By PAMELA DEY VOSSLER / photos by BAMBI RIEGEL | riegelpictureworks.com
Karl Levanat, Director of Racquets at the Country Club of Darien (CCD), is a lucky guy. And he knows it. Winner of the 45+ American Platform Tennis Association (APTA) Nationals in 2020, an in-demand coach through his work at CCD and the Springbok Paddle Camp he co-founded in 2014, head of a thriving racquets program at CCD, Tournament Director for two of the most successful APTA National Tournaments ever, nationally-recognized mentor for aspiring racquets professionals, happily married, father of three, self-made guy from South Africa, and universally liked …just try to find anyone with a bad word to say about him—Karl also knows luck is not an accident, or random.
He knows you make your own luck, spinning it from gratitude, a willingness to do what it takes, and from the kind of indelible positivity that can get you through most anything.
Starting with coming to the United States as an 18-year-old South African with barely more than the money it took to get here in his pocket. A talented junior tennis player who’d taught tennis to elementary school kids in high school on Saturday mornings to earn money to come to America (sparking what would become his calling), Karl landed a job a Dennis Van Der Meer’s Tennis Center on Hilton Head Island.
His aim? Find a college, which he did, with a partial scholarship to play tennis at Lander University in Greenwood, SC, waiting tables and returning to Van Der Meer each summer to make ends meet.
“Loving tennis as much as I did, I wanted to come to America to get a tennis scholarship; It was the best of both worlds—to get an education while still competing in a sport I loved. It is a goal of many South Africans to come to America and having heard about it from a young age, I was committed to making it happen,” said Karl.
“You do what you have to do,” he continued. “It’s not that my parents wouldn’t have made sacrifices in South Africa to make it happen for me but they’d done so much in 18 years of my life. I thought, you know what? It’s time for me to do this on my own,” said Karl.
After two years, low on cash and planning a return to South Africa to regroup, the Van Der Meers stepped in with a loan. A full ride to play tennis at the University of Central Oklahoma followed. There he earned a degree in accounting, All-American honors and the Division II championship with his team.
“I feel very lucky because things tend to always work out. You know, my wife hates this saying,” said Karl, referring to Amy, a senior director with WTW who he married in 2005 and with whom he is raising three children in Fairfield, “but I’ll say ‘Ams, if you worry, you die. If you don’t worry, you still die. So why worry?’”
“Life isn’t perfect, so I adjust to the challenges that are presented to me and I don’t let things get me bogged down. I’m very positive. I don’t complain. I’m so grateful for everything that I have and that’s happened to me over the years,” said Karl.
It’s a spin that was put sorely to the test. Twice. Within the space of 18 months. When Karl was diagnosed with metastatic cancer in 2003. No doctor, no health insurance, mid-application for his Green Card, he was not yet even 30 years old. Though you’d not know it to talk to Karl or anyone around him at the time.
“His attitude towards it was phenomenal,” said Faycal Rhazali, Director of Racquets at Tokeneke Club, Karl’s close friend and partner in that 45+ Nationals win, and also his co-worker at Darien’s King’s Highway Tennis Club (KHTC) where they were both teaching tennis when Karl went through his first treatment—12 weeks consisting of three rounds of one full week of out-patient chemo, eight hours a day, Monday through Friday followed by two weeks off in early 2003. And again in 2004 when the cancer returned and he went through another 12 weeks of the same treatment— this time as a patient in the Bennett Cancer Center at Stamford Hospital, and ultimately surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering, complete with the 72 staples needed to close him back up.
“From day one (after surgery), it was how can I push forward because there’s no use feeling sorry for myself. It wouldn’t get me anywhere,” said Karl, as self-effacing as he is positive.
“It was very inspiring. You couldn’t tell that he was dealing with such things,” continued Faycal. “He kept an incredible positive attitude. …I mean, deep down, I’m sure it was tough. But he made everybody feel like ‘I can deal with this.’ He’s a tremendous fighter inside. He persevered through it,” he added.
