Our serve: what we're reading today:
Tennis facility a scholarship incubator?: Top tennis superstar Serena Williams says she's most proud of "expanding the definition of who a tennis player can be." But in Chicago, that expansion is a hard sell on the South Side, where a lack of facilities blocks access for black children in poorer communities. That's why reporter Ariel Cheung was pleased to read a New York Times magazine article about a new $12 million tennis center that could encourage a more diverse playing field (or, rather, court).
The XS Tennis Village will be built on the former site of the Robert Taylor Homes, once a public housing complex in the Douglas neighborhood not far from Sox Park. It will feature 12 indoor courts and 15 outdoor ones, including four of red clay. "Finding kids in the community is the future of U.S. tennis," says Kamau Murray, who is behind the project.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel tells the Times: "It's going to be literally a college-scholarship production facility." The city kicked in $2.9 million; the mayor contributed $5,000 and "wheedled far larger sums from his deep-pocketed friends."
Size Matters When It Comes to Family Planning: Half of Americans say two is the ideal number of children — and it's making them miserable. Or less happy than they could be, researchers say. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation published results of a study that suggests families with four or more children experience the greatest life satisfaction. Hear, hear, says reporter Patty Wetli, one of four tight-knit siblings herself. Parents who choose to buck the two-child trend — and the study indicates it is definitely a planned choice — had best be prepared for the eyebrows they'll raise. According to the ABC article: "Parents with many children described regularly being asked if they were Catholic, if they had a television and whether the children all had the same father." For the record, the Wetli family answers would be yes, yes and yes.
African Americans and church: Senior editor Andrew Herrmann, a former religion reporter, is reading that while the number of Christians is shrinking in the U.S., a number of young blacks are joining megachurches.
David Daniels III, a church history professor at Chicago's McCormick Theological Seminary, tells the Religion News Service, “In some cities, there are some congregations, often with younger pastors, either millennials or Gen-Xers, who’ve been able to develop ministries that are able to attract in their cohort group,” said Daniels.
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