Rider Head Tennis Coach Ed Torres Still Playing and Winning
One of the greatest tennis players to ever compete in a Rider uniform, Rider University tennis coach Ed Torres of Wall is still competing, and still winning. Torres recently won a gold medal in singles at the New Jersey Senior Olympic Games September 8 in his new 75-79 year old age bracket. “I was playing in the 100 years old and up bracket,” Torres joked. Torres also won a bronze medal in mixed doubles, playing against 60-year olds.
Torres defeated David Muyskens of Sparta 6-1, 6-1 in the finals, after winning 6-1, 6-1 in the semi-finals and 6-1, 6-0 in the first round. “It was easy,” Torres said. “I didn't lose many games. They're all old guys. Seriously, though, they don't play as much as I do. A lot of these guys my age are doubles players. I still play a lot of singles. And many of them took up tennis as adults, so they don't have the proper strokes.”
Torres was 43-1 as the number one singles player at Rider in the mid-1950s, and has never stopped playing. “The only time I didn't play was during my two years in the Navy,” Torres said. “I was on a ship. It's tough finding a tennis game on a ship.”
Torres still plays two or three times a week at the Atlantic Club in Wall, NJ. “I played both Tuesday and Thursday just this past week,” Torres said. “We're the ?early birds.' We play in the morning. Five minutes from my house.”
Last summer Eddie won a gold medal in doubles and a silver medal in singles at the New Jersey Senior Olympic Games in the 70 to 74 age bracket, held in Atlantic City, and qualified for the National Senior Olympic Games held in Louisville, Kentucky. This year was a non-qualifying year in Atlantic City.
“Next year is a qualifying year, for Nationals in 2009 in San Francisco,” Torres said. “When I was teaching I went to San Francisco to a Principal's convention, and I would love to go back. I'd have to win another New Jersey medal next year, but I should do that. How many guys my age are out there still playing singles?”
In 1996 Torres won a gold medal in singles at the National Senior Games in the 60-65 year old category in Tucson, Arizona.
In 1993, Torres won a bronze medal in doubles at the National Senior Games in Baton Rouge, LA, after winning a gold medal in doubles in 1991 at the Nationals in Syracuse, NY.
Torres returned to his alma mater in the fall of 1995 to take over the head coaching duties of the Rider men's and women's tennis teams, and in the spring of 2005, Torres was named the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, and was named the Rider University Coach of the Year.
In eight years of New Jersey Senior Olympic play, Torres has won thirteen gold, three silver and this year won his first bronze in a new category for him, mixed doubles. “I went ten years without playing in them (Senior Olympics) because they were later in the fall and conflicted with my coaching,” Torres said. “I played from 1989-1992, 1994, 1996, and then again in 2006 and this year.”
A member of the Rider Athletics Hall of Fame, Torres graduated from Rider in 1955. Forty years later, in 1995, he was ranked first in New Jersey in the men's 55 years old and over division, and second in the Middle States Tennis Association in the men's 60 years and older division.
In October of 2004, Torres played on the USTA New Jersey and Middle States doubles Championship Team in the men's over 50 3.5 doubles league, and currently competes in the over 50 4.0 doubles league in Monmouth and Ocean County.
“My next tournament is the Century Tournament, where the combined ages of the doubles team has to be 100 years old or more,” Torres said. “Pretty soon I'll be able to play in it without a partner.”
Still joking, still playing, still winning.
-RU-
