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RFT Asks: How Did a Wash U Volleyball Coach Become a Pickleball Champ? | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

March 1, 2023

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click to enlarge Courtesy photo Teri Clemens stands on the winner’s podium after capturing the singles USA Pickleball Diamond Amateur Championship title in Florida in December 2022.

Teri Clemens won seven national championships in a legendary 14-year span as a Washington University volleyball coach. Then she had to retire as her health deteriorated. But that wasn’t the end of her sports career. Instead, at 67, she returned to become a national champion in pickleball. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

It’s interesting — I feel like you did the opposite of what a lot of people did. You went from coaching to playing — instead of playing to coaching.
I went from athlete to coach to athlete. This is kind of crazy, but when I was a kid, even in high school, I remember having a recurring thought that — “Oh, no, what’s going to happen to me because when I get “old,” all the other women aren’t going to be playing sports.” I was looking at my grandma at the time, and she wasn’t playing sports. And I thought, ‘What am I going to do? Because I’m going to still have this competitiveness inside of me, and I’m not going to be able to play.’ It really struck a nerve back then. Now I am 67 and the age my grandma was at the time, and I’m highly competitive and able to play. Thank God for the medical society because I was so sick for so many years.
What happened when you were sick?

When I was young, I drank turpentine by accident, and it scarred my lungs, and it came back to haunt me with repeated pneumonia — and not just light pneumonia but very serious. I was on a respirator 13 times and [had] 24 blood clots. You name it, I had it. I had pulmonary embolisms. I had massive blood infections, MRSA infections — too many for me even to remember. I’m gonna guess I spent 135 days a year in the hospital for about eight years. I finally had to retire from coaching because of my health. Otherwise, I’d probably still be coaching and not playing pickleball.

Pickleball was a blessing for me because I always missed coaching. Something in my blood, you know, I’m a coach. “I’m born to coach” is kind of how I feel. I love competing. I love coaching. When I lost coaching, a part of my heart went with it. I was fortunate — I had six kids, and now I have a lot of grandkids, and that was all really important to me. But I also lost a part of my heart when I lost that. Then to find pickleball, many years later, is just an everyday joy for me.

How did you become able to play competitive pickleball?

When I got at my very worst, my doctor found a medicine in [Canada], like an [IV administered] chemotherapy-type drug, that was having a good effect. I had to go to Canada because it wasn’t FDA-approved here. I was on it for a year. During that year, it really wrecked my body so much that I had to still be on really high steroids. The combination of it all made me not be able to walk for almost a year. I was in a wheelchair. At one time, they did a muscle biopsy of my leg and told me I would never walk again.

Well, long story short, obviously they were wrong. I was learning to walk, and they were like, “Don’t stop once you learn to walk.” I was afraid to stop. So then I started running. Since I love to compete, I ran 5ks, then 10ks, then I ran four half marathons. I was like, “I’m gonna run a marathon.” I’m not a runner by any means. But I wanted to achieve it. When I ran the [Cincinnati marathon nine years ago], that was when I said, “OK, I can compete again.” That’s when I knew I was OK, and I was an athlete.

So you’re retired, right?
I’m retired except for I’ve been teaching pickleball at Missouri Pickleball Club for the last seven months. And I just told them, I’m going to hang it up. Because I want to focus more on my playing than my teaching, but I will still serve as an advisor to coaches. What’s the difference between casually playing and really competitively playing like yourself? Pickleball has a rating system, so if you’re just casually playing, you could be 4.0 or under. So it goes — 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5. So you could enter a tournament at 3.0 or you can enter a tournament at 4.55 and that’s really competitive — the pros are 6.0. So I play at 4.55. There are a ton of us nationally but not a ton of us in St. Louis, at that age, that play at that level. It’s a sport where 20-year-olds can play 60-year-olds. I’m 67 now, and I can play 20 and 30-year-olds because you don’t cover as much court as you do a tennis court. And the strategy is all-encompassing. You’ve got to have quick hands and hit the shots but you have to be a strategist also. When we play a young team, we like to say it’s wisdom versus youth. Is the goal professional? Or what’s the goal?For me? No. No, not at my age. If I was 20, oh yeah, I’d have those aspirations for sure. But I found the sport late and so, no, I don’t have professional aspirations. But my goal is to compete at the highest level I can and win nationals. That’s really been my goal — to maintain that level. Do you have a trophy case?No, I’m not a real big displayer of my history. I have a nice ring box with seven rings in it [from volleyball]. I willed one for each kid. I have six kids, and I had one made for my husband. If you walked in my house, you wouldn’t know I was a coach. You would know I was a grandma. Really? You don’t show your competitive side in there?Nope. I probably have over 100 metals from pickleball. And they’re in a trash bag in the garage. Like going into the trash? They’re not going to the trash. But they’re hanging on a peg in the garage, and I just add to it.Coming soon: Riverfront Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting St. Louis stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

7 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

7 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

7 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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