Ginny Graybiel

Newly Elected NWTO Treasurer

Heidi Clemmer’s life has always included tennis. Before she was born. When she was a toddler. When she was in school. In college. During her extended business career, though not as much as before or after. Now, even as her health has temporarily sidelined her from the courts, the National Women’s Tennis Organization is counting on her as its new treasurer.

By the time, Heidi was born in 1956, her dad, Frank “Buddy” Goeltz, the self-taught, fiercely competitive pro at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Md., from 1938 until 1971 had already put her four older siblings on the road to tennis success and had coached three students to Boys Junior National Championships in 1948, 1949 and 1951.

Heidi grew up knowing how respected her father was as a coach and the caliber of his opponents: Fred Perry, Bill Tilden, Don Budge and other luminaries. 

But only now that she is a senior herself does she marvel at what her father achieved after retiring at 65. He dominated the senior circuit, winning 49 gold balls, including two grand slams -- singles and doubles on hard, indoor, clay and grass courts – first in 1971, again in 1976. Heidi proudly wears one of the gold balls today.

Yet Heidi never had her father’s or her siblings’ deep commitment to tennis. Still, when she was in second grade, her dad began picking her up at school and taking her to the club. “We all just effectively grew up at Columbia Country Club,” she said. “Between being there to play and just being there to help my dad and watch the shop.”

She played her first tournament when she was 12 and continued tournaments through her teens. “I was kind of like I am now  – fair to middlin’,” she recalled. “My brothers used to tease me: ‘How do you think you’re going to get good --through osmosis?’ I practiced but I wasn’t one of those kids who was going to beat up the world. I didn’t have aspirations of Wimbledon.” 

But she did aspire to the high school tennis team. One match stands out: She asked an opponent standing nearby: “’Are you No.2?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah.’ I said ‘Well, OK, you’re playing me.’ Then he looks at me and says, ‘No, I’m not.’ I was like ‘You don’t want to play a girl?’ I ended up playing the No. 1 guy, and I beat him.”

She also ended up lettering for four years, winning the senior Sportswoman of the Year award (she also played volleyball and basketball) and going on to Mary Baldwin College. For four years, she played No. 1 or No. 2 at the Virginia college known for its powerhouse tennis and where an older sister also played.

After graduating cum laude with a double major in economics and sociology, Heidi embarked on an intense business career. It included working for a bank, a publishing company, the Bureau of National Affairs that reported on print and electronic information, a NASA consulting firm, and a contractor for the National Security Agency. She walked out of the working world with a Top Secret security clearance.

“For the most part, I took about a 25-year hiatus from tennis,” she said. “Occasionally, I’d play in a scramble, but I didn’t effectively play,” save for winning a 35-and-over Mid-Atlantic Clay Court doubles title with her sister, Suzanne Parrott.

Then, in her late 40s, she got a call from her friend, Greg Sullivan, the man to whom she’s now engaged.

“He said, ‘How’s your tennis?’ I said, ‘What tennis? I don’t play anymore. I have two kids (Jill and Daniel) and I work full time.  I don’t have time for it.’ He was like ‘Something’s wrong with this picture.’”

Pretty soon, Heidi decided to play again. “Someone said, ‘What are you rated?’ I didn’t know. They didn’t have ratings when I played.” She self-rated at 3.5. One of her brothers laughed heartily at that understatement. Six months later, she was a 4.0. Six months later, a 4.5.

Soon, she decided “to see how bad I was” in a national tournament. She settled on the National Women’s Grass Court Championships in Philadelphia, where she won a round or two and was overjoyed to see several old friends from college tennis.

In 2017, after the unexpected and heart-breaking death of sister Suzanne from lung cancer, Heidi retired. Friends thought she’d be bored. Far from it. Since then, she’s traveled back and forth between her hometown of Damestown, Md., and Flagler Beach, Fla., where her fiancée owns a condo.

For the past 11 years, Heidi has been passionate about her service as treasurer of Christ Lutheran Church in Bethesda. It hasn’t been easy. The church sold its property, rented space for its worship services, and set up a significant endowment that continues the ministry and supports local needs such as food pantries, ministry camps and hospice.

Heidi kept her friend, NWTO Co-President Joan Oelschlager, up on the twists, turns and challenges of leading the church’s financial efforts for more than a decade, so much so that a bell went off in Joan’s head that Heidi had expertise to serve up.

“I guess the NWTO was looking for a treasurer and Joanie said, ‘Well maybe Heidi will do it,’” Heidi recounted. “I was like ‘Sure!’ All these years I couldn’t do stuff because I was raising a family and I was working full time. My philosophy now is ‘I’m done.’ I’m retired. It’s my turn to step up.”

She began her new role in February. Though a spinal issue kept her off the courts, she traveled to the National Senior Women’s Clay Court Championships in Houston at the end of the month to attend the NWTO annual meeting and begin getting a handle on her new duties.

”Lord willing, I have nothing but time,” she said. “So it’s play tennis, do good, support organizations, support my church and support the NWTO.”