Cohenour's Children: Local tennis coach's legend will live on

Those who knew him remember fondly Cary Cohenour’s legacy. 

Those who never did will have a chance to feel the same way thanks to The Cary Cohenour Tennis Foundation. 

Cohenour was a youth tennis sensation in the Sarasota area. He was a top national recruit before committing to play for the University of Tennessee and eventually rose to a career high ranking of No. 272 in the Association of Tennis Professionals.

Despite his talent on the tennis court, people know Cohenour—who died in 2023 at age 56—for the relationships he built in the game as a coach and founder of Celsius Tennis Academy. 

Celsius has continued on since Cohenour’s passing through the efforts of his father, Fay Cohenour, financial partner David Band, friends and fellow coaches.

Starting in July, Celsius will have a new home. 

The tennis academy is in the final stages of completing a new facility, The Cary Cohenour Tennis Foundation, at the Lee Wetherington Boys & Girls Club of Sarasota at 3100 Fruitville Road. 

The project has been several years in the making. 

Photo by Vinnie Portell

For years, Celsius has rented courts from Bath and Racquet Club and Sarasota Sports Club, which made finding a permanent home a priority. 

The new facility will include four new USTA-quality courts, shaded stands, a building for restrooms and a picnic area. 

The Boys & Girls Club wasn’t just a suitable location. Its quintessential trait of investing in local youth aligns perfectly with what Cohenour learned while growing up. 

When Fay Cohenour was growing up in Bradenton in the 1950s, what was then called the Boys Club was a second home.

“They pretty much raised me,” Cohenour said. “My parents had a drive-in restaurant, so they were busy all of the time. It was kind of where everybody hung out. So when I came home in the afternoon, I’d grab a Coke or something and head over to the Boys Club until probably six o’clock, go home, and come back from 7 to 9. The Boys Club gave me so much.” 

Fay played football, baseball and basketball at Manatee High, and inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2022. 

Though he said he had an opportunity to play sports at the next level — including an offer from the Los Angeles Angels — his father persuaded him to go into the flooring business directly out of high school to turn a quicker profit. 

Fay wanted to ensure his son grew up with those same kinds of experiences, but also with the freedom to choose his own future.

“I still look back and say, ‘What if?’ So when Cary came along, I didn’t want him to have that regret,” Fay said. 

Fay said Cary grew up “beating the backboard” with tennis balls at the Boys & Girls Club. 

One day, Mike DePalmer, Fay’s high school basketball coach, and a member of the International Tennis Association Hall of Fame, pulled Fay aside and told him of Cary’s potential in the sport. 

From there, Cary became a well-known tennis player on the junior circuit. He was one of the original players at Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, the No. 1 ranked junior in every age division in Florida and went on to become the No. 3 ranked singles player in NCAA tennis at Tennessee. 

However, Cohenour lost some of his love for the game when it turned into his day-to-day job. 

That led him to briefly follow in his father’s footsteps in the flooring business until offered some fatherly advice. 

Image courtesy of Celsius Tennis Academy

“I said, you know, ‘You’ve got your PhD in tennis and I think you need to use it,’ and he said that was the best advice he’d ever gotten,” Fay said. 

That brought Cohenour into coaching — first as the director of Billy Stearn’s Tennis Academy — before starting his own academy in 2000. 

Everything fell into place from there. 

Cohenour established connections with collegiate tennis programs and helped some of his players earn scholarships. 

In 2011, the United States Tennis Association Florida named him the Junior Competitive Coach of the Year.

Most impactful of all, however, was the way people thought of him.

“Cary was always such a great coach, and he was really good to people who needed help, but I realized it even more after he passed by the outreach of people and by how many people knew him around the world,” said Celsius instructor Kathy Rosenberg, who is one of the instructors who has stuck around since Cary died. “It amazed me how respected he was as a tennis pro.” 

Though Celsius’ instruction is not free, it will be working to provide new opportunities to youth tennis players. 

The Cary Cohenour Foundation will fund collegiate scholarships to deserving players in the area, which will help some reach their dreams in the same way as its namesake. 

The courts will also be available to Boys & Girls Club members to play on when not being used for instruction or tournaments by the tennis academy, and rackets will be available to those who don’t have their own. 

One day, that access could lead to the next top-ranked junior player in the state tearing through the ranks after stumbling onto the game by beating up a backboard.

“Hopefully it’s gonna help me a lot, just to know it’s going to live on,” Fay said of Cary’s legacy. “He didn’t have any children or anything, but these are going to be his children. A couple got up at his funeral and said every Father’s Day they would call him because he was like their father. Those are the kids who will carry this on and remember it, and hopefully bring their kids back one day.”