{"id":1722,"date":"2017-10-18T19:20:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T19:20:14","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2021-08-03T16:36:20","modified_gmt":"2021-08-03T16:36:20","slug":"rollupoursleeves-kamau-murray-of-chicagos-xs-tennis-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourstories.shinola.com\/our-stories\/rollupoursleeves-kamau-murray-of-chicagos-xs-tennis-foundation\/","title":{"rendered":"#RollUpOurSleeves: Kamau Murray of Chicago&#8217;s XS Tennis Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-family:ltc-bodoni-175,serif; font-size: 24px; line-height: 36px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/xstennis.org\/\">Kamau Murray<\/a> grew up on Chicago\u2019s South Side and got into tennis when he was just 7-years-old. His parents told him at a very young age they would not be able to pay for college, so he was encouraged to find a sport, play it and become great at it because that would be his ticket to school. \u201cI attribute who I am as a person to being able to have access to a place where I could go play tennis,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Kamau played tennis throughout his entire childhood at a Chicago Public Schools after school program and landed a tennis scholarship after all. He attended Florida A&amp;M University and went onto became a circuit-level pro tennis player.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In 2005, he decided to recreate the environment that made him the man he is today by founding&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/xstennis.org\/\">XS Tennis Foundation<\/a>,&nbsp;a South Side nonprofit tennis facility that offers tennis training as well as academic tutoring to the city\u2019s underserved youth.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted to help other kids that looked like me and grew up like me. I want them all to have the same access and opportunity to tennis that I did,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" mozallowfullscreen=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/239498162?color=ffffff&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The ultimate goal is to open opportunities for kids by sending them to college with tennis scholarships.&nbsp;\u201cI felt there was a huge void in the community and I figured I&#8217;d do something about it,\u201d he says.&nbsp;\u201cI had gone to school, grabbed my MBA, knew a lot about the tennis industry, knew a lot about&nbsp;how to budget, and my mindset was that it can&#8217;t be this hard to run a tennis program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On five tennis courts inside an old gym, the XS Tennis Foundation has served more than 2,000 children a year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a coach, I will impact more young people in a year than the average person does in a&nbsp;lifetime. All these kids come from the neighborhood that I came from, so I get it. I get the&nbsp;neighborhood that they walk through and the whole environment. I get the pressures. I get the&nbsp;anxieties, I get the fears. I think because of that, there is a very deep connection and level&nbsp;of understanding that allows us to break down the barriers to really get to the root to all the&nbsp;issues and help them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So far, 46 college-bound tennis players from his program have received scholarships, and 25 were from low income homes and would never have been able to afford college, he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are here in pursuit of a college scholarship, period,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re note chasing that, this is not the place for you.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[[{&#8220;type&#8221;:&#8221;media&#8221;,&#8221;view_mode&#8221;:&#8221;media_original&#8221;,&#8221;fid&#8221;:&#8221;4214&#8243;,&#8221;attributes&#8221;:{&#8220;alt&#8221;:&#8221;&#8221;,&#8221;class&#8221;:&#8221;media-image&#8221;,&#8221;height&#8221;:&#8221;1125&#8243;,&#8221;style&#8221;:&#8221;font-size: 13.008px;&#8221;,&#8221;typeof&#8221;:&#8221;foaf:Image&#8221;,&#8221;width&#8221;:&#8221;2000&#8243;}}]]<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, Kamau quit his day job as a top sales representative to run the business full-time and raise enough capital to build a bigger facility.&nbsp;\u201cThe foundation finally got to&nbsp;a point where we were ready to begin building our own place, a permanent home,\u201d he says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In addition to running&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/xstennis.org\/\">XS Tennis<\/a>, Kamau coaches professional player Sloane Stepens, who ended up&nbsp;winning her first Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open last month.