In his 30 years as the Española Valley High School tennis coach, you would often find Wendall Barnett striding around the court voicing one of his favorite catch phrases.
He would often say things like, “Hit the ball, you’re not going to hurt it,” “That ball was going by so slow I could have written my name on it” or “sometimes the blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile.” Those are some of the favorites that current Española tennis coach Nancy Suazo remembers about Barnett, who died on Oct. 17 at the age of 91.
“He was known to be blunt and jovial,” Suazo said. “He was all about the kids and just wanted them to love the game of tennis as much as he loved it.”
Barnett retired after the 2016 season. His career began as a simple gesture of wanting to volunteer in 1986. Then-head coach Andrew Montoya left for Los Alamos shortly after and Barnett stepped in to save the program from going under and became the head coach in 1987.
“He was the type of guy who would walk out there and do that,” friend and longtime Taos High School head tennis coach Kurt Edelbrock said. “He was dedicated enough, that even after he was done coaching, he would drive up to Farmington and go to tennis matches that Española was playing up there.”
He was born Jan. 26, 1927 in Bethel, Kan., and later moved to Glendale, Calif. where he attended Hoover High School and later served abroad in the Navy during World War II on the USS Point Cruz and USS Boxer.
After being discharged, Barnett was employed by the Four-S Baking Company in Los Angeles for over 35 years. It was in 1973 that Barnett learned the game of tennis from a professional instructor in Southern California. Even though he was in his mid-40s when he began playing, he caught on quickly and fell in love with the sport.
“He was phenomenal at tennis himself,” Suazo said. “He looked at it from a mathematical point of view with the angles and how the racket should be and things like that. He was very technical and he was a really good player.”
Edelbrock was most impressed with Barnett’s ability to keep the program running strong over the course of 30 years.
“He was incredibly dedicated,” Edelbrock said. “The fact that he kept the program going in Española — in what you can’t call a typical tennis town — for as many years as he did, it’s a tremendous feat. It wasn’t always about winning and it was about the honesty and sportsmanship and he wanted kids to leave the program with that as much as tennis proficiency.”
Of his greatest coaching accomplishments, Barnett helped lead the 2004 doubles pair of Frankie Rendon and Henry Talachy to a district championship. Then in 2006, Talachy became the first tennis player in school history to win a district singles title.
Like Edelbrock said, “It wasn’t always about winning,” and nothing could be truer than Barnett’s relationship with 2015 graduate Arnie Martinez.
Martinez first met Barnett while he was in the seventh grade watching his older cousin play tennis, so he decided to participate to find another sport to supplement his first love, which was basketball.
“He was a sportsman and cool as ice,” Martinez said. “When you get old, you want to be like Wendall. He always put in the time and built a friendship with you. It was more than just being a player of his.”
Midway through his freshman season, Martinez was approached by Barnett, who wanted to treat him to a new tennis racket after noticing the potential in Martinez’s game.
“He bought me my first real tennis racket,” Martinez said. “I was using a $20 Wal-Mart racket and he took me up to Kurt’s (Edelbrock) tennis shop in Taos and told me to pick any one I wanted.”
Martinez came home with a $260 used racket, which Barnett paid for out of his own pocket. Martinez said he would pay his coach back, but Barnett had other visions.
“About a week later, I came by and cleaned his whole yard and tended to his garden to pay him back,” Martinez said. “I was out there all day and it became something I did off and on. We grew pretty close and he had me over for dinner a couple times and we cried together when I found out his cancer had spread to his lungs.”
Martinez still has the same racket in his possession and said there would be no better honor than to have the high school tennis courts renamed in Barnett’s honor.
“We need to get a petition going for that,” he said.
Edelbrock called Barnett an avid reader and said the two always talked tennis and Barnett never failed to have the knowledge about the latest pro and pro-am players.
The two spent some time together recently before his death and Edelbrock had to ensure Barnett the difference he made in young peoples’ lives.
“He was worried he hadn’t done enough in his life,” Edelbrock said. “But for what he’s done and how long, you take the years that he’s coached and multiply that by at least 18 kids (per season) as a minimum, then that’s how many kids he’s affected and it becomes a tremendous number.”
Barnett is preceded in death by his wife Frances Barnett and survived by his sons Chris and Jeff Barnett and his daughter Tina Barnett.
Burial will take place at 2:15 p.m., Nov. 8 at the Santa Fe National Cemetery.