Mission: To facilitate and challenge our youth participants to keep their head up, stay focused and take control of their life through tennis, education and healthy habits.

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Aside from a blistering ace down the middle, what shot does most tennis players dream of hitting to win a game, set or match after a grueling rally? The Overhead!

 

Why is the overhead so important? If the player is focused, if their technique is correct, if the player is confident and positioned properly, then the overhead will allow the player to be in complete control of winning the game, set or match.

We are the Overhead Foundation:

Our vision through the foundation, is to provide programming where youth learn to keep their head up with positivity and collaborative team tennis, youth stay focused on productive goals as they take control of their life. With a unique opportunity that provides our youth access to community role models that look like them, a classroom environment to build economic empowerment, and a structured yet balance health & fitness routine, the Overhead Foundation has created a solid base for our youth to matriculate.

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Rocky Warner is the Director of The Overhead Foundation. He has been instrumental within Atlanta's youth tennis for over 20 years. He has programmed events, created unique activation sites for beginner players and he has been actively seated on a national board that has rebranded the American Tennis Association as you know it today. Coach Rocky's advocacy for community tennis started years ago at Washington Park and McGhee Tennis Center as he follows in the footsteps of heroes before him that established the Gate City Tennis Association, the first black tennis association in Atlanta. Rocky Warner is a proven champion for youth tennis in the city.

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Brief History:
Coach Rocky started tennis late as, his first sport was baseball. Through great coaching, before his senior year of high school, Rocky was ranked in the top 100 of Georgia Boys 18u. Coach Rocky organized his first tennis lessons for kids in the community when he was in 11th grade. While playing college tennis at Morehouse, Rocky would host Tennis Clinics at Spelman College and he was often found on the court with Dr. Massey (President of Morehouse College '95-'98) conducting a hitting lesson. Although Mr. Warner transferred and finished his education at another institution, he later became a volunteer coach at Morehouse under the tutelage of Head Coach Terry Alexander.

 

Rocky loved volunteering at an institution that did so much for him as it related to social development, character building and pride in his culture. Rocky holds a Bachelors Degree in Visual Communication from the AIU Art Program and a Master of Science Degree from Full Sail University as he studied Internet Marketing. Although Mr. Warner has years of experience with tennis in Atlanta, he also worked within the corporate climate for major Atlanta companies like the AJC, COX Media Group and Auto Trader. For more than 10 Years as a Senior Creative Marketing Designer, Coach Rocky honed his craft and eventually put his talents to great use as he designed websites, marketing campaigns and managed budgets for the Youth Tennis Program at Sugar Creek and as President of the ATA South.

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We are so excited for The Overhead Foundation! The work being done is so important because the future of our sport depends on it.  With such an amazing team of smart, talented and passionate officers and members, just wait and see what the Overhead Foundation has in store for our community, the south and the world! 

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