Chris Dummermuth was one of the best at tennis in South Dakota as a player and a coach. A Sioux Falls, Washington grad in 1972. She had two state singles titles. Played college tennis at Utah State, transferred to Augie. She coached Washington High School girls' tennis, and then coached the Lincoln boys' tennis team and won eight state titles with the Patriots. She's in the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame and the South Dakota Tennis Hall of Fame.
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You know, you grew up in the McKennan Park area in the late sixties and McKennan Park was pretty popular. Well, it still is pretty popular when it comes to tennis and events. You were probably 13 or 14 at the time, or so. How did you become a fan of tennis back in the late sixties?
Well, I had an older brother and sister who played and actually my older sister, Carol took lessons from John Simko at Menlo Park in Sioux Falls. And she was the first one in our family that really took an interest in tennis. And after that, my brother got interested and we moved three blocks from McKennan Park, and that became the summer hangout. And we would play all day and it was co-ed and we never really had lessons. We just had fun.
So is that where all the kids met and how many kids were there? You had to share the courts?
Oh, we had some families you would probably recognize. The Bollen family had about six kids of their own. The Clayton family had about five kids of their own. And then there were the Auburn's and the Reagan's, and everybody just came to the courts and we all played.
Did you try out for any other sports when you were a teenager at the time?
Did I try out? Oh, that makes me laugh. Well, when I was in school, it was pre Title IX. And so girls could be cheerleaders, which at six foot, I didn't fit the mold so to speak. And you could run track and I'm super slow, as my family will tell you and all of my opponents. And you could do gymnastics and again, a six foot gymnast isn't very common. So, no, I didn't try out for other sports. We didn't have basketball and we didn't have volleyball except for intramural.
So how much time did you actually then spend playing tennis to the craft the game?
Well, we played all day, every day in the summer, but then we did not belong to anywhere where you could play indoors in the winter. So it was just a summer sport for us.
Who is your high school tennis coach at Washington?
Well, that's an interesting story. My high school tennis coach on paper was Don Grebin, who is a Hall of Famer and he's a wonderful guy. And he was kind of head of the rec program in the summer and love him dearly. But honestly, we never had practice. He did with the boys, but I never had a practice. We just went to state and, he was never at state when I won my two championships. So it was a weird beginning.
Who are some of the players you looked up to as a younger player when you got to play at Washington?
When I started playing at Washington? Oh my goodness. Well, first of all, my first tournament was when I was in 12 and under in the summer. And we went over to Rochester, Minnesota, and I was schooled by a gal named Maggie McNeill. I mean, she beat me O and O in about 10 minutes, but I was so grateful for that because when I got off the court, it was like, I want what she has. So she was really a motivator for me without even knowing it. And I got to play her later on then, and was much more competitive. That was one I looked up to. Marci Wernly was from Sioux falls. And of course she never had the advantage of playing high school tennis, but she worked with a summer program and she was awesome. And I would say that she was a huge influence.
Another one was Joanie Griffin who came out of the convent. She was going to become a nun, and she came back and before she took her final vows, she worked for our summer program and she was a very, very good player. She's a Hall of Famer as well. And she spent a lot of time with us when we were young. So I would say those were my main influences.
You won two state singles titles. When was the first one?
Well, the first one was in 1970, but actually the year before, as a sophomore at Washington, I played my sister in the finals, who was a senior at Lincoln. And she was able to choose to stay at Lincoln because she was a senior. And because I was a sophomore and they changed the boundaries, I had to go to Washington and there was no exception. In fact, I went crying to my parents and I said, "I can't, I've got to go to Lincoln. Craig went to Lincoln. Carol went to Lincoln." That's my brother and sister. And they looked at me and they said, "Look at the opportunity you have. You'll meet all these new people," and they didn't buy into it at all.
Lincoln wasn't very old at the time. It had just opened up.
It opened in '68, I think.
What was that experience like, taking on your sister and were you easy on her that one time?
It was really different. We played... The state term was in Yankton that year. And this is a true story. I rode with the golf team and they dropped me off at the courts and I had no coach, no teammates. It was just singles then. And so we played through, we did it all in one day and I ended up playing Carol, my sister, in the finals and she beat me and my parents were there watching, but it's so much better now. I think these girls are so lucky with how things have evolved over the years, but it was fun. It was thrilling at the time.
