Charles Akinloye is the Director of Tennis at the Trumbull Racquet Club. Charles teaches 80 to 100 hours per week, and sometimes he goes over 100 hours. This makes him the unofficial world record holder for the hours a director spends on the tennis court. He’s been at Trumbull for nearly 30 years and has seen thousands of students grow their game in Connecticut. You probably know some of them, such as former world no. 4 James Blake. If you believe a big part of who we are and what we know is derived from cumulative life experiences, then Charles is extraordinary.
Grit, passion, loyalty, and love. You will find these qualities in most coaches, but there is a very unique history behind Charles’s life that makes him a truly one-of-a-kind character. He was born in Nigeria and was growing up near a tennis club. Charles fell in love with the sport from watching people play tennis. But tennis was an exclusive and expensive sport, and Charles’s family couldn’t afford to pay for him to play. That didn’t stop Charles from getting his foot in the door. He began working as a ball boy there. He felt closer to tennis and needed to play tennis somehow. So Charles and his friends used their ingenuity and contacts at the local slaughterhouse to get the shoulder bones of cows. They would clean them and make paddle racquets to hit the ball with. Later, Charles and his friends learned to build paddle racquets from wood. Still, tennis needs to be played with strings.
The tennis club in his neighborhood occasionally hosted tournaments. As we know all too well from watching John McEnroe flip out, tournament players vent. There’s a lot at stake, and as the pressure builds, some players take it out on their racquets. That’s how Charles got introduced to his first racquet with strings. A tournament referee took a cracked racquet and gave it to him. Charles played with that for about a year before getting a proper racquet.
Charles’s passion for tennis didn’t go unnoticed. A coach began working with him and his friends. The coaching advice, combined with his passion and work ethic, made Charles unstoppable. He played his first tournament and showed great potential to the regional tennis federation. They invited him to train, and Charles kept working and getting better. Playing more tournaments and getting far. He became the top Nigerian junior and, at 17, joined the Nigerian Davis Cup team. He reached an ATP ranking of 630 before moving to the United States to play college tennis.
Charles coaches students from the age of 4 to 94. He believes coaches must put in as much effort as is expected of their students. His coaching philosophy is derived from three fundamental rules: (1) set goals; (2) be dedicated; and (3) “hard work will always secure your success.”
In addition to his stellar coaching and playing experience, Charles holds an MBA from the University of Bridgeport and raised three children with his wonderful wife. Their two daughters played as numbers 1 and 2 in Trumbull High School, and his son is an R&B musician.