‘We’re family’: Sisterhood means everything to former News Journal tennis rivals

LEXINGTON - Of her record seven women’s singles titles in the News Journal Tennis Tournament, the one that probably means the most to Tammy (Schmidt) Simone is the last one, over Katie (McCumiskey) Orlando in 1991.

Not because of the win.

Because of the outcome.

The win was the capstone to Simone’s playing career locally, a classic three-setter against a much younger adversary that tied a nice little bow on a remarkable decade of dominance.

But even more special was the friendship Simone eventually forged with Orlando, born from their lifelong love for tennis and admiration for a Lakewood Racquet Club community that supported them and shaped their lives of service to the sport.

That bond, which gets stronger by the year, is an outcome neither could have envisioned 30 years ago.

“We talk about it all the time,” said Orlando, a 1989 Lexington High grad who has been the tennis director for 18 years at Towpath Tennis Center in Akron. “Tammy’s a lot older than me, so I didn’t spend a lot of time with her growing up. She was off to college when I was starting high school.

“The fact that we now get together and my dad (Bill) lives in the same development as her mom (Erika), and they take care of each other, we’re family. We spend time together, hang out together. It’s great.”

In retrospect, their friendship was inevitable. Not only were they accomplished tennis players from the same hometown, but for years they have both been very active behind the scenes for the United State Tennis Association.

Simone is past president of the Northeast Ohio Tennis Association, under the USTA umbrella, and now works as a committee chair with the Midwest section of the USTA, which includes Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana.

She recently spent a week in Pittsburgh running one of the age group venues for the National Senior Games.

Orlando is former chairperson of Midwest USTA Community Tennis Development and Operations. In 2019, she was named the United States Professional Tennis Association Midwest Professional of the Year and, last year, her peers voted her into the USPTA Midwest Hall of Fame, in recognition of her teaching career.

The ceremony took place during the Western & Southern Open, the Ohio stop on the men’s and women’s pro tournament circuit.

Since 2019, Orlando has been running an ACEing Autism chapter at Towpath. The program provides opportunities to greatly enhance the lives of children and families with autism through tennis.

Orlando and her staff meet with the kids every Tuesday for an hour. Her father is one of the volunteers, and so is Simone, whose autistic son Stephen, a recent Kent State grad, has also volunteered.

“I see my dad working with the kids … we had one who couldn’t even hold a racket; now he’s swinging it by himself,” Orlando said. “It’s kept my dad young. I think it’s the best hour in everyone’s week, when the volunteers come. It’s a hard hour, but it’s a great hour.”

Orlando’s chapter was just named No. 1 in the country. She and Simone are going to conduct a demonstration on behalf of ACEing Autism before the finals in the Western & Southern Open on Aug. 19 and 20 outside of Cincinnati.

“I get to see Katie every week and our families have reconnected,” Simone said. “That’s the best thing about tennis – the community. I see the McCumiskeys all the time now and hang out with them. It’s awesome.”

One thing that never comes up is that 1991 News Journal title match between Simone and Orlando. Simone survived a first set tiebreaker and second set loss to  dethrone Orlando, who was in the midst of a Hall of Fame career at the University of Akron.

“I’m so glad our relationship has worked out the way it has,” said Orlando, who won the women’s singles title in 1988 and 1990. “The relationship is a lot better than a win would have been, way better.”

Simone couldn’t agree more.

“We’re much better as a team than as rivals,” she said. “We’re definitely more friends than rivals. I think of Katie as a sister. I text her almost every day.”

With the News Journal Tournament celebrating its 90th birthday this year — juniors action runs July 23-29, followed by the adult divisions July 30-Aug. 7 — Orlando and Simone took some time recently to reflect on some of their favorite memories of this annual two-week rite of summer.

“It was something I looked forward to every summer,” Orlando said. “It was definitely a staple in our tournament schedule. The News Journal … you had to play it. You had no choice. You played every event you could possibly play. I think one year I played five or six divisions.

“I laugh because back in the day I didn’t want to be Tammy Schmidt. I remember everyone said, ‘You’ve got to be like Tammy. You’ve got to be Tammy.’ I’m like, who’s Tammy Schmidt? I don’t want to be like Tammy. I want to be like Katie.

“Everybody compared me to her because she was a good person and went off to Notre Dame to play college tennis. She was a role model.”

Simone, a 1983 Lex grad, won her first NJ women’s title in 1981 at age 16, before her junior year of high school. She dethroned Bonnie (Mills) Ahmed, avenging a crushing loss in the 1980 finals that saw Ahmed rally from a one set, 1-4 deficit.

Simone went 7-1 in title matches during a 10-year stretch. Her only loss was a 6-3, 6-3 decision in 1985 to Colinne Bartel, ranked fourth in the nation in the 18-and-under division. Bartel was using the News Journal tournament as a comeback from a forearm injury before heading off to begin her college career at UCLA.

Even though inviting Bartel cost Simone an eighth women’s singles crown, her reaction when asked if it was OK to let an “outsider” in was similar to what she told tennis legend Pete Sampras when he apologized for acing her during a pro-am doubles competition.

“I said, ‘Pete, if I wanted to play people who couldn’t ace me, I wouldn’t have come here to play,’” Simone said.

A former mixed doubles partner of hers started the Greenbrier Classic pro-am at the Greenbrier luxury resort in West Virginia, and Simone had plenty of chances over the years to rub elbows with tennis greats like the Williams sisters, John McEnroe, Andrea Agassi, Steffi Graf, Martina Hingis and Maria Sharapova.

But her greatest regret is never getting to play with Terry Brown, the GOAT when it comes to the News Journal Tournament.

“I’ll tell you what, if I could have ever played mixed doubles with Terry Brown (17-time men’s singles champ), I would have died and gone to heaven,” Simone said. “He was a legend. Oh, my gosh, he would just win and win and win again.”

Simone will have to settle for having Brown’s autograph in one of the three scrapbooks she had in tow during a recent visit with her mom to Lakewood.

“Before I ever played the News Journal, my dad (Horst) would play at Maple Lake Park, and he would take me down to watch the matches when I was probably 10,” she said. “The next day I would cut the articles out of the paper and would tape them to my scrapbook. Then I’d take the scrapbook and have the players autograph them … Terry Brown, Jerry Lorentz, Fritz Haring, Karl Lorentz, Bud Vetter.

“I was obsessed. These people were Gods to me. I remember going up to Bud Vetter, who was probably 16, and he was with his friends. I’m like, ‘Mr. Vetter, will you sign my book?’ Everybody was laughing at him.”

That’s the kind of pull this tournament had on her, first as a pre-teen and then when it enticed her into playing again after her days as a captain at Notre Dame were long over.

Some of it had to do with the hallowed clay she was standing on.

“Every year, growing up, our vacation would be a day at Cedar Point,” Simone said. “My dad was a sheet metal worker and would set the money aside for that one day. The year that Lakewood opened, our day at Cedar Point got rained out, so he used the money to buy a family membership at Lakewood.

“And we were members ever since.”

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Past News Journal tennis rivals remain close three decades later