What kind of a player were you? Were you an athletic player? Were you a mean player? What kind of player were you?
Was I athletic? I was pretty much a baseliner I would say, because I never really learned how to play net until I was in my twenties. Nobody really encouraged women at that time to go to net and play doubles and be aggressive. But I did have good ground strokes, and because of my height, I had a decent serve.
Well, how about that first title? What was that first title? Who'd you play?
The first title? I played Lori Hunter from Madison. She was a very fine player, and I believe the term, it was in Madison that year. And I couldn't tell you anything about the match other than I won.
How about the second title?
I think I played Maureen Donahue in the finals and she was from Oberman. And for some reason, I think that was also in Madison that year. And Maureen was a nice player, but I don't remember anything about the match other than I won.
Well, certainly tennis back in the early seventies, 1972, not at all like today, where colleges are looking for athletes to come play for them in all sports. You decided to go to Utah State for college. Why Utah State?
Well, I don't even want to tell you. I went to Utah State because I wanted to leave South Dakota. I wanted to go somewhere I'd never been, and I wanted to go somewhere that I could afford. And that was one of the more affordable colleges. And I stayed there a year. It was culture shock for me. It was kind of what I would call a suitcase college. And I had to work during college. I had a work study job in the PE department. I had to sketch and print visual aids when they still had overhead projectors for the professors there. I say suitcase college because everybody there was a skier and they would leave on weekends, but not me. I would stay and work, and so it was really different. And of course it was very Mormon culture there, which was new to me being a South Dakota Lutheran and everything. So it was just different.
No tennis? No tennis at all?
Oh yes, I did play tennis, but it was the first year they had a program because Title IX had just passed and the coach knew nothing about tennis.
She admitted as much. And so she was pretty much our driver and she didn't think that anybody in South Dakota could play tennis. And I remember her not being very favorable to my efforts at first. But I ended up playing number two and our number one player was from California. And she was a non-traditional student. She was actually married and her husband was a diver in the Olympics. So she was coming back and finishing her degree and she was a very good player. And it was very fun playing doubles with her and learning from her that year. We didn't do very well. Even though it was our first year, we were playing schools that had very established programs like BYU, Arizona State, even University of Utah. And we just got killed, but it was quite a baptism.
This was about 1973. And one of the biggest events in man versus woman occurred, Billy Jean King beating Bobby Riggs in what they called the Battle of the Sexes. How did you react to that in 1973? It was a huge event.
I don't know it is... Billie Jean is amazing to me. All the different things that she has done for tennis in general, throughout the universe. She's amazing and she just keeps on going. It was a little too commercial for me, the match itself, but-
There is a lot of showmanship with Bobby Riggs wasn't there?
I've never been a big fan of exhibition matches or things like that because they just seem not real, but it's amazing. She is amazing.
I'm a big fan of Billy Jean King, big fan. So here after one year at Utah State, you decided to transfer to Augustana. No women's tennis program there, but you joined the men's tennis program. Who coached you into joining the men's team?
Well, that was an interesting story too. It wasn't a straightforward transfer to Augie. I was all set to go to Arizona State. My older sister was playing there. I had been accepted. We had the car all packed. We're ready to go, but in my heart, I really didn't want to go there. They had a very good coach, Anne Pittman at ASU, but I just knew that it wasn't a good fit for me coming down here. So the night before we were all loaded up to go, I told my parents that I really don't want to go to ASU and to their credit, they didn't flinch. They just looked at me and said, "Well, Chris, what would you like to do?" And I was hoping they would tell me what to do, but they didn't. And I said, "I don't know. I just know that I don't want to sit out a year."
And so I said, "Well, maybe I'll go to Augie for a year and figured out." And so Carl Grevelis came over to our house that night and got me enrolled at Augie. And I went to Augie and I finished at Augie then. But as far as going on the men's team, I had grown up with a lot of the players, Randy Kochenderfer, Greg Wilcox, Bruce Mantis. And I think it was, to me a matter of, they thought I could help out the team. And they were the ones that kind of instigated me coming and playing. I didn't try out or anything like that. That's really how it happened. And they were very welcoming to me and we helped each other out.
Did any one turn their heads when they saw they're playing Augie and they saw you warming up when you would play a college match?
