Knippa High School yearbook
The 1954 Knippa tennis team included (left to right) Charles Kramer, Leroy Muecke, Bobby Kramer, and Monroe Carter.
The Texas Tennis Coaches Association announced earlier this year that Bobby Kramer, former tennis coach at Pasadena Dobie High School, will be inducted into the 2022 TTCA Hall of Fame.
The induction ceremony will be held Friday, Dec. 9, at the TTCA Convention Banquet at Horseshoe Bay Resort. He will be joined by a couple of other former Texas High School tennis coaches, Tim Calhoun and Sammie Courington.
Kramer coached tennis at Dobie High School beginning in 1977 after serving in the same capacity at Nueces Canyon High School for 16 years. He retired in 1995, completing a 37-year career in public school education.
Among his accomplishments at Dobie, his tennis teams produced seven state champions, eight state finalists, five regional finalists, and over 35 district champions.
Kramer, a 1956 graduate of Knippa High School, was a multi-sport star for the Rockcrushers, which included being a star tennis player. He received a bachelor’s degree from Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos in 1960 and took a teaching/coaching position at Nueces Canyon High School in January of 1961.
That’s where his coaching career began.
“One of the coaching duties they assigned me was tennis,” related Kramer. “Sure, I played tennis in high school but in those days tennis coaches were more of a sponsor than a coach, so I didn’t know what I felt I needed to know to be a good tennis coach.”
“I did know Gerry Shudde at Sabinal was an outstanding tennis coach, so during spring break I took James and Dennis Ward to Sabinal and they worked with Coach Shudde and the great Sabinal players and wound up going to the state tournament that year.”
Working in small schools, coaches, like the athletes, had to be involved in all sports. The following school year at Nueces Canyon Kramer was assigned girls’ basketball mentor.
“When I found out during the summer that I was going to coach girls’ basketball I sought out one of the returning players, Irene Williams, who worked at the local drug store for 35 cents an hour. I told her that I had been assigned girls’ basketball and she said ‘great,’ but I responded that I didn’t know anything about girls’ basketball.” “Irene said, ‘I will help you.’ So we sat down at a table and she drew up about five plays and discussed the elements of the game and that led to a successful season, thanks to the player-coach, who led the state that year by averaging over 42 points per game.”
Bobby Kramer in a 1956 senior yearbook photo from Knippa High School.
Willing to listen to players and other coaches and studying the game enabled Kramer to become a successful teacher/coach. That former young player who helped him that first year became instrumental in his life when he decided to leave Nueces Canyon.
Irene Williams had become the women’s athletic director at Pasadena ISD and she persuaded Kramer to pass up an offer to become Uvalde Junior High principal and take the tennis program at Dobie High School to a new level.
“I have been very fortunate to have been associated with great athletes,” Kramer said. “There were some great young men and women at Nueces Canyon and later at Dobie.”
During Kramer’s tenure at Nueces Canyon, the Panthers had 11 state tennis champions, plus quite a few runners-up, and the same on the regional level. He was there for the first 16-plus years of his 37-year career, and along with coaching, he was high school principal and a head coach in every sport but football. His two sons, Robert and Leslie, made it to the state tennis tournament their four years in high school.
Williams lauded Kramer as a coach that players had great respect for because of his fairness and his ability to motivate them to greater heights. “The kids loved him and in addition to his players everyone he worked with and came into contact with had tremendous respect for him.”
Jerry Franklin, president of the TTCA, also had high praise for Coach Kramer. “Everybody respected Bobby. He had unique characteristics, forth right and honest and quick to praise opponents and opposing coaches. This award is long over due.” Williams pointed out that Bobby was selected to the Dobie High School Hall of Honor in 2017.
“That honor usually is reserved for Dobie High graduates, so for a staff member to be honored is extremely rare. That’s how much he was admired and loved by the entire student body.”
The main qualities the TTCA committee look for in a coach are character, integrity, a program builder, impressive career stats, shows and teaches good sportsmanship, and a teacher of life skills through their participation in tennis.
Come January, Kramer and his wife, the former Linda Coleman, a Uvalde High graduate, will celebrate their 66th wedding anniversary along with their three children Cheryl, Robert, and Leslie, and their families.
Bobby Kramer