Accolades secondary to Shultz
February 18, 2003

KINGSTON - For Kingston native Herbert Shultz Jr., it's not about the awards, but helping others and drawing attention and support for the organization he founded 13 years ago. Shultz, 58, was recently honored with the 2003 United States Tennis Association (USTA)/Eastern Inc. Tennis Man of the Year award.

Shultz founded 15-Love, a not-for-profit program of the Capital Region Youth Tennis Foundation that reaches out to inner-city youths through the game of tennis, in 1990, and continues to serve as president of the organization's board of directors.
The award, which recognizes an individual's contributions toward growing the game of tennis, as well as leadership and community inspiration, is nothing new to Shultz.

He was the 1991 USTA Volunteer of the Year and has also been honored in the Albany area, as the 2001 Parsons Child and Family Center Leadership Award winner and the 1991 YMCA Citizen of the Year.

His program was recognized in 2001 by Tennis Week magazine as one of the Top 25 Community Tennis Associations nationally. But the awards mean more as a recognition of his organization than they do personally to Shultz. "I'm blessed to be in a position where there's a lot of people (who support me and the organization)," Shultz said via phone recently. And the 15-Love program goes far beyond tennis. For each hour participants spend honing their court skills, they participate in a 30-minute workshop, which addresses such topics as sportsmanship, self-respect, honor, discipline and education. The organization offers essay and art contests, awards prizes for participants with a B average or better, and sponsors an after-school reading program among a myriad of other activities.

And when participants are ready to think about college, something otherwise unheard of for kids from some of the toughest environments - fractured and poor families, as well as unsafe neighborhoods, 15-Love is right there, providing assistance to high school juniors and seniors in the college application and selection process.

The organization will even accompany students on college visits in the Northeast, and assist them in paying for it by helping secure financial aid, grants and scholarships."Education is the number one priority (for us), along with good health - both physical and emotional - and building self-esteem," Shultz said. "We offer lessons for parents (also), which makes it a family activity."

15-Love, and similar programs around the country, was the brainchild of tennis legend Arthur Ashe, a tireless ambassador for the game of tennis and an advocate in particular for minorities, before his death from complications of AIDS on Feb. 6, 1993. It was an offshoot of the Ashe-Nick Bollettieri "Cities" tennis program.

Shultz estimates that well over 1,000 children ages four through 18 participate annually in the 15-Love program, which provides free tennis clinics at 19 sites across the Capital Region. "It reaches about 1,200 kids a year," Shultz said. "You obviously can't (affect) all of them, but for certain kids, it makes a tremendous impact." "(At the least) it teaches the great game of tennis."

Shultz gave one example of the many success stories his organization has had. Domingo Montes, an Albany native, came from a family in which no member had graduated from high school, much less college. The program helped him learn the skills necessary to be successful in life, as well as tennis, and last year Montez graduated from Lincoln (Pa.) University near Philadelphia. He plans to attend graduate school and become a teacher, and has also served as an instructor in the 15-Love program. "(He's) one of those kids that the program made a huge impact on," Shultz noted. "The instructors really took to him."

Montes makes it clear in the organization's brochure. "I don't think I would be at college had it not been for 15-Love being there and supporting me," he said. If nothing else, the program has enhanced tennis in the inner-cities of the Capital District. "A lot of the kids are on the Albany, Schenectady and Troy High teams are from our program," Shultz said. And if any player shows a special talent for the game, the program also provides an opportunity to pursue that avenue with its

Shultz, the president of Fenimore Asset Management in Cobleskill, lives in Niskayuna with wife Cynthia and has two grown sons, Christopher, 31, and Charles, 28. He attended Kingston schools through his freshman year of his school, and is a 1963 graduate of Millbrook High in Dutchess County. His father, Herbert Sr., still lives in Kingston.