On September 24, 2009, BSG Team Ventures hosted the 3rd annual Charity tennis tournament at Longwood Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill, MA. The format is a la Davis Cup, with venture capitals pitted against entrepreneurs.
We’ve been graced with great weather all three years, and this Thursday was nothing different, with a touch of Indian Summer in the air.
Although the teams were a bit smaller in number this year, many remarked (including the blogger) that there has never been a higher quality of play, or sense of competition.
The beneficiary of the charity tournament all three years has been Tenacity, the brainchild of Ned Eames, who founded it a decade ago this year to use tennis as a tool to help build discipline and academic achievement in inner-city at risk youth. Their 10 year Gala is coming up in the next week or two, so be sure to visit www.tenacity.org to learn more and register. It too will be held at Longwood, and is guaranteed to be a memorable evening with hundreds of supporters sharing food, tennis, and a shared mission together. Ned Eames is pictured below, with one of the Tenacity students, addressing this year’s tournament and conveying his story as to the value Tenacity has brought to his life and his family’s.
This year’s winners of the Longwood Charity Cup 2009 were the entrepreneurs, both the entire team, as well as the play-off match-up of best VC team and best entrepreneur team.
Per Suneby and Doug Denny-Brown played in the finals for the entrepreneurs, against the best VC team from the day’s play, represented by Will Peppo of Revolution Partners and Dan Waintrup. In a fiercely fought super-tie-breaker format, the entrepreneurs brought the Cup home for the year (above pictured winners Per and Doug).
Given the competitive nature of participants, several asked for statistics from the team score cards reported. The format dictated that each doubles team played together for the entire afternoon, and there were a total of 5 teams each, VC and entrepreneur.
The mean total game score for entrepreneurs? 22.6 games per team.
Mean total game score per team for VCs? 16.5 games.
Grumblings from both sides sounded very similar, with a refrain echoed that “[VCs/entrepreneurs] certainly had more time to practice this summer than we did….”
A special thanks to our sponsors, Silicon Valley Bank and Xconomy without who’s support the event would never have happened. Jim Maynard was much missed from SVB, but Jim’s bank colleague, Mike Quinn, held his own, and will clearly be coming back next year with Jim to present a fearsome twosome.
And this year we honor our first female competitor, Lynn Calkins, playing for the Xconomy team, and racking up a total game score with her partner than came in a close second in total team game scores. Thanks Lynn for coming out, and Xconomy for once again blazing the path of innovation in building their corporate team.
Per Suneby and Doug Denny-Brown, winner of 2009 Tournament
Finally, no reflection on the day would be complete without a total two-team photo of all who contributed their time and energy. Note that only one player dared play barefoot. Next year, we’re going to mandate that the last two games of the tournament will both be played shoeless by all teams. It’s an experience that needs to be added to everyone’s “bucket list”….
