The U.S. Open is kind of a father-and-son thing for John and Johnny Watson.
“It’s about the greatest experience you can have as a tennis player, going and watching these players play,” John said.
John — who picked up tennis in his 30s and played with the same group for two decades — got his son into the sport when he was around 7 and took him to his first Open a few years later. Johnny, who grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will “always remember” that first trip to “the big city,” New York, with his dad.
“A tennis court is a small playing surface and you go into this stadium with 25,000 people,” Johnny said. “Just the vibe and the energy of the city — especially in the summer — it’s unlike anything I experienced.”
After attending the event half a dozen times with his dad and having an impressive tennis career of his own, Johnny was a stadium director for this year’s Open, which wrapped up earlier this week. It was “a bucket-list lifelong dream” of his.
Depending on the day, Johnny produced between two and five matches, programming them with videos, graphics, music, lights, entertainment and more. That’s similar to what he does full-time as the Milwaukee Bucks’ executive producer of broadcast and live events.
“It’s been emotional,” Johnny said. “There’s been days where I walk around and kind of pinch myself a little bit. I just remember when I was here with my dad when I was little to watch these matches from the second row from the top of the stadium. And, see these people who were my heroes when I was growing up. And now, full-circle, being able to work here and actually call the show.”
And, this came just after Johnny was in Paris, working as a venue producer for the Olympic men’s and women’s basketball games.
Johnny’s dad? “Very proud — but don’t tell him that,” he joked.
“You talk about a life,” said John, a retired sheet-metal journeyman. “It’s unbelievable what he’s got done. He’s very talented.”
Back when Johnny played T-ball, all he wanted to do was hit. “He was supposed to play defense, too. He never did. He just wanted to hit the ball,” John said.
That led Johnny’s folks to the idea that tennis might be a better fit. And, boy, were they right.
John would take his son to the courts and hit with him. Next, came tennis clinics and group lessons. At 8 or 9 years old, Johnny started working with a coach, who taught him the fundamentals, including stoke techniques and racket grips.
In middle school, Johnny started training at Coe College’s Clark Racquet Center with tennis professional Tom Galbraith.
“He really just kind of took my game to the next level,” Johnny said, especially with his mental game.
Wherever the family went on vacation, John and Johnny would always track down a tennis court to play on.
“Those are, to me, some of the best memories,” Johnny said.
It was on one of those trips that Johnny — who was around 10 or 11 — beat his dad for the first time.
“It was hilarious,” Johnny recalled. “He was so mad.”
Being a 110-degree day in Florida, they were hot and tired. Johnny was “toying” with his pops, hitting the ball all over the court so he’d have to chase it.
“I still give him a hard time about that actually to this day,” Johnny said.
It wasn’t long before Johnny “got so good” his dad “couldn’t keep up” or play him any longer, John said.
In John’s words, his son’s forehand was “dynamite” — like his mother’s — and his hand-eye coordination was “unbelievable.” John thinks his son’s coordination was kick-started by the “Donkey Kong” and “Super Mario Bros.” video games Johnny played at 5 or 6 years old.
During the school year, Johnny would practice at the racquet center two or three hours every day, he said. By training at the college, Johnny was surrounded by high school and college players, and occasionally, got to hit with them.
Johnny’s high school summers were spent traveling around the country for national tournaments. Johnny’s dad would go to every single one that he could. It was a lot of fun, John said, but nerve-wracking.
In addition to national play, Johnny also had a successful high school tennis career. The team won the state title his freshman and junior years, and was runner-up when he was a sophomore and senior. “Still a little bit bitter about that senior-year loss,” Johnny noted.
In state championship singles, Johnny placed in the top three all four years, which included a first-place finish as a junior.
“He was really well-known across the whole state of Iowa ’cause he was such a good player,” John said.
While Johnny had a scholarship offer to play tennis at the University of Iowa, he ended up choosing the place where he’d been training since childhood: Division III Coe.
Johnny already knew the head coach there and several of the players, plus, he was looking for a “more well-rounded” college experience with plenty of time for academics and a fun social life.
When the men’s tennis team didn’t have enough players to field a full competitive team his freshman year, Johnny said, he recruited a couple of fellow Iowa players he knew who were a year or two younger.
