Keeping Ed's memory alive
High school players who embody Macksoud's love of tennis honored at annual camp staged by Pawtucket Parks & Recreation Department
PAWTUCKET – Longtime city tennis aficionado Joanne Macksoud’s dream finally came true earlier this month at her favorite home away from home, Slater Park.
It was then that the co-directors of the park’s Youth Summer Tennis Camp, Sean McClelland and Nate Rebello, honored her husband nearly a year after his untimely death (at age 72) in Hobe Sound, Fla., last Aug. 7.
They did so by presenting a girl and a boy who take part in the camp the first annual Ed Macksoud Memorial Tennis Award at a ceremony inside the park’s pavilion behind the Parks & Recreation Department offices.
It was given to St. Raphael Academy se- nior-to-be Serena-Rose Gaskin and La Salle Academy classmate Simon Quinn because they “exemplify a supreme ‘love’” for the sport of tennis.
Simply put, they embodied the qualities that defined Macksoud’s personality, good will and intense desire to help themselves and others improve – athletically, emotionally and spiritually. There was rarely a time Macksoud didn’t have a smile on his face, and it virtually never happened when he was on a tennis court.
It never mattered which one; that’s how deep his love for the sport ran.
“Sean had told me previously that there was no doubt who would receive the awards, and
I knew why after I met them,” stated Joanne, Ed’s wife of 51 years, not to mention former Shea High boys’ and girls’ tennis coach, director of this same camp and founder of the annual High School Tennis Summer Program at the park’s Mike Kenny Courts.
“They couldn’t have picked better kids; they were class acts, both of them,” she continued.
“They were so respectful of their fellow players, and respected by them. It was so easy to see that. I was very impressed.
“It was a wonderful ceremony. Sean and Nate provided a fantastic day of fun, food, drinks and awards for the children who so love tennis.
"The kids had pizza and drinks, then played games while music was playing over an audio system. That was purchased by the Ed Macksoud Memorial Fund.
“After Eddie died, I asked friends both up here and in Florida that, in lieu of flowers, they donate money to the fund,” she added.
“I decided after he passed that I wanted to memorialize his name; and I thought the best way to do it was to make sure the youth summer camp had enough money to finance special projects, etc. My daughter (Lisa) suggested we do it.”
Two weeks after his death by heart failure, she drove from Hobe Sound to Pawtucket and met with current and former Parks & Recreation Department directors John Blais and Bill Mulholland, McClelland, Rebello and the couple’s old pal Ventura. All – not surprisingly – backed Joanne’s plan 100-fold.
“The outpouring was incredible; they came from former students, colleagues, family members, moms and dads of former campers,” she said. “They all wanted to give to the fund, which would (financially) those who take part in the youth summer camp.”
When asked if she broke down during the ceremony, which included a short speech from Mayor Donald R. Grebien and attracted John Blais, Bill Mulholland and old pal Vic Ventura, but also the entire camp staff, Joanne chuckled while tearing up.
“Did I cry? No, but I cried the whole way there (from Lisa’s nearby home in Attleboro),” she offered.
“I had to release all of the emotions I was feeling. I had to put on my happy face.
“I promised myself that I wouldn’t cry in front of all those people, and I didn’t.”
She hesitated, then smiled, “God, I came close!”
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Anyone who watched the couple interact together knows why, and that’s why Joanne took Eddie’s passing so hard.
Right in step with her character – she never hid much from anyone except, perhaps, for those aforementioned tears – she explained exactly what happened.
“Ed had severe heart problems; in fact, he had his first heart attack when he was just 45,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“He later had a pacemaker put in, had triple-bypass surgery; I think a lot of it came from high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but he ended up on medications for both.
“Ironically, that first heart attack took place on a tennis court, ForeCourt in Cumberland,” she added.
“It was Valentine’s Day, 1991. He had been playing in a men’s league at about 7:30 at night, and I guess he fell. The good news was there were doctors right there with him. They said when he went down, they knew exactly what was going on and called 9-1-1.
“The night clerk called me and told me Eddie was sick and had been taken by ambulance to Pawtucket Memorial … I bee-lined over there and saw him. He was bad; he was severe. Before I left, I had called his cardiologist, Dr. Roland Landry, who’s also a family friend. He immediately called the hospital and ordered a drug that blew out the clot.
“He wasn’t the doctor over there, but he said he was Eddie’s PCP and told them what to do. God bless Roland.”
According to Joanne, Eddie had made a complete recovery and was back playing his favorite sport in less than a year.
