There’s a phrase, attributed variously to Helen Keller and to a hundred self-help authors since: Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. The story of Burlington Tennis Club’s junior program is the long, quiet, four-year proof of it.
On Sunday September 14, 2025, about thirty juniors from across the Burlington Tennis Club spent eight hours on court in what their organizer Bruce Cates cheerfully called the Junior BTC Slam: six competitive events plus one fun event, doubles and singles, U12 and U14 and U18, capped with pizza, ribbons, and the unmistakable noise of a club that has learned how to celebrate its own kids.
None of it was an accident. The Slam was the closing chapter of a four-year arc that began in October 2021, when Christina Wilson took on the presidency of Burlington TC and Bruce Cates accepted the vice presidency alongside her. The club was rebuilding post-pandemic. Membership had contracted. The board had to choose what to fight for. Bruce told them, in so many words, that the answer was the junior players.
A vigorous 70+, with a gentle manner
Bruce Cates is described, in print, as “a vigorous 70+, with a gentle manner, a ready smile and a penchant for wearing interesting hats.” The description does not quite capture the persistence. For three decades — most of them in the Northwest Territories before he moved south — he has run junior tennis programs that no one was paying him to run. Tennis Canada honoured this with the Distinguished Service Award in 2002 (for service to junior tennis in Yellowknife, NWT, dating back to the 1990s). Yellowknife itself named him Citizen of the Year in 1998 and again in 1999. The City of Burlington named him Volunteer of the Year in 2022.
In Burlington, his first move as VP was to introduce Progressive Tennis — modified balls and racquets that lower the barrier so a six-year-old can rally on day one. His second move was to start running free starter sessions, several times a week, for juniors and their parents. He accepted no payment for any of this. He provides it as part of the membership fee.
A third move, less visible, mattered most. He persistently advocated — at every board meeting, in every conversation — for engagement beyond the club walls: ICTA Junior League play. Tennis Rocks. The Tennis Rocks Festival circuit. School outreach (which became the Tom Thomson initiative). Public-access activations through TRY.
Engineering the pro-bono arrangement
Working with head pro Kirill Kudyma and ACE Management, Bruce engineered a three-way pro-bono arrangement that brought Coach Bodo Elakkad to club-level juniors at no charge. This is the kind of thing that does not happen without someone willing to ask, repeatedly, on behalf of children whose parents would not have known whom to ask in the first place.
Belonging is a critical part of being human. — OTA SouthWest, on the through-line of Bruce’s work
The 2025 season
With the structures in place, the season delivered. The BTC junior team won gold at Newmarket TC on July 12. They followed it with bronze at Unionville TC on July 19. Burlington hosted five teams on August 9. The squad qualified for the Tennis Rocks Championships at Sobeys Stadium on September 21.
On July 3, the club hosted Girls Set Match — co-organized by Bruce and Sue Jakeman, recognized publicly by the Ontario Tennis Association. A day dedicated to tennis, energy, and empowerment for girls on court.
On November 8, BTC girls Isabell Zhang, Sophia Zhang, and Kaitlyn Yang — alongside Mila Rajicic of Joshua Creek — won the U14/U18 division at the girls-only Tennis Rocks event at Sobeys Stadium. Direct downstream impact of the program Bruce built.
The Junior BTC Slam
And then the Slam. Six competitive events: U12 doubles, U14 doubles, U18 doubles, U12 singles, U14 singles, U18 singles. Plus one fun event, because Bruce believes — quietly, persistently — that the club ought to celebrate its kids, not just rank them. Eight hours of tennis. Thirty juniors. Pizza. Ribbons. A clubhouse loud with the kind of noise that makes a board feel four years of work was worth it.
What the parents said
Kevin Yang — whose daughter Kaitlyn played in the Slam — has watched the program from the inside since the very beginning. He has been one of its most important champions, both on and off the court.
Thank you Bruce for your vision and (all these years) support and persistence for this program to be successful. — Maya Efremov, parent of a BTC junior
The line
The Engineered Serendipity piece closes with one sentence — the sentence that ought to anchor every page of this site, every conversation about this foundation, every gift made to it.
Belonging is a critical part of being human.
