Greater Newark Tennis & Education (GNTE) is a 501c-3 organization dedicated to providing tennis instruction in an innovative format– we get kids playing and engaged from their first moment on the court. Through our partnership with Seton Hall University, we offer a corresponding educational component, designed to foster whole child development.
Research shows a powerful connection between sports participation and academic success. Tennis provides foundational skills that extend far beyond the court: resilience, problem solving, mastery of a skill, teamwork, integrity, and self-reliance.
Our base program is free of charge, to children in the Greater Newark area. GNTE operates at the Althea Gibson Tennis Center in Newark’s Branch Brook Park through a partnership with Essex County.
Althea Gibson: Our program is inspired by the legend of Althea Gibson and we are proud that our home is the Althea Gibson Tennis Center. Ms. Gibson was born in South Carolina but raised in Harlem, New York. She rose to be one of the greatest tennis players of her time. In 1956, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title when she won the French Open. The following year she won Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals which was the precursor to the U.S. Open. In 1958, she repeated that feat. In both 1957 and 58 she was voted by the Associated Press as the female athlete of the year. In all, she won 11 grand slam tournaments, five singles titles, five doubles titles and a title in mixed doubles. She was a true trailblazer in the sport of tennis, breaking through racial barriers and paving the way for future champions like Arthur Ashe and the Williams sisters.
After her tennis career, Ms. Gibson went on to become a professional golfer and spent five years as one of the top 50 money winners in the game. Then, when she finally finished playing professional sports, Ms. Gibson directed women’s sports and recreation for the Essex County Parks Commission. In 1976, she capped off her remarkable career by being named as New Jersey’s first female Commissioner of Athletics.
Ms. Gibson lived the last twenty years of her life in East Orange, New Jersey. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971, and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1980. Her statue now graces the grounds of the U.S. Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows and the Althea Gibson Tennis Center in Branch Brook Park.