Yeah, there were some interesting things. Ollie Adney was our coach and he was their basketball coach at the time. And Ollie is one of the sweetest men that have ever walked the face of the earth. And I think it was real nerve wracking for him having me on the team because he didn't quite know how to approach me. And it was embarrassing for me too, because we travel. And when we were at Northern Iowa at the conference meets, I would get my own room. I'd have two double beds. I'd have my shower to myself. And the other guys would all be crammed into one room, one shower. It was awkward, very awkward, but the guys were always so nice to me and very welcoming. So I have no complaints there. Ollie had a tough time even knocking on my door to make sure I was up and ready to go. I could tell he would just kind of softly knocked, and I'd open the door and I go, "I'm ready, coach." And he'd kind of jumped back. He was a great guy.
You played college doubles once in a while with Dave Dummermuth, your future husband. Okay. How did that relationship get going?
Well, you mean the relationship or our doubles?
Probably morphed from one to the other, didn't it?
Well, Dave is a year older than I am, and the summer between my junior and senior year in high school, I had a job out at Westward Ho, and I would string rackets and help lessons out there, or do whatever they needed so that I could get some indoor court time during the winter. I was out there practicing, getting ready for a tournament in Minneapolis and Dave walked down my court. I think he was just shagging balls in Skunk Creek with some buddies. Golf balls. And he walked on my court and he goes, I can beat you. And I looked at him and I was intrigued, offended, but intrigued at the same time. So I said, you're on buddy. And I went in and got a racket, came out and we played, and I've never laughed so hard in my life because Dave was a very good tennis player when he could play, but he wasn't a tennis player. He was just an athlete.
So he would run anything down. He would jump over the net, jumped back over the net. And so after that episode of laughter and fun, anytime he wasn't playing baseball, or I was in town not at a tournament, we would get together and just play. And he was actually great practice for me because every ball came back. So then we knew each other when he was in college and we had played a lot of tennis and we had already started dating by then.
He had to have proposed to you on the tennis court. Did he do that?
On the tennis court?
Did he do that?
No. It would've been good, but you know what? I say everything was pre Title IX. Well, this was pre the elaborate proposal time. Because now everybody has to have some elaborate proposal.
Your most memorable moment of college tennis?
I would say, Dave had gotten hurt. Well, that was memorable too, because we were up at McKennan Park. And I don't know if you remember the cement courts that used to be there that were two tier. They had three lower courts, three upper courts. And we were playing Northern Iowa. And it was so cold that coach Adney had bouillon in the Gatorade thing. I mean, hot bouillon. And Dave had gotten himself a cup of that. He was hurt. He had hurt his shoulder in spring football and broken his collarbone. So he was in a harness or a cast. And he leaned down to get a cup of this. And someone said, look out. And he looked up and the guy from Northern Iowa was first served went right into Dave's eye, which caused it to hemorrhage.
And we're in the middle of match. Dave isn't playing, but the rest of us are. So Dave has to drive himself with one eye and one arm to McKennan hospital, which is just a couple blocks away. And he was there for a week so that that blood could drain out. He had to lay flat for a week. That was one memory. But the other memory, which is more pleasant... Because Dave was hurt and somebody else was hurt, Randy needed a doubles partner. Randy Kochenderfer who was clearly our number one player. And we were playing North Dakota and we were playing Tim and Tom Wynn, who are notorious up there. They're in North Dakota Hall of Famers. And they both teach and coach up there still to this day. And Randy told Ollie that he wanted to play with me. And I was so nervous and we were playing court one, center court at McKennan upstairs, and we won the match and it was phenomenal. That I will never forget.
After college, you become a teacher. Did you teach at Washington?
I taught at Robert Frost Elementary. Then I taught at Whittier Junior High. And then I wanted to see what it's like to open a new school. So I was at Memorial Middle School for my last 15 years of teaching.
But you coached the girls tennis team first in Washington. What was that transition like from going from playing the game to coaching the game?
I wasn't ready. I was 21 and my number one player at that time was 18. And I had a lot to learn as far as how to handle some of the psychological things that come up. Because I was always pretty self-sufficient on the court and I was always pretty positive. And I guess I didn't realize that other people thought those things.
I've heard that before. I have heard that too, from coaches who were successful playing a particular sport and then trying to teach that sport to someone else like they would play the game. And sometimes that would be tough.
