The old adage that it’s never too late to act on a dream could not ring more true for one longtime Los Altos resident. Claudia Westrum didn’t get to play on a school tennis team growing up, but nearly 50 years later, she has made that dream a reality.
She attended Cañada College last school year just to play on the women’s tennis team, helping the Colts win the Northern California community college championship in the spring. Westrum played singles and doubles for Cañada, which beat Chabot 5-3 in the regional final to advance to the state tournament.
“When I get into a sport, or when I get into anything I do, I go 150%,” the Los Altos High graduate said.
That goes for school as well. Westrum enrolled as a full-time student at Cañada, where she is studying pre-algebra.
Westrum is not the only seasoned member of the team. Seven players on the squad are over age 55, she said.
“You had half of the roster with gals that were older, and half of the roster were gals that were younger, but each subunit kind of got along in a certain way,” Cañada coach Bryan Jeong said. “When they came together, it was just explosive energy; it was positive all the way through.”
Mom squad doles out advice
Westrum said the older players “were kind of like the moms. There’d be some questions, so we’d give them a little bit of advice, and then we learn from them as well, so it was really great.”
Despite the age gap – the team’s youngest player was 18 – Westrum said the more senior players brought experience that helped them contribute to the Colts.
“We’ve got different styles of play, where these girls are younger and they’ve got pretty big groundstrokes and heavy top spins, but we had all been playing, so we learned differently over the years and just kind of added a lot of different shots to our arsenal,” said Westrum, who played the sport competitively as part of the United States Tennis Association.
Jeong added that the team has “playing styles that are modern” and “cross-generational.”
Element of surprise
While Cañada wasn’t the only Bay Area team with more advanced-aged players, there weren’t a lot of them in the playoffs.
“When we did the lineup, they were just looking at us,” Westrum said of their opponents.
Used to being underestimated, Westrum noted that the senior players on the team consist-ently surprised their foes with their more tactical and seasoned experience in the sport.
Jeong said the Colts would often show up for a match and get a surprised reaction from their opponents.
“They were just kind of, like, ‘What the heck is going on?’” he said.
The coach added that Cañada has had a diverse roster since he took over the program in 2015. As one of the younger coaches in the Coast Conference and even in the state, Jeong had a philosophy of “I’ll take whoever and then make a championship team.” Through his open-arms acceptance, he discovered how much success a team with such diversity could enjoy. Since then, Cañada’s team has been a mix of players of all ages.
Although returning to college may not be for everyone, Jeong said, community colleges are a “great option” for student-athletes of all ages who may have aspirations to play at the university level someday.
“This is a great stepping stone. I don’t think you’re going to find the sort of experience that we have on our team anywhere else other than a community college setting,” he said,
Westrum expressed gratitude for her family members’ support of her decision to pursue college athletics.
“He was super excited,” Westrum said of her husband, Bill. “He’s telling all his friends, and people who don’t know us would ask, ‘What does your wife do?’ And he’d say, ‘Oh, she’s in school playing. She’s a college athlete.’ And then they go, ‘Well, how old is she?’ which is pretty fun.”
Westrum has signed up to play again in the fall, holding true to her commitment and enrolling in another year of school.
“I’m going to take some interior design classes,” she said. “I think I’m done with math.”
