Award-winning official Tracey Johnson finds joy in every match

November is Officials Appreciation Month, and USTA Heart of America is thrilled to shine the spotlight on the unsung heroes of our sport.

Longtime official Tracey Johnson was recently selected for the Outstanding Official Award for both USTA Missouri Valley and USTA Heart of America. With over 30 years of experience calling matches, she’s seen it all—of course the bad, but also the very, very good.

Originally from Indiana, Johnson, who serves as USTA Heart of America’s president, started playing tennis at a young age. She excelled in it as well as basketball and softball, which earned her a scholarship to the University of St. Francis as a three-sport athlete. Johnson earned Academic All-American honors in both tennis and softball.

After college Johnson moved to Massachusetts, where she taught at a high school and worked as their tennis coach. Two years into her roles at the school, she got involved with USTA New England for a position that was supposed to last for the summer. But it turned into a full-time career as the section’s league coordinator. From there, she became a certified official in 1992.

A Career of Highlights

In her more than three decades officiating, Johnson said she has called “everything from pro events to recreational events to college, and everything in between.” Her favorite matches to call, however, are juniors—and a particularly fun pro tournament.

“I always love to do any of the events that are local USTA Levels 1 through 5 for the juniors. But I also enjoyed getting the opportunity to do a Senior Tour tournament with some of the older tennis pros that had retired,” she said. “From the main draws, I got to do one of those with Courier and Chang and McEnroe and I think it was Lendl. That was pretty awesome to call lines for them. It was fun because they were just so funny.”

As an official, Johnson truly enjoys experiencing firsthand the joy tennis brings to so many.

“I love talking to various people when we’re not on court and hearing about how much they get out of tennis, how much they love it and their experiences with it,” she said. “It’s funny enough, I end up seeing different people all over the country that say, ‘Oh, you did my match,’ or something like that. Maybe I’m somewhat recognizable, I guess. Or I have many doppelgangers; we’re just not sure.”

In addition to officiating, Johnson serves on the USTA National Officials Committee, a subcommittee of the USTA board, and has done so for the past 10 years. It’s been illuminating for her to be at the table when changes to officiating are discussed.

“We’ve been able to discuss new rules and how they affect officiating or how they get implemented at the grassroots level,” Johnson said. “We’ve even had some discussions on the electronic line calling system. Our committee was asked for input as to how that would potentially fit in with rules and what might be the best suggestion for the USTA to think about when they’re doing rules and regulations with electronic line calling.”