The fact that Little Rock's Hall High School even had a tennis team this school year -- much less one that earned a state championship in 6A girls doubles play -- is due in great part to a home-schooler and a couple of relatively new Arkansas laws.
Ashley Gray, 16, a junior left-hander, teamed up with right-handed senior Jasmine Brown, 17, to win girls' doubles at the state tournament in Jonesboro. Their team came in as the 6A runner-up overall.
For the Hall team, it all started with a phone call just a few weeks before the Jonesboro meet.
Russ Gray, Ashley's father, called the Little Rock School District to determine how his daughter -- who has been home-schooled since starting high school -- could play for a public school team.
He said in a recent interview that he knew it was possible because Arkansas lawmakers had passed Act 1469 in 2013. The law requires public school districts to offer home-schooled students the same opportunities to participate in interscholastic activities as the schools provide to on-campus students.
A total of 85 home-schooled students in 36 of the state's 236 public school districts took advantage of the new state law in the 2013-14 school year, according to the latest available data provided by the Arkansas Department of Education.
The state law is relatively short, but it does set some parameters. For example, it requires a home-schooled student to participate in the desired activity at the public school that serves the attendance zone in which the student lives.
The law also requires the home-schooled student to take a public school course affiliated with the activity or, in the absence of a related course, an unrelated course.
"They told us the rules," Gray said about his call to the state's largest school system. "We said, 'So, OK, we have to go to Hall.' I called [Hall Assistant Principal] Tom Noble, and it was dicey at first.
"There wasn't a team, and they hadn't declared a team. It was like, 'Hey, if we are going to do this, we're going to have to act fast.' And I think they wanted to know if Ashley was really a serious player or whether they would do the work and then she wouldn't play."
Gray said he assured school leaders that his daughter was a pretty serious player and that she had become a home-schooled student after attending a local private school through the eighth grade to give her greater flexibility to travel to various tennis tournaments.
Gray said he and his wife, Rhonda, wanted Ashley to have the fun of playing on a school team as a way to relieve some of the stress she was under from playing tournament tennis and vying for individual rankings.
The Grays were prepared for Ashley to be the only girl on the new Hall High team, and Russ Gray said he fully expected to have to be the school's tennis coach.
But Darrell Porter, a teacher of biology, physics and botany at Hall, agreed to take on the coaching duties. He had played tennis on the college level and had wanted to start a tennis team upon his arrival at Hall the previous year.
Ashley Gray represented Hall by herself in the first high school tennis meet of the 2014-15 season, but Porter said he quickly sent out a mass email to the Hall faculty and staff members telling them, "Find me some tennis players!"
Brown, ranked first academically in her senior class at Hall, said her Advanced Placement chemistry teacher stopped her in the hallway.
'"You play tennis, don't you?' she said, and I said 'yes,'" recalled Brown, who is tall and reserved compared with the shorter and more vivacious Gray. "She told me to go see Mr. Porter."
Porter said he didn't have the luxury of time to teach beginning players for the now-ended tennis season, although he will do so for future teams. He expects both the girls and boys teams -- the latter now has sophomore Demond Ross -- to grow as students make room in their after-school schedules to participate.
The coach told Brown and other students who responded to his immediate call that he needed to see them play. The Grays, however, recognized Brown's name as that of a skilled player.
Brown, who grew up playing tennis in the Otter Creek area, had faced Ashley Gray in multiple tennis events over the years.
Ashley Gray said the two-girl team was made to order.
"Now that I think about it, we had a short, a tall, a left and a right. Everything you would honestly want on a team," she said.
Russ Gray right away told the new coach that he was looking at a championship-caliber team.
Porter didn't need much convincing.
"It was handed to me as a coach on a silver platter," Porter said. "The first match I saw them play as doubles, I started shaking."
As a home-schooled student participating in a public school interscholastic activity, Ashley Gray had to take a public school course. To comply with the law, she took the Little Rock School District's new digitally delivered one-semester civics course, along with her coursework from the Florida-based American Online High School.
The Little Rock district began offering a small number of online courses this year as required by Act 1280 of 2013, the Digital Learning Act.
The different Arkansas law that enables home-schooled students to participate in interscholastic activities -- which can include choir, band, debate and anything else governed by the Arkansas Activities Association -- is known as the Tim Tebow Law.
Introduced by state Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, the law is tagged for the Heisman Trophy-winning college quarterback for the University of Florida who was home-schooled but played public school football.
Arkansas had nearly 17,300 home-schooled students last school year, so the 85 who participated in public school activities make up a small percentage.
The Little Rock district has two home-schooled students participating in activities this year, Athletic Director John Daniels said.
The neighboring Pulaski County Special School District has five participants this year, down from eight last year. Three of those participants last year enrolled in public schools for this year, according to data from the district's health and pupil services division.
Porter has personally seen the change in the state's rules toward home-schoolers, dating back to his time as a superintendent in the small Bradley School District.
"A home-schooled student petitioned to play on one of our varsity teams," Porter recalled. "At the time, we didn't let him do it. It was tried, and it just wasn't a practice. They just didn't let them do it."
Russ Gray acknowledged that there are varying views about allowing home-schooled students to play public school sports. But he's for it.
"I don't think a student should be penalized if they want to be home-schooled, especially in a case of certain sports," he said. "High-level tennis players travel a lot. They can miss a lot of Fridays and Mondays for tournaments. The same is true for gymnastics and golf and bass fishing."
He said a tournament tennis player is likely to spend 20 to 25 hours a week on the tennis court and additional hours doing conditioning in the gym. That's more than football teams practice in a week, he said.
"It's not fair if a kid is talented in a sport and they can't play because they are restricted by their schools. Open it up. Let 'em go. There are no Friday Night Lights in tennis," he said, making a reference to a book about reverence held for high school football in Texas.
The Hall girls team, recently honored by the Little Rock School District board, has now been invited to participate in a tournament in Tucson, Ariz., in mid-June. The players plan to attend if they can raise the necessary funds.
Metro on 01/03/2015