“It was more of a challenge the second time around because I knew what to expect,” said Karl who still tried to go to work as often as possible in his two weeks off during treatment at KHTC where he had been hired to teach tennis in January 2000 after graduating from college in May 1999. “(But) you just try and be as positive as you can,” he continued, crediting his “huge support system” for helping him through, including Amy (who was just a friend at the time), the membership of the Noroton Yacht Club (NYC) where he was the summer director of racquets in 2003 and 2004, and KHTC.
NYC members Abby Daley and Tory Crane spearheaded local fundraising efforts along with KHTC’s General Manager Jeff Gocke and the teaching pros there who organized a pro exhibition to help cover Karl’s medical expenses. Meg Specha and Patti Taylor from KHTC arranged meals to make sure Karl and his mom, who had come from South Africa to care for her son, could focus on his treatment.
Now, 20 years later, you’d still never know about Karl’s journey and fight, unless you asked him. He’s candid, straightforward, self-deprecating and, would you believe, funny recalling some of the more absurd aspects of the experience—his signature humor on full display.
“If I can make somebody smile, that’s mission accomplished. For me, humor is the best medicine,” said Karl, cancer-free since his last round of treatment in 2004.
It’s the same humor he uses to put players of all levels at ease when he’s teaching. It, coupled with his knowledge of the game and ability to “read a court,” is what places him amongst the most in-demand paddle and tennis teaching professionals.
It helps when your job is your passion. “It’s easy to go to work every day because I love what I do,” said Karl of teaching. “I love the membership that I work with and am grateful for the many families I have worked with over the years at CCD. In addition, I have a great team, and great colleagues. I am incredibly fortunate,” he added.
It helps too when your understanding of teaching is as innate as Karl’s is. “You can’t teach everybody the exact same way,’” said Karl who came to CCD in 2006, the same year he earned his APTA certification with Paddle Hall of Famer Patty Hogan. Working with Patty and Wee Burn Country Club’s legendary Head Paddle Pro Bob Callaway, also a Paddle Hall of Famer, Karl refined his knowledge and love of paddle.
“(Paddle) is a different mentality,” said Macie Medieros, Director of Racquets at Rolling Hills Country Club in Wilton, who worked for Karl at CCD from 2017 to 2022, describing all she learned from him as he helped her translate the elite tennis ability that took her through college tennis at Southern Methodist University in Dallas into a sport she’d never heard of before arriving on Karl’s staff—as both a teacher and a player.
“He gave me a tremendous solid foundation for the sport,” said Macie who went on to drill with him weekly, sharpening skills that helped her land her present position as well as an APTA National Championship in 2020 and her current APTA ranking of #5 in the country.
“Even now, I’ve done a few different drill sessions with him this year, even though I don’t work for him anymore. He’s like a second father to me,” said Macie, commenting on a closeness cemented by the mentoring Karl gives to all staff members who decide to pursue a career running racquets programs.
“I want to run the best program I can for CCD and its membership. (An important part of that is) hiring the right staff,” said Karl.
He looks for pros with passion, drive, determination; pros who care, those willing to do whatever it takes. Pros with a positive attitude and an ability to read their students. Pros like him, though he would never say so, astoundingly humble as this guy is.
“If I get those with me that are passionate, my goal is to mentor them to become directors,” he continued.
“Everyone knows Karl’s one of the best mentors and teachers around,” said Macie. “He’s one of the most selfless people I think I have known,” she added.
“He is firstly my mentor and my boss but then also I see him as a brother, and a father,” said Bernard Schoeman who took the Director of Racquets job at Elk Ridge Country Club in Baltimore after 11 years with Karl at CCD. “Everything that I know about teaching and how to be a successful director is totally due to him,” he added.