<\/p>\n<p>[[{&#8220;type&#8221;:&#8221;media&#8221;,&#8221;view_mode&#8221;:&#8221;media_original&#8221;,&#8221;fid&#8221;:&#8221;4215&#8243;,&#8221;attributes&#8221;:{&#8220;alt&#8221;:&#8221;&#8221;,&#8221;class&#8221;:&#8221;media-image&#8221;,&#8221;height&#8221;:&#8221;1125&#8243;,&#8221;style&#8221;:&#8221;font-size: 13.008px;&#8221;,&#8221;typeof&#8221;:&#8221;foaf:Image&#8221;,&#8221;width&#8221;:&#8221;2000&#8243;}}]]<\/p>\n<p>What feels like the height of his career, only gets better.<\/p>\n<p>On November 1,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/xstennis.org\/\">XS Tennis<\/a>&nbsp;will open a brand new 13-acre, state-of-the-art, $16 million tennis facility in Washington Park that will be able to serve up to 5,000 children. It features 12 indoor courts, 15 outdoor courts and classrooms.&nbsp;The University of Chicago is the organization\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/xstennis.org\/student-athletes\/\">education partner<\/a>. All students can receive free tutoring every day between 4-7pm, whether they play tennis or not.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Not only will this facility offer opportunities to more children, the new XS Tennis Village has sparked real estate and economic investment in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n<p>[[{&#8220;type&#8221;:&#8221;media&#8221;,&#8221;view_mode&#8221;:&#8221;media_original&#8221;,&#8221;fid&#8221;:&#8221;4216&#8243;,&#8221;attributes&#8221;:{&#8220;alt&#8221;:&#8221;&#8221;,&#8221;class&#8221;:&#8221;media-image&#8221;,&#8221;height&#8221;:&#8221;1125&#8243;,&#8221;typeof&#8221;:&#8221;foaf:Image&#8221;,&#8221;width&#8221;:&#8221;2000&#8243;}}]]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Kamau wears <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shinola.com\/mens\/watches\/all\/the-runwell\/therunwell47-leather-watch-65287.html\">The Runwell 47mm<\/a>. (above)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<style type=\"text\/css\">\np.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; line-height: 17.1px; font: 17.0px Times; color: #2d2829}<\/style>\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am rolling up my sleeves to create a new opportunity for Chicago&#8217;s youth, a new community around the game, and redefine what it means to be a &#8216;community program&#8217;,&#8221; Kamau says. &#8220;I think that because we come from where they come from, we are allowed to push a little bit harder. Our job as coaches is to push them, push them over the edge so that they can fly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size:20px;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, serif; text-align: center;\">Learn more how to get involved, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/xstennis.org\/get-involved\/\" style=\"font-size: 24px; font-family: georgia, serif; text-align: center;\">here<\/a><span style=\"font-family: georgia, serif; text-align: center;\">. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px; text-align: center; font-family: georgia, serif;\">Read more Roll Up Our Sleeves profiles, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shinola.com\/roll-up-our-sleeves.html\" style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 24px; font-family: georgia, serif;\">here<\/a><span style=\"font-size: 20px; text-align: center; font-family: georgia, serif;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kamau Murray grew up on Chicago\u2019s South Side and got into tennis when he was just 7-years-old. His parents told him at a very young age they would not be able to pay for college, so he was encouraged to find a sport, play it and become great at it because that would be his [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ourstories.shinola.com\/our-stories\/rollupoursleeves-kamau-murray-of-chicagos-xs-tennis-foundation\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[7],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>#RollUpOurSleeves: Kamau Murray of Chicago&#039;s XS Tennis Foundation - Our Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ourstories.shinola.com\/our-stories\/rollupoursleeves-kamau-murray-of-chicagos-xs-tennis-foundation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"#RollUpOurSleeves: Kamau Murray of Chicago&#039;s XS Tennis Foundation - Our Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kamau Murray grew up on Chicago\u2019s South Side and got into tennis when he was just 7-years-old. 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