Editor’s note: This month marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX. To commemorate this watershed event, the Star-Advertiser will publish a series of stories celebrating the achievements of female pioneers and leaders with Hawaii ties.
STORIES: June 23—Patsy Mink and Donnis Thompson. June 26—Clarissa Chun. June 28—Patsy Dung
To follow in the footsteps of Rosie Bareis would require substantial persistence and talent. It would also include the ability to walk on water across the Pacific Ocean and into four halls of fame in Hawaii and — the past two months — Northern California.
“I’m not sure I’d change anything,” Bareis said. “Of course I’d have loved to have been in Hawaii.”
Amazing where tennis can lead a kolohe Kailua kid.
A couple years after taking up the game — in part because tennis looked like a great way to make money — Bareis shattered Hawaii tennis records, mostly with Rose Thomas. They were all but unbeatable in doubles for the University of Hawaii and in the state of Hawaii for nine years.
When both followed their sport off the court and onto the mainland, they remained just as indomitable.
A decade ago, they entered the UH Circle of Honor together. Five years later, USTA Hawaii Pacific Section, the national governing body of tennis in Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas, ushered them in.
After working at clubs in Hawaii and a memorable stint as the Hawaii Pacific coach, Bareis left her beloved home in 1995 to work as Director of Tennis for Harbor Bay Tennis Club in Alameda, Calif. Four years later it was the USTA’s National Organization of the Year.
Her “life coach” auntie Margie Peterman convinced Bareis that she was “so creative that I needed to go someplace that appreciated my creativity,” Bareis recalled. “She felt if I stayed where I was I’d just be stagnant.”
Bareis, a blur of motion, emotion and endless encouragement, is anything but. Her coaching covers every level and age in the game. She believes her life remains full of friends she just hasn’t met, yet.
By 2003, she owned the first of her many homes — in California and Hawaii — and had moved into the coveted and lucrative position of Director of Tennis at the now-107-year-old Claremont Resort & Spa. The treasured property in the Berkeley Hills overlooks San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Bareis oversees its beautiful tennis complex, with programs featured on Tennis Channel. She is the only female Master Tennis Professional in Northern California and started a tennis academy with ATP Tour player Wayne Ferreira in 2012.
Bareis has coached at all four junior Grand Slams, along with USTA league, junior and travel teams. Students include Bella and Allura Zamarripa, freshmen twins with Hawaii ties who just helped Texas win the NCAA Women’s Tennis Championship, and former NCAA champ Mackie McDonald, playing in the second round at Wimbledon today.
Last month, Bareis was the only woman in the inaugural class of the U.S. Professional Tennis Association Northern California Hall of Fame. The foursome also included legendary former Stanford coach Dick Gould.
This month, Bareis was inducted into the USTA Northern California Hall of Fame, which began in 1974 and includes Don Budge, Alice Marble, Helen Wills Roark, Dennis Van der Meer, former Hawaii resident Peter Burwash and Ferreira. A dozen of its members are in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I.
Bareis’ family, including grown daughters Jessica and Jazmine and seven siblings, and friends made up about half the crowd on induction day. Fellow inductee Paul Goldstein, the current Stanford coach, said in his speech “nobody in Northern California tennis is more beloved than Rosie.”
McDonald agreed in a congratulatory video.
“I’m so grateful to have you as my tennis coach, as my tennis mom. I love you so much,” he said. “I’m so happy you taught me the game of tennis. … It’s pretty amazing looking back at all the tennis memories we have, and all the tennis balls we’ve hit.”
Bareis, the NorCal Pro of the Year multiple times, hasn’t spent all her time on the court. She has volunteered on USTA national and sectional boards and committees, convinced by her late “life coach” that she could create “change for good” in the game.
“And how do you make change?” Bareis said Peterman asked her. “You can’t be an outsider complaining. You’ve got to get in there, get your hands dirty and be willing to do the dirty work, which was get on boards and stay on the cutting edge of information coming out directly from national, not listening to opinion or hearsay.
“Being a Hawaiian, you’re supposed to leave it better for the next generation. You gotta be grateful to your sport and you’ve got to give back so the other guys can stay on that surfboard and keep your sport alive and well.”
Now, Bareis has changed a lot of lives, and tennis has absolutely changed hers. She is immensely grateful to mentors such as Peterman, Gould, Hawaii pros Berk Alexander and Bobby Keaunui and a few others who knew she was “a diamond in the rough and stuck around to help polish” her.
And she still thanks former UH coach Jim Schwitters, who gave her the scholarship that changed her life, and introduced her to Thomas, who did the same. Those early days with a doubles partner so different than herself remain Bareis’s best tennis memory.
“I still have to go back to playing doubles with Rose,” she says. “I mean Auntie Rose is Auntie Rose. She was the brainiac. I like to hang out with people who have a lot of brains.
“The main thing is you don’t have to be the smartest to succeed, you just have to be second in line and don’t let anybody cut. Auntie Rose was super smart. You figure out who the smart ones are and then you’ve got to figure a way to win them over.”
She won over Thomas, who often told Bareis she had a “4.0 GPA in street smarts.” Both are still in the game, and still love it. Tennis is almost up there with their grown kids.
“My second greatest accomplishment is being able get up everyday and still be able to hit tennis balls,” Bareis says. “A lot of people have to go to work. I don’t have to go to work, I get to go everyday and still play.
“I figured out how to stay on the surfboard, for lack of a better way to say it.”
What’s next? She is writing a tennis book tentatively called Doubles, “so that when I am not around I would love to be able to teach the next generation.”
And help them stay up on that surfboard.
Rosie (Vera Cruz) Bareis
Tennis Hall of Famer, Director of Tennis at Claremont Club & Spa last 20 years
Education: Kailua High School 1978, University of Hawaii 1984
Highlights: Member of UH Sports Circle of Honor and USTA Hawaii Pacific Section, USPTA Northern California and USTA Northern California Halls of Fame … won 11 USTA national age-group championships … two-time USPTA Pro of the Year and only female USPTA Master Professional in Northern California … NAIA District 29 Coach of the Year in 1987, while at Hawaii Pacific … four-year co-captain at UH with doubles partner Rose (Thomas) Jones, the pair won more than 100 matches each in singles and doubles , losing just seven in doubles … Vera Cruz and Thomas were unbeaten in doubles in Hawaii women’s tournaments from 1978-87, going six years without losing a set … coached NCAA champion Mackenzie McDonald, now ranked 55th in the world.
This month marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX. To commemorate this watershed event, the Star-Advertiser will publish a series of stories celebrating the achievements of female pioneers and leaders with Hawaii ties.
Click here to view the Title IX series.
