DI families: Meet the Wilsons!
The milder temperatures of spring - and the Volvo Car Open - may have come and gone, but the game of tennis is in full swing year-round at the Family Circle Tennis Center, especially at the MW Tennis Academy.
The Daniel Island News recently sat down with the academy’s owner, Jeff Wilson, his wife Kim, who is the health and fitness coach at the academy, and son Reilly, 17, and daughter Susie Jane, 15. Both children, a rising high school senior and sophomore respectively, attend the academy’s co-operative online academic program, part of a rigorous, comprehensive training program readying them for the competitive college tennis circuit. Youngest son, Liam, 7, is a rising second grader at Daniel Island School who shares his family’s passion for - and ability on - the tennis court.
Q: Where are you from originally? How did you meet?
Jeff Wilson (JW): I’m from San Jose, California.
Kim Wilson (KW): I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.
JW: We just celebrated 19 years of marriage last month. We met at Georgia Tech where I was coaching tennis and Kim was fundraising for the college’s athletic department. Prior to that I had been working for IMG Sports Academy, where I was responsible for player recruitment and sports psychology in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Q: What brought you to Daniel Island? How long have you lived here?
JW: We moved to Daniel Island about four years ago. Of all the places I’ve been in the world, I can honestly say that the Charleston area, especially Daniel Island, is my favorite.
As a coach on the tennis tour, I was travelling 35-40 weeks every year; I was ready to spend more time with my family. Kim and I both wanted to find the right place to raise our children, so I leveraged the travelling piece of my job to look for the best places to raise a family. After coming to the Family Circle Cup and Volvo Car Open four years in a row, I realized that Daniel Island was the perfect place for us to live. Just driving around the island, seeing all the bikes everywhere – without locks on them! That said so much about how safe the community was.
KW: When the kids and I were able to come up for the FCC tournament one year to meet Jeff, I thought how wonderful this island is. It’s so perfect, so pretty. We knew we had to get here.
JW: I approached the team at the Family Circle Tennis Center about working there so that I could move my family to Daniel Island. They were very supportive.
Q: What’s the biggest draw for you about the community?
Daniel Island has that small town feeling I was looking for. For instance, I can just pick up the phone and call my personal banker at SunTrust. I love going into Publix and knowing people’s names. We have accessibility to every resource here: the dermatologist, the barber, the dentist…life on Daniel Island is perfect!
Q: What’s your favorite place to hang out?
Reilly Wilson (RW): The tennis center.
Susie Jane Wilson (SJW): We play tennis as much as we can, probably 20 hours every week.
JW: The kids’ lifestyle is built around the center from a school and training perspective. One of MW Tennis Academy’s missions was to create a club atmosphere where kids could be productive in a safe environment whether playing tennis, doing schoolwork or just having fun at a game of Pickleball.
RW: Other than the center, I like to go to the beach, like Isle of Palms or Sullivan’s. And fishing with my friends at Toomer Creek.
SJW: I like to spend time with my friends, either going to Pierce Park Pool or Scott Park Pool.
We also like to go shopping downtown!
JW: Kim and I play golf, here on Daniel Island and other places. We also do a lot of ‘staycations,’ largely because we do so much travelling for tournaments. This weekend we’re heading up to Virginia. We do sometimes go to Asheville, North Carolina for a week where we love to get out on the river and Pinehurst, also in North Carolina, where we have family - and Kim and I get to play a little golf.
What are some of your favorite restaurants, on and off Daniel Island?
SJW: I love going to Fire, an Asian street grill downtown that’s got really good Chinese food.
RW: Henry’s Jazz & Seafood
JW: And, of course, we love Hall’s - we do a lot of business with them at the center. There’s also Fleet Landing and 5Church. The list just goes on and on. Here on Daniel Island, Sermet’s is great. Marat, the bartender there, used to work for us at MW Tennis Academy.
We also love Dragon Palace.
Do you have any special traditions?
KW: Because we are so spread out for so much of the year, we try to take advantage of the holidays, like attending mass, participating in egg hunts at Easter and watching fireworks on the 4th of July. We try to take advantage of all the local things here on DI as much as possible, like looking at all the beautiful holiday lights or going to concerts at Smythe Park.
JW: It’s important to do special things as a family to build life-long memories that the kids will always have.
Do you plan to stay here on Daniel Island?
JW: Reilly is getting ready to attend the Naval Academy next year, where he’ll continue to play tennis competitively. Susie Jane will be heading off to college in a few years as well. We will probably downsize. We’d like to stay right in this neighborhood, if possible.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
KW: We’re all very competitive, so we live by a philosophy that in order to have a really happy life you have to be a problem solver. As a family, we talk about the best way to a solve the problem at hand all the time; We try to live in the solution as much as possible.
JW: Tennis is all about life skills - assessing and adjusting to every new situation, while staying as calm and composed as possible.
Do you prefer to cook at home or eat out?
KW: It’s a combination of both. I usually make grilled chicken, asparagus and brown rice. My kids think my cooking is bland but I call it ‘fuel.’ I’m very conscious about cooking nutritious meals, especially since I take care of the health and fitness of all the young players at the academy. Jeff firmly believes in the importance of off-court conditioning. With my passion for fitness, it was a natural fit for me to become a trainer at the Academy.
If you could describe life on Daniel Island in three words, what would they be?
Liam Wilson: One awesome island!
For more information about MW Tennis Academy contact: Jeff@mwtennisacademy.com or call 843-849-5306 or visit www.mwtennisacademy.com.