Yeah. And that was an eye-opener for me. And I actually coached girls five years and I had just thought, no, this isn't for me. And then I took a break and then Lincoln needed a boys coach and I thought I was ready then. I talked it over with Dave and Dave was really encouraging. "You should do this," you know? Yes. I knew it wasn't going to be easy because Lincoln had kind of a revolving door of coaches for a couple of years there. And that's hard on any program, I think. So I went in with my eyes wide open and the first two years were tough, but then things started to turn around.
Why did it turn around?
Well, my goal the first year, and you'll laugh at this, was... And remember I said, they had a revolving door of coaches for a while and it was nobody's fault really. But my goal was to get them to tie their shoes and to show up for practice. I had two goals that first year, and it was a fight. It was a fight. I'm not going to lie, but you know what's right. And you think you can get them to a place where they'll start believing. And then we started to have some success and success breeds success. And I had good kids every year honestly.
That helps too. Yes. Six titles over what, 11 years at Lincoln?
Well, we had eight state championships.
Which one stands out the most to you?
You know, they were all special. They were all special in their own way. One of my favorite memories I guess, is that I had so many brothers. I had the Christianson brothers, three of them. I had the Simko brothers, two of them. I had the Keiner brothers. I had the Chu brothers and it became such a family affair. The Krieger brothers. I had three of them.
They were all good too. They we're all good. You know, you played a lot of amateur tennis in the eighties and the nineties. You played a lot, you won a lot. Was there ever thoughts of turning professional at one time?
I couldn't even carry their water. No, there were never any thoughts of that. But let me tell you, I had so much fun and it has carried over to even now when I'm approaching 70 and I'm down in Arizona and there's such fun tennis here. I can play every day. There's every level available to you. It's just so nice.
You've done so much for tennis in Sioux Falls and across the state. Yeah. You live in Arizona, you're still playing tennis. Tennis is still going strong in South Dakota, but you know what? Pickleball has emerged in the last few years to keep people playing a little bit longer. Are you playing any pickleball?
You know, it's funny you asked that because a couple of summers ago... I've had surgery on both my knees, just meniscus, but I was having trouble with them and I really couldn't play tennis. So I went down to Riverdale. Is that the park in Sioux Falls?
Yup, still there.
And they have walk-in pickleball where you just put your paddle in the fence. And when they have an opening, the next paddle goes in and I knew no one. And I went down there and I ended up going every day because it was so much fun. And you'd play like from eight in the morning until 11 and you played a variety of people, a variety of levels. And it was really fun. And I really got into it. But since I got back here to Arizona I've been playing a lot of tennis. And I find when I do both, my knees suffer. So right now I'm sticking to the tennis and I figure I can always do pickleball.
Yep. And it's growing in Sioux Falls too. Pickleball is pretty popular. Two last questions for you, Chris. One, you played college doubles with your husband Dave. Do you guys still talk once in a while about certain matches that you played`, the ones you lost and the matches you won?
Well, we're an interesting twosome. We actually were doing very well. In fact, we were undefeated until Dave broke his collarbone in spring football. So that ended our... We had a good chance to win our flight at conference, but we weren't able to play. Dave would always tell you the story about how we were both going for the same shot. We ran into each other. And he claims that he's the one that got knocked down, but it's not true, but that's what he would say. But we had a lot of fun playing together, but he always gave me a play by play of why he was doing what, and I was like, "Just be quiet and play."
Last one. What does it mean to be in the South Dakota Tennis Hall of Fame? South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame? What's it mean to you?
It means a lot, but it's like everybody says, I know it's cliche, it's not about me. I've had such great mentors and I have had such great players to work with and I've spent so much time on the court, but I've loved every minute of it. And one of my biggest thrills this past weekend was I was reading the articles about the girls. Well, now they have two tiers system at state. And I noticed that a little girl from Harrisburg, Emma Rangel, won constellation at flight one. And she did very well in the doubles. And she got the Spirit of Max Award. And I just was elated because when I went back to teaching for the park, about five years ago, just for a couple of years, she was one of my park players. She would not remember, but I remember her and she was cute as can be. And of course she's had a lot of lessons since then, but I'm just so thrilled. It's a thrill to me to see that she is playing and succeeding and so on. And she's just one example. And that's the fun part of South Dakota tennis.
