by Olivia Janis
I had the opportunity to interview former tennis star, successful businessman, and LGBTQ advocate, Brian Vahaly. Mr. Vahaly currently lives in Washington DC with his husband and twin sons.
Perhaps the most important item on his resume? He graduated from Lovett in 1997.
Mr. Vahaly went to public school for his first seven years of education. Transferring from public to private school was a challenge he says.
“The academic push was exceptionally challenging but I will say I had an awesome time on the sports side,” he says.
While the social aspect of school was fun, he recalls not enjoying being pushed academically. “But once I went to college and entered the business world I realized how important it was for me to have my kids be at a school similar to Lovett,” he says.
Mr. Vahaly’s favorite classes at Lovett were English, Spanish, American civics, and typing. “It all comes down to the teacher,” he says.
One of the more important classes that helped Mr. Vahaly for the future was English class. “Being a good and effective communicator is far and away the most important skill you can have going into the real world,” he says. “I didn’t like English but I had great teachers who taught me how to communicate so that by far is number one.”
Typing class gave Mr. Vahaly a skill that he finds extremely useful and helpful because technology plays such a big role in our lives.
At Lovett, Mr. Vahaly played varsity tennis all four years of high school.
Winning the state championship and playing against Westminster were some of his highlights of being on the team.
“Any time you can beat your rivals it’s awesome and anytime you can win a state is awesome,” he says. “Every year except for one the Lovett tennis team won the state championship. Unfortunately, the year they did not win Mr. Vahaly was playing the Italian Open in Rome.
As a committed tennis player in and out of school, balancing academics and athletics was very important; however, according to Mr. Vahaly it was extremely difficult.
“There were many late nights,” he says. “I would leave the school, train for 2 to 3 hours after school, and I would stay up till 11:30 studying for tests. It’s all about multitasking and making it happen.”
Another big piece of Mr. Vahaly’s identity is LGBTQ advocacy. He says while at Lovett, “We probably knew one of the kids were gay but we never discussed it with each other. Certainly not in the chapel, or in a classroom. There was no LGBTQ group. It was a very conservative time back then- not necessarily at Lovett but in society.”
After high school, Mr. Vahaly went to college at the University of Virginia where he played tennis, and he graduated with a degree in finance and business management.
Mr. Vahaly’s tennis journey began when he was two. He played junior tournaments up until he was 18 when he then played national and international tennis. After hearing about all time he committed to becoming great at tennis, I was intrigued if he always knew being a professional tennis player was what he wanted to do.
“To assume that you could be a professional athlete when the odds are less than a 10th of a percent is hard to really believe that it is possible,” he says. “For me, tennis was about getting an opportunity at getting a better education. Playing at a Duke or a Virginia was very much my aspiration.”
Mr.Vahaly says that once he got to college he then wanted to see if he had what it took to be a pro athlete.
“To be honest, being a kid under six feet growing up in Roswell, Georgia, it just felt ridiculous that I would be able to play on the courts of Wimbledon against the best,” he says.
But to his surprise, he ended up in the quarterfinals of the 2003 Indian Wells Masters defeating number one player Juan Carlos Ferrero. Mr. Vahaly shared with me some of the hard work he had to put in order to achieve these accomplishments.
Mr.Vahaly had to train 5 hours a day both in the gym and on the court.
While he acknowledges that there is glamour to competing in world-class tournaments,“ he pointed out that “the volume and amount of work that it takes to get there is really hard especially when you think of the thousands of people competing against you and want a shot as well. ”It is a wonderful experience but it’s really hard.”
By committing so much time to tennis, he missed opportunities in high school, like prom, graduation, over 40 days of school per year, and social time with his friends.
“It was hard to miss the time in the classroom, time with my friends, and I never had a spring break or summer break,” he says. “It was always filled with tennis. Ultimately it was a sacrifice I was willing to make to be good at tennis.”
Now that he has his own children, I wondered if he was interested in them playing tennis. “I certainly don’t want to put any pressure on them based on what I was able to accomplish in tennis,” he says. He wants to expose his children to a lot of sports, such as tennis, golf, gymnastics, kung fu, and T-ball. “You name it and I want them to play it. I want them to understand what it means to have a commitment to a sport and try to be great at it. I don’t need them to be a college athlete but I think there’s a lot of great lessons to learn in sports.” Ultimately, he wants them to choose what they love most, even though he “would certainly love it” if they played tennis.
His advice for aspiring tennis players could be applied to all athletes: “Focus less on the results in your junior days and more about the process and getting better every day. I think sometimes we focus more on winning or losing instead of getting better. That’s really important because you can get burned out. That’s a lot of pressure you can put on yourself if you expect and demand to win every time – it takes a lot of fun out of the game.”
After he said this, I let him know that his advice resonated with me, a young tennis player. He laughed and said “good.”
After leaving the pro tour, Mr. Vahaly became the CEO of YouFit, a national chain of fitness clubs. He said it took him a while to find his passion after his sport, but eventually, he liked the private equity and capital space. Mr. Vahaly said that his Lovett and college experience helped prepare him business-wise. In addition to those experiences, his tennis experience also helped teach him about leadership.
Some advice Mr. Vahaly has for future entrepreneurs: “You really want to find something that you not only love but you feel like you have a unique ability and passion for that allows you to see it differently.
He went on to say that being an entrepreneur is not just about not having a boss and that most times when you have a boss you can learn a lot from them.
“I would encourage people when you choose your job to choose your boss,” he says.
But for students who think they ultimately want to “do something on their own, he said they must have “a high risk tolerance and understand you will be staring at failure a lot, but you really have to believe in yourself and believe in what you think is missing a product out there.”
In terms of his journey as an LGBTQ advocate, he said he was not out as an athlete. He said it’s very difficult to be an out athlete, especially in an international sport like tennis where it is illegal to be gay in other countries. Later, he got more comfortable with his identity, and he got married. “But I never talked about it more publicly until I had children,” he says. “I felt a sense of responsibility to them and my family to make it an easier space for them. And this for me took me out of my comfort zone. I am very much an introvert but you’re willing to make yourself uncomfortable for your kids.”
He better understands the impact his advocacy could have “in society and as a result in 15 years when my kids are in high school and college they will have a better country to be in.”
Mr. Vahaly encourages kids to come out when they are ready because it all depends on family, community, and how they feel.
“For me when I came out I received a lot of negative backlash,” he says. “As an athlete I’m used to receiving negative backlash, so it’s fine that people are entitled to their opinions, but I’m only going to give time, energy, and respect to opinions that I respect. But that took me a long time and a lot of growing up to learn that.”
