In December, USTA Southern California welcomed entries into its first Black History Month “Design a Tee-Shirt” contest. The criteria was simple – reflect the message of the month’s celebration while still incorporating the sport of tennis. From a variety of entrants, Irvine’s Rishi Vridhachalam submitted the winning design. A junior at Portola High School, Vridhachalam competes on his school’s tennis team, where the squad will look to defend its CIF title from one year ago.

Vridhachalam credits his time serving on the section’s Youth Leadership Council as the initial inspiration for his design, followed by incorporating a cultural color palette and terms that have significance both in the telling of Black History and on the tennis court.

“I wanted to combine the imagery of the colors of Africa, the red, the yellow and the black,” he said. “I wanted to combine that with the imagery from tennis. So, words like ‘love’, ‘serve’, and ‘challenge’. The first thing that popped to mind was the ‘Love All,’ because that’s like something you say a lot (in tennis) and that really stuck in my head.”

Vridhachalam added “Serve” and “Challenge” to the message, developing a final design that spoke to the Black community as well as the tennis world.

“I have designed a few things like logos and stuff for some classes,” said the prospective History major. “But I’ve never actually designed a shirt or anything like that kind of scale.”

The dedicated student-athlete will now shift his attention back to classes, competition, and his role as President of the Youth Leadership Council, a role for which he has great respect.

“I feel like after joining I grew so much as a person as a leader,” Vradhachalam said. “I’ve been with the (Council) for two years now, and we do a lot of work there. Our main goal is trying to get racquets and equipment to minorities and lower income areas. So I think that kind of motivated me.”

As for his upcoming season, Vradhachalam believes his team can repeat at CIF champions after earning the program’s very first championship one year ago. “We have some good freshmen,” he said. “We did lose some seniors, but we’ve got some good new players.”

Portola opens their spring campaign on March 1 at home against Aliso Niguel.

The BHM tee shirts emblazoned with Vridhachalam’s design will be distributed in February to area NJTL and community groups throughout Southern California.

The post Irvine junior inspires with Council leadership, message of love for Black History Month appeared first on USTA.