“Karl has distinguished himself, not just by running one of the top racquets programs in New England, but by mentoring his assistant pros to do the same,” said longtime CCD member and six-year CCD Board member Dirk Dunlap, also a racquets enthusiast. “He takes particular and deserved pride in the fact that, when the CCD pros move on, they go to head racquets positions and have the skills to lead their own dynamic programs. Few people have influenced club racquet sports in our region as much as Karl,” he added.
“Karl has a very good work ethic. He’s very much a perfectionist. You should see him in front of an excel sheet,” said Macie, originally an accounting major, like Karl. “The lines all have to match,” she continued, laughing. “And unfortunately he passed that on to me and so I was just doing something for my event yesterday and I saw something and thought, ‘Darn it Karl, I could have let this go before. Now I can’t. Now it bothers me.”
It’s a meticulous, organized approach that carries over to his own style of competing.
“He is nearly a perfectionist on the paddle court which makes him highly competitive,” said Faycal who competed with Karl in tournaments for eight years. “Always the first thing that comes out his mouth is, ‘Hey partner, what’s the plan?’ I think he carries that over with him in his daily life. He’s a highly organized guy.”
And when they would go down in a match?
“Many times we would find ourselves sucked into playing the opponent’s game. We went away from the plan and (Karl) quickly would pull me aside and say ‘Faycal, we gotta get back and find our game, find the plan’ and somehow, miraculously we’ve had some really good wins against some top five teams in the nation,” said Faycal.
To Karl, who readily owns up to nervousness in competition, “It’s remembering what you can control. You can control your own actions for the most part and self-talk is extremely important in keeping you in the moment—positivity versus negativity, temper tantrum versus calm,” he said, “and not letting the inner voice and the demons over power what you have,” he added.
“It’s not easy, obviously. I wasn’t positive all the time. But that was how I tried to keep positive, and problem solve. You’ve got to make adjustments, whether it’s paddle, tennis or life,” he continued, exposing a humble confidence, a product of his strict but loving upbringing, something he and Amy, are imparting to their children, Luke – 15, Owen – 13 and daughter Chloe – 11.
“I am who am I today because of my Dad,” said Karl of his father who emigrated to South Africa from Croatia with his family after surviving first-hand encounters with the Germans during WWII. “He didn’t make millions. He was just a hard worker and he was able to provide for everything he could for my mom, my sister and I. He was and is my role model. That he made it happen,” added Karl, a devoted, family-first father in his own right whose favorite way to unwind is to watch his kids in their sports and extracurriculars.
While not always easy to balance his role as coach and parent, especially with Luke who has won three Junior Paddle National championships with partner Omar Rhazali (yes, Faycal’s son), Karl takes pride in placing his role as parent first. That’s why Luke knows paddle, like life, requires discipline.
He also knows, as do his siblings, the rules in Karl and Amy’s home today: Be kind, be humble, be gracious, be grateful; always shake hands, look people in the eyes, talk confidently, work hard …and no screens before homework, no phones before bed or school, help with the laundry, make your bed, unpack your lunch box and brush and walk Granite, the family’s German shepherd. They are rules the kids describe as “strict but a good strict.”
“It’s those small things that seem like small things but they end up being huge,” said Karl.
Above all, Karl’s life of optimism, sights set outside himself, pursuing his passions and comfort in his own skin born of a strong faith tradition given to him by his parents is one of gratitude.
“I’m not one that looks and says the grass is always greener on the other side. I look at what I have and I’m like ‘Wow! my grass is quite green! How lucky am I? Let’s keep it watered!’” said Karl.
“He works very, very hard but he also always has said ‘Never chase the money in life. That never gets you anywhere. You have to chase what you love with a passion and if you chase what you love as a passion and your goal is to do right by others, everything else will take care of itself,’” said Macie of Karl.
For this guy who looks at his bruises and sees a story to tell, an experience to share, who’s driven to give his all in everything, spots gratitude all around him …who drinks a cup half full no matter what, and shares it with all who cross his path each day, truly, there is no better spin.
