By Tracy Gupton

When Columbia High School inducts four new members of its prestigious Athletics Hall of Honor Friday night at Griggs Field, Teddy DiBlasi will be the youngest of the quartet. DiBlasi graduated high school in 2003 with current Roughnecks Head Football Coach and Athletics Director Earnest Pena. His sister Giselle, who now lives in Tampa, Florida, is a 1998 CHS grad while older brother Jonathan was a senior in 2001 when Teddy was a sophomore. Jonathan now lives in Iowa while their mother resides in Atlanta, Georgia. So, Teddy’s family will be flying into Houston from all directions to attend his Friday night Hall of Honor induction ceremony.

Calvin Phillips, Jonathan Champagne and Kim Welsch Blank will be joining Teddy DiBlasi on the football field at halftime of Friday night’s district matchup between longtime rivals the Roughnecks and Sweeny Bulldogs. Columbia High School Superintendent Steven Galloway invites the public to attend a Meet-And-Greet session at 5 p.m. Friday in the new high school library where Teddy will be joined by current Brazoswood High School girls soccer coach Kim Blank and longtime CBISD school board member Jonathan Champagne. Family members of the late Calvin Phillips, a former head boys basketball coach and assistant football coach of the Roughnecks, will also be on hand for the Meet-And-Greet session.

As a senior at Columbia High School in 2003, Teddy DiBlasi headed into his fourth state tournament as the highest ranked tennis player in the draw but fell short of advancing to the championship match by a few points. Teddy is being honored with induction into the Roughnecks Hall of Honor for qualifying for the state tennis tournament all four years he was a student at Columbia High School.

Teddy and his wife, Lucy, and their daughters, 4-year-old Emmy and one-year-old Eden, now reside in Houston.

Twice Teddy advanced to the semifinals at the state tournament, his sophomore and senior years, playing tennis for the Roughnecks. The only four losses in his high school career, Teddy says, occurred at the state tournaments where Teddy was eliminated in the first round as a freshman and junior but came up one win short of playing for the state championship the other two years.

He said as a sophomore at the state tennis tournament, “I left it all on the table and gave it all I had. I just got outplayed” in the semifinals round. Teddy claims he felt more pressure in his senior year due to the fact it was his last opportunity to win a state singles tennis title for his high school.

“I learned life lessons from that match. Still to this day that experience speaks to me. I had to deal with the frustration of not playing my best,” Teddy said of his 2003 ouster from the state tennis tournament in the semifinal round. “It’s not how you play, it’s about finding a way to compete, how you approach each new opponent!”

Teddy DiBlasi, the son of Kathy and the late Theodore DiBlasi, was Columbia High School’s tennis most valuable player three of the four years he was a student here. Teddy now serves as the general manager of Life Time Galleria Tennis in Houston where he not only manages the business but also serves as a tennis instructor.

He was awarded a college scholarship to play tennis at Texas Tech University. Teddy says with pride that he was third on the Red Raiders’ all-time doubles ranking at the time of his graduation in 2007. He earned a degree in financial planning at Texas Tech and worked in that career field briefly before entering the private club industry as a tennis pro. The former Columbia Lakes resident played tennis all four years he attended college in Lubbock.

Teddy is also proud of the fact that he was the tennis team captain for Texas Tech his senior year. Among his accomplishments on the tennis courts during his college days were competing in the Sweet 16 tournament in doubles at Texas A&M University in 2005 and winning the last doubles match he competed in with teammate Dimitrio Martinez at the NCAA Regional Tournament against UCLA in Los Angeles in 2007. The highest team ranking Texas Tech achieved during Teddy’s four years playing tennis there was ninth in the country. The Red Raiders reached the NCAA championships two out of the four years Teddy was a student/athlete at Texas Tech University.

Teddy DiBlasi competed as an amateur on the pro tennis tour during the years he was a student at Texas Tech.

“I consider myself more of a counter puncher on the court, like a boxer,” Teddy told former Facts Sports Editor Joel Luna in a 2006 interview. “At this point of my career, I am looking for more strategy experience, like where to hit the right shots and just trying to be smarter on the court.

“All three years that I’ve been here (at Texas Tech) we’ve been ranked,” DiBlasi said in the 2006 interview. “In my freshman year, we were around the 50s (in the nation), and last year we reached a number nine ranking and finished 12th overall.” In his sophomore season in Lubbock, the Red Raiders tennis team made it to the Sweet 16 before bowing out.

Luna wrote about DiBlasi in that 2006 Facts story, “When he graduated from Columbia, Teddy was ranked in the Top 10 in the state and was in the Top 150 in the nation. During his years as a Roughneck, he was a district and regional champ and qualified for the state tennis tournament each year. DiBlasi placed third in state twice.”

Reflecting on his high school days in West Columbia, Teddy said the camaraderie he experienced being on the tennis team under the leadership of coaches Charlie Brand, Kelly Wright and Brian Lane is a memory he will always cherish. “The history of great success in tennis at this school under Coach Brand” provided motivation for him to succeed at the highest level. “Being a Roughneck tennis player, representing the school was a game changing experience for me.”

The late Charlie Brand retired as Columbia High School’s tennis coach after Teddy’s junior year. Coach Brand, who was inducted into the Roughnecks Hall of Honor in 2007, had 44 years of coaching tennis at CHS to brag about. Teddy DiBlasi, current Roughnecks head football coach Earnest Pena and two others were the first recipients of the Charlie Brand Scholarships handed out that first year following Coach Brand’s retirement.

“Playing tennis was an outlet for me, a huge passion of mine,” Teddy recalls the motivating factor behind his success on the tennis courts. “I was always super competitive!”

And if Coach Brand was here to witness Friday night’s halftime ceremony at Griggs Field, he would be just as proud of Teddy DiBlasi joining him in the Roughnecks Hall of Honor as he was when his state singles champions Bobby Farmer, Van Manning, Joe Langner, Clark Woodson and Kelley Hay were inducted in past Hall of Honor ceremonies.