Tennis at San Quentin

EDiao
Jul 24
10 min read

Since 2020 I have been privileged to participate in “Outside/Inside Tennis Volunteer Program," at San Quentin Penitentiary, where civilians volunteer their time to play with inmates who have been selected to take part in their tennis program.

Please find this outstanding article regarding the program featuring Charlie Cutler, who has been volunteering with his foundation to do weekly visits, tennis coaching, and training some of the inmates to get tennis teaching certificates. I have been on the tennis court with all the people pictured in the article.

Check out the article and link below.

The Bay Area's most in-demand tennis court is inside a prison

he Bay Area's most in-demand tennis court is inside a prison

Come here to play and you might get walloped

Men who are part of the San Quentin tennis team pose for a photo with tennis instructor Charlie Cutler on the tennis court at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center in San Quentin, Calif., on July 10, 2025. Cutler, a former pro tennis player, runs the Border Youth Tennis Exchange program that is in charge of the tennis program at San Quentin.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

By David Curran,Homepage EditorJuly 20, 2025

It was a gray morning in Marin County and the wind was howling on the tennis court. I was waiting for Matt “Doc” Montana, a middle-aged bespectacled man that I had just met, to serve. We were starting a set of doubles, but it was tough to focus because a guy behind me was bench pressing a picnic table.

Also, behind Doc, an endless stream of men were running/jogging/trudging around a makeshift track. And to my right, people were sitting in bolted-down barber chairs getting haircuts. Behind the haircuts, a full-on baseball game, complete with umpires, was about to start.

Doc, no stranger to all of this activity, unleashed a tailing serve to the corner of the service box. I hit a weak, fluttering return that James Duff, his springy younger partner, smacked away with authority for a winner.

The rumors were true: The inmates at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center are seriously good at tennis.

The brief before you play tennis at San Quentin for the first time is, in fact, very brief. You might expect more since this has long been thought of as a notorious prison, but no. You’re simply told to wear black so the corrections officers know you’re not an inmate, and don’t bring in anything but a racket and a water bottle (optional). There are no tips on what you say or don’t say, do or don’t do. Friends joked with me before going about making sure not to give any bad calls. Others asked if I was going to play against murderers.

Really? Do people ask about that when they first show up?

“I don’t ask these guys what they did,” Charlie Cutler told me.

Cutler runs Border Youth Tennis Exchange, the organization that oversees the tennis program at San Quentin. As its name suggests, BYTE started with programs for people living in shelters along the U.S.-Mexico border. But the organization has grown considerably and now also runs programs at correctional facilities, including San Quentin and Juvenile Hall in San Francisco.

At San Quentin, Cutler is helping move tennis to a new level, transforming it from an active but loosely organized activity into a full-fledged program that gives players of all levels professional instruction. He is even training some of them to be certified tennis coaches.

After passing through the gates, a few of us outsider tennis players enter the prison yard and weave through swarms of men. They’re hanging out, doing pull-ups, playing dominoes, walking service dogs, shooting hoops, strumming guitars. Some men have on vests that say “HEARING IMPAIRED,” others are extremely old and frail, walking with canes.

As one man in San Quentin told me, it’s like a mini society, one most of us never see.

Finally, we reach the tennis court where the men greet us with handshakes and first names only. Everyone is friendly, but there’s so much going on I can’t remember a single name. No matter, we start to play, and once we’re competing, it’s all irrelevant, including what crimes may have landed these guys in here.

What is relevant is when someone aces me, smacks a return, or hits a topspin lob that sends me crashing into the fence that, as it turns out, is only about 6 feet behind the baseline.

And that I lost my first two sets without winning a single game.

‘It’s not like magic’

In one sense, it should not be a surprise that the San Quentin players had skills. People from every walk of life end up in prison, so why would tennis players be an exception? In fact, Peter Pearson, one of the Bay Area’s greatest tennis players of the 1970s and ’80s, is currently serving a life sentence for a string of bank robberies.

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And people have played against the men at the prison for decades. There are stories dating back to the 1960s of the San Quentin team — or San Quentin Tennis Club, as it’s sometimes called — playing and soundly defeating local groups that would come in for a match.

Then a major change came in the early 2000s. A San Quentin teacher turned rec director named Don DeNevi not only was instrumental in getting a decent court built, but also helped kick-start something called Inside-Outside tennis. This program of bringing Bay Area tennis enthusiasts into San Quentin is still going strong and is, in fact, the group I had joined up with to come here and play.

But the current tennis program at San Quentin is taking matters well beyond what DeNevi ever did by offering regular professional instruction. Guys who had never picked up a racket before have the opportunity for lessons and doing drills on a routine basis.

And the results speak for themselves. “I’ve been teaching people for, you know, like 15 years now. I’ve never seen trajectories that these guys take before as far as just improvement,” Cutler says.

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For instance, James, who along with Doc trounced me in my first set, had never played until a few years ago. Since then, his game has risen so much, “he’s like a 4.5 player,” Cutler says, meaning a player who is very advanced.

“It’s not like magic. These guys go from never having touched a racket to playing hours a day,” he says.

And, he adds, with only one court, they also have little choice but to spend hours watching every day as they wait to play, which can be almost as big a factor in raising your game.

‘Tennis saved my life’

“So, Dave, have you ever been to prison?”

