world’s finest female tennis players. When the Cup left Hilton Head in 2001 and embraced its brand-new facility – built
I
from scratch in just 10 months – a young but already well-traveled golf enthusiast and casual tennis fan from Walden, New York, went along for the ride. Bob Moran, now 42, is in his fourth year as general manager of the Family Circle Tennis Center. He worked his way to the top well after Charleston officials lured the tournament to the island on the northeast side of the city. “I started out doing odd jobs in Hilton Head,” Moran explained. “Lisa Tomas, the director of the Family Circle Cup at the time, had sold me on coming to South Carolina.”
Bob Moran
T’S BEEN MORE THAN A DECADE SINCE THE FAMILY CIRCLE CUP BROKE UP ITS marriage with Hilton Head Island, headed north to Daniel Island, escaped the shadow of the Heritage golf tournament and set out to make its own unique mark in the wide world of sports. Today, it is one of the Lowcountry’s most prestigious sporting events – rivaled
only by the Cooper River Bridge Run – drawing tens of thousands of spectators and another 8 million television viewers during a nine-day event featuring the
The Family Circle Tennis Center is much more than a tennis facility. Left: Hootie and the Blowfish perform
every year at the Center. Below: The Center hosted the 2011 Komen Lowcountry Race for the Cure.
ERS AND MORE Tennis Center
Moran moved south from Walden, a village of 6,978 people on the Wallkill River, to play college golf at Elon University in North Carolina. He also has lived in San Diego and Chicago but speaks of the Holy City as if it might be his last stop.
“Charleston is such a beautiful city, and the people here
are great,” he said. “I enjoy nothing more than bringing clients into town. We have a great home-court advantage.” Tose clients include people outside the world of ten- nis. Te facility Moran runs is the center of the women’s professional tennis universe during the nine days of the Family Circle Cup, but it isn’t exactly dormant the rest of the year. In addition to providing lessons and host- ing leagues and various forms of competition for tennis players of all ages, the Family Circle Tennis Center hosts concerts and other events, and Moran is constantly
seeking new ways to use the stadium. “We’re busy. We’ve evolved from just doing the Family
Circle Cup to being an event management team,” he commented. “We want to grow our business and our revenue streams. Our mission is to bring value to this community, and we’re always looking at opportunities to do just that.” An impressive list of musical acts have performed at the
Family Circle Tennis Center, including Te Black Crowes; Don Henley; Sugarland; Al Green; Daryl Hall and John Oates; the Zac Brown Band; Boyz II Men; Train; and hometown hero Darius Rucker and his band, Hootie and the Blowfish, who put on a benefit concert every year. Moran said he would like the Center to host 10 to 12 concerts a year.
continued on page 78
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Mike Saia
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