the welcomed new Sudburians, it’s been a very positive move.

“Just being a tennis coach and being able to focus on coaching (versus managing coaches) has been like a dream,” said Bulbring. “It’s been a very good change.”

Understandably, the landscape of tennis in northern Ontario stands in stark contrast to the world he left behind – though Bulbring sees ample potential in these parts. “We have loads of juniors coming through every week and every program is full, which is amazing,” he noted. All of which is not to suggest that the new gig comes without some inherent hurdles to be cleared.

“Part of the challenge here is time,” he suggested, noting that staggered finishing times for various school grades in South Africa allowed for a very steady stream of young tennis hopefuls in after school programs. “There are people who want lessons and there is just no court availability in the evenings.”

“And in Sudbury, we are quite a ways from tournament play, so our biggest challenge for the juniors at the club is a lack of competition. We have targetted to get the kids to four tournaments next summer between May and August.”

There is certainly a very competitive drive to the innate DNA of Richard Bulbring – though that’s not where he sees his greatest potential influence in these parts. “My goal has never been to produce champions,” he said. “My goal is to produce people who love tennis, to create a culture.”

That job is made somewhat more manageable given the notable influx of immigrants to Sudbury and area, families who generally are not predisposed to some of the more common Canadian winter pastimes.

“Sudbury is becoming more and more international,” said Bulbring. “We have parents from all over the world who do not have a hockey mindset, people telling us that they are not really built for hockey – that’s not their genetic code – and wanting to do something that is a little more friendly to their bodies.”

As for building the culture, Bulbring is fully aware that these types of projects are built one brick at a time. Things are not about to change overnight. “Kids in South Africa grow up at a (tennis) club and watch their father volley and they don’t even need to go to a coach,” he said. “The kids just copy.”

“Mind you, the kids here are a lot less temperamental,” he added, noting that it’s been something of a work in progress simply to get the kids at the SITC to be willing to keep score, understanding that finished a given game with one player that has won and one that has lost is not the end of the world.

It’s all part of the work that lies ahead.

“One of my strengths is just working with people from all different walks of life,” said Bulbring.

At the Sudbury Indoor Tennis Centre, in the world that is 2023, that clientele is a given.

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