James asked me that question as casually as if he’s asking if I’ve ever been to Golden Gate Park. He is just making small talk while we’re hanging out on the bench by the court. I did a lot of hanging out since my sets were so short because I kept getting thumped.

James is very cheerful on the court. “When I play tennis,” he says, “I feel like I’m no longer in captivity.” But in 2021, in the days before he first picked up a racket, his life was very different. He was 45 pounds heavier, in his third prison, being medicated for depression and feeling suicidal.

Then he started hitting a tennis ball against a brick wall not far from the tennis court, “yelling and screaming to let out my depression.” From there, he started to play on the court for six to eight hours a day, even though the heckling and abuse from the established players was nonstop.

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“They said I sucked,” he recalls. “They wouldn’t let me play.”

But slowly, over the months, the razzing got quieter as his ability rose, until eventually he made the team. And, he got off his meds.

“In a way,” James says, “tennis saved my life.”

I ended up chatting with a variety of guys while I was on the bench. A young man named Evan Humes told me how he got interested in playing tennis while doing push-ups in the dirt, when the tennis guys looked like they were having a lot more fun.

Chris Moore, who beat me in my second doubles set, had the perspective of years spent living in a potentially violent place: He says one of tennis’ attractions is that when you play, there’s a comforting distance, and a net, between you and your opponent.

But Chris also expresses one of his favorite aspects of the tennis program, the sense of community.

“It’s like ‘Cheers,’” he says. “Everyone is welcome.”

Cutler elaborates on the rehabilitative power of community in the tennis program. “You know playing sports is good for your body, it’s good for your brain, it’s good for your social and emotional wellness, right? Like who’s going to need that the most in the world?” he says. “Probably guys who are in a really kind of sad and tragic space, right?”

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The B team

My second weekend at San Quentin, I ended up playing the B team. I had better results against these less experienced players but mostly enjoyed teaming up with the San Quentin players for a different kind of “mixed” doubles. And many A Team players showed up to lend support and be a nonstop peanut gallery.

Among them was Earl Wilson, the captain of the A Team.

Earl looms large over the tennis program. In his early 60s, he is rangy, athletic and, with his gray beard, exudes a calm authority. He’s played tennis at San Quentin since he first got here a decade ago. (He’s been incarcerated since the 1980s.) Interviewed for a film a few years back, Earl described the program as “a mechanism to better yourself, to know people, to live a better life.”

Earl expresses gratitude for the outsiders coming in. He quickly adds, with a smile, that he also likes defeating them.

When there was only one San Quentin team, Earl was the captain. But as the number of people wanting to play grew, so did the problems. Because the players on the team got priority for court time, some of those left waiting around started lodging complaints.

Finally, it was decided to create two separate teams. The A team would include the best players, but those on the new B team would get dedicated practice time as well, cutting into the A team’s court time. Earl recognized that there was the need for a B team, but he was not all smiles about it.

“For me, it’s not as exclusive,” he says with some nostalgia for the days when new guys like James showed up and they’d have to withstand endless heckling and “losing, losing, losing.”

Such is life with one court and many players. But Earl is all in on the program as it is. The day I played the B team, he spent much of the time standing at the net giving these less experienced players continuous tips.

It may not be Earl’s ideal, but, as he says, “you got to keep the population happy.”

A view of the future

While waiting to play, seated on a bench by the tennis court, I have a clear view of San Quentin’s future. To the left, you can see the three buildings under construction that are the centerpiece of the prison’s new incarnation as the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

I’m sitting next to Brian, the captain of the B team, and he can tell me what’s going to be in each building, probably even in each room. Young and energetic, he’s taking college courses, playing music and part of a group who meet with prison officials to give their perspective as San Quentin transitions to its new role as a rehabilitation center.

What’s planned for San Quentin sounds and looks impressive, and I can’t help wondering about those who think it’s too good, or even those who believe some people in prison don’t deserve these kinds of rehabilitation opportunities.

Brian is aware of this perspective and offers a ready response, basically explaining that the vast majority of these men will be out one day, and they’re going to be your neighbors. So, in that regard, he posits, it is in everyone’s interest that they are as rehabilitated as possible.

Cutler offers the additional viewpoint of someone who lives on the outside but comes in to work here:

“I think there are lots of stories in there of tragedy, of poverty, of addiction that, you know, guys can be sympathetic figures in there. But there’s also stories of awful, awful crimes, right? And like, it doesn’t necessarily feel good to imagine myself interacting with that side of things.”

“But,” he adds, “I do think there’s an argument even for guys who have done terrible unforgivable things.” And a big reason, Cutler notes, and echoing Brian, is that most of these guys are leaving prison someday.

“And is it better for society that those guys sit and stare at the walls, or is it better for them to get involved in something healthy and positive?” he says. “Even if I don’t, can’t, forgive them myself for what they did, it is still worth it to society to provide the service to them.”

Cutler has wrestled with difficult questions like this and he explains how this relates to his approach of not asking the men in prison about their crimes.

“That’s not a requirement to be in the program. A lot of programs come in and work with these guys and do therapies, do self-help groups and victims advocacy, and I think that stuff’s all super important,” he says.

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But “I don’t need that to be what our relationship is about,” he says.

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“I’m not judging them based on that. I’m just trying to teach them tennis. I mean, I’m judging them based on their s—tty backhand, for sure. Right? But no more than I’m judging most people on their s—tty backhand.”

If you are in distress, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline 24 hours a day at 988, or visit 988lifeline.org for more resources.

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