“I’m just a person in life who loves challenges, obviously with the work I do for my profession,” Johnny said. “But also competitively with tennis, I was kind of always the same way.”
During his college career, Johnny was an All-American and Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference MVP several times and, years later, was inducted into the college’s Hall of Fame.
According to his 2013 HOF bio: In the IIAC Flight 1, Johnny was the singles runner-up and doubles champion in 1998, the singles champion and doubles runner-up in 1999, and the singles and doubles champion in 2000. He made it to the NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Championship for three straight years, from 1999 to 2001.
Johnny set multiple records while in school, including being Coe’s first player to get 30 singles wins in a season. Combining singles and doubles wins, he had 198 total — a school record he held for years. With 108 total singles victories, Johnny remains one of the school’s all-time best.
“Johnny was a key player on what would become an Iowa Conference dynasty,” the bio said, with the team setting school records for wins in 1998, 2000 and 2001.
“That 2001 team was the first men’s sport to capture an Iowa Conference title after Coe joined the league in 1997 and it was the first of six straight IIAC championships for Kohawk men’s tennis,” the bio said.
Looking back, Johnny described his college tennis career as rewarding and fulfilling.
“It was unbelievable,” John said. “I never thought he’d be that good, but he was.”
Johnny continues to play, recreationally, in the North Shore area.
“Anywhere we can find a court, I’m there,” he said.
Watson helped out with the US Open for the first time in 2022. He mainly co-managed content for the screens at the Flushing Meadows grounds in Queens.
“Very entry-level, just kind of learning the ropes of what the production was,” Johnny said. “Obviously, got some experience doing it and I think sports presentation — what I do — is universal in a lot of ways.”
This time around, Johnny said, he got to learn and perfect stadium producing for the event. Among the highlights: Working the second-latest finish in the event’s history and seeing American tennis “rise again.”
Johnny said there’s a stigma about U.S. tennis players not being successful or making it to the finals in these types of tournaments.
The United States’ Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe played each other in the men’s singles semifinals, with Fritz advancing to the finals. Italy’s Jannik Sinner defeated Fritz in the finals.
In women’s singles, Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro — both Americans — played in separate semifinal matches. While Pegula advanced to the finals, she fell to Belarusian champ Aryna Sabalenka.
The reason John took Johnny to the U.S. Open was so he could witness the sport’s best play live and see the level that they perform at.
“The scope of it was unimaginable to me at that time,” Johnny said. “I just couldn’t believe what they were doing. Even now when I go there, I still feel the same thing.”
When John and Johnny would go to the Open together, they’d stay at the downtown Marriott and take the subway to the stadiums. They’d get there at 10 a.m. and stay until 1 or 2 a.m., whenever the matches finished for the day.
One of John’s favorite memories was when he and Johnny’s coach took Johnny and his teammate to the Open when they were teenagers.
When John went to get them one morning, he said, they were getting ready and their room smelled like a cologne factory, as teen boys’ rooms often do.
“I said, ‘Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be downstairs,” John laughed.
“I love tennis and I love this venue. And, this experience has so many memories for me that just bring me back to when I was younger, and very special times that I had with my dad,” Johnny said. “They’re memories that I’ll always remember.”
In his role as venue producer for all Paris Olympic basketball, Johnny did show-calling, aka producing, for in-arena presentations with videos, graphics, music, special effects, lighting, on-court entertainment and national anthems. To pull this off, he worked with a crew of at least 25 people per game from around the world.
“It was probably the best experience I’ve had outside of my day-to-day work with the Bucks,” Watson said. “It was just amazing … Everything about it exceeded every expectation I could’ve imagined.”
That included the United States men’s and women’s gold-medal games and the victory ceremonies that followed both U.S. wins.
“To cue when the anthem and when the flags went up in the air and to hear the National Anthem for both teams, it got very emotional,” Johnny said. “It’s just a lot of work and it’s very fulfilling at the end, especially if your country wins … It was just really, really special to be a part of.”
When Johnny returned from Paris, he got to spend about a week at home with his wife and kids. Then, he was off to New York for the Open.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Bucks’ Johnny Watson works US Open after Paris Olympics