The Macksouds had married on May 30, 1966, and – a couple of years later – the two were talking and Eddie brought up the idea that they needed a family sport to play and enjoy, one that would bring them, and keep them, closer together.
Because Eddie had learned how to play tennis from his uncle, a pro, so that was declared the one.
“The only problem was, I had never picked up a racquet before,” she chuckled.
“I didn’t know how to play, so I joined an evening beginners’ tennis course at Lincoln High School. I immediately fell in love with it, and Eddie was so glad, so we joined ForeCourt in Cumberland.”
On occasion, Ed would compete in local tournaments, but Joanne because so good – “with a ton of lessons,” she laughed – she too decided to play in events.
“I became pretty good,” she said. “I actually won a few tournaments, like the Attleboro Open, and so did Ed. We had a lot of fun playing it; we lived and breathed tennis.”
As members of the Abbott Run Valley Swim and Tennis Club, they’d spend their summers there. One day, a fellow club mom informed Joanne about an opening for a junior varsity coach at Cumberland High.
“She said, ‘Gee, Joanne, you ever thought about coaching tennis, and I said to myself, ‘You know, I’ve never really thought about it,’” she indicated. “I remembers when I used to bring Lisa to her lessons, I’d watch what the pros were teaching her. I told the mom, ‘I think I’d like that!”
She went home that afternoon and asked Eddie about it. In typical fashion, he grinned widely and responded, “Go for it, JoJo!”
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Joanne did, and served under Clippers’ varsity coaching legend John Jasionowski for four years. In the early 1990s, she discovered Shea had an opening for a boys’ and girls’ varsity head coach. She applied for it and got it.
“Eddie’s involvement with me coaching came that first year,” she recalled. “I had got up at Freshman Orientation that (late) August and said, ‘Anyone who comes out for my new team, I will not only teach you how to play tennis, but I’ll give you a racquet, too.
“I knew a lot of those kids couldn’t afford one because they didn’t have much money, so I actually put a plastic trash bucket at ForeCourt and asked people to donate old racquet for the cause … That summer, I had 22 girls show up, and not many had ever played it before.
“Four years later, that same team won not only the city championship (over St. Raphael and Tolman) but also the state Class C championship,” she continued. “I had been coaching for a couple of years and I was talking to Eddie; I told him that my kids could be so much better if they played more often, so he suggested I start a high school summer tennis program at Slater Park.”
She did, and the teens she coached saw more success. Not long after, officials with the city’s Boys & Girls Club asked her to become the new executive youth tennis director, as they never had a program.
She developed that, too. “Eddie was there for me every step of the way,” she sighed. “He had a fulltime job, but if I was running an event of had a match, even a practice, if he could be there, he would be. He was the one who gave me the confidence to pursue those positions, helping Pawtucket with what it needed for its youth tennis programs.
“He was my right-hand man.” And, months after that in 2001, Mulholland came calling, asking Joanne to take over as the Slater Park Youth Summer Tennis Camp director. She, of course, agreed.
“Eddie was 55 then and becoming more stressed out professionally, so I suggested the sport he loved so dearly could become his new life,” she noted. “I called Bill and told him that Eddie and I both would take the positions, and he was thrilled.”
In approximately 2005-06, the couple started up a U.S. Tennis Association-affiliated club tennis league at Slater Park; that came during the summer, and the two wintered in Hobe Sound in the colder months.
They also spent some of their summers as co-directors of the programs at Abbott Run.
While Gaskin and Quinn received plaques for their dedication to the youth camp, a bigger, perpetual plaque will hang in the pavilion for visitors to peruse for years to come.
There’s room 23 more award recipients’ names to be etched on those small gold plates.
Likewise, under a crab apple tree facing the tennis courts on the parks & recreation department’s side of the street sits a stone marker with Ed Macksoud’s name on it.
“That was Vic’s idea, and I can’t thank him enough for that,” Joanne stated.
“At the end of the ceremony, Sean and Nate gave me a bouquet of flowers, and they were so beautiful. I was so touched.
“You know, I’ve known Sean since he was pretty young; we used to coach together, too,” she added. “He’s like a son to me, so he’s got a special place in my heart.”
When Joanne informed McClelland she would be moving back up to the Pawtucket area once she sells the home in Hobe Sound, she also told him she would like to volunteer for the summer camp’s “Tiny Tots” program this time next year.
“He looked at me, smiled and said, ‘Joanne, in a heartbeat! We’d love it!”
Finally, her eyes shed a couple of tears.