Father Time apparently wasn\u2019t invited to the latest party at the Key Biscayne Tennis Association, where members celebrated the 89th birthday of former club president John Rivella.<\/p>\n
It was a party where ID certainly wasn\u2019t required, as a host of AARP eligible people sang the praises of the guest of honor.<\/p>\n
Jack McGuire, a super competitive Irishmen, looked around the patio deck of the KBTA clubhouse watching members feast on barbecue and side dishes while sipping perfectly made virgin Pe\u00f1a Colada\u2019s. The longtime club member talked about the positive energy at The Tennis Association and how he and Rivella can beat anybody in their age group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about the camaraderie here,\u201d McGuire said. \u201cEverybody is from all over the world, we\u2018re playing tennis, we get along and we love to have a little … well, we enjoy the Pina colada.<\/p>\n
Rivella is a fixture at KBTA.<\/p>\n
He served as president of the organization for 14-years before passing the position on to current President Jon Garito.<\/p>\n
Sitting on a bench under the shade of a tree, Rivella shared cocktails and laughs with dozens of people who stopped by to wish him well. The longtime snowbird, who splits time in New York City, is a non-stop jokester who downplayed how much he means to people at KBTA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not important,\u201d he said, faking seriousness. \u201cThey\u2019d do it anyway, they just use me as an excuse to have a party. Now I gotta clean it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Rivella in action.<\/p>\n
Rivella is not only the former president of the club, he also serves as a volunteer maintenance worker whose work ethic and dedication has earned the respect of his colleagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI planted all these palm trees you see here,\u201d he said. \u201cThe big ones you see, I planted 30 years ago. They were just little pups.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rivella reminisced about his KBTA journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2013 when I took over we had $277 in checking and we had a $5,000 monthly payroll,\u201d he remembered. \u201c Fortunately Miami-Dade came along with IMG and helped us out. Andrew Kaplan and Jon Garito did some negotiating on KBTA\u2019s behalf and we have what we have today. At the present time we\u2019re very happy with the way things are going. We have probably 80 members and I think we are one of the most successful non profit public tennis clubs in south Florida. It\u2019s the right thing in the right place at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garito talked about the guest of honor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI affectionately call him the bull,\u201d Garito said. \u201cHe is not afraid to do the heavy lifting, actually he prefers to do it. He is involved in everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe tells the maintenance guy, \u2018just stand there and watch me.\u2019\u201d Garito said. \u201cHe physically is in incredible shape, I\u2019m in awe of the things he does \u2026 from fixing leaking sprinkler heads to putting new water fountains together. And he\u2019s a good tennis player, he moves around the court really well. He\u2019ll play two or three sets of tennis and then say, \u201cI gotta stop, I have some repairs I gotta do.\u201d Then he\u2019ll go in the back and start working for hours on some project he\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the early afternoon started to wind-down, and Rivella blew-out his candles and cut the cake presented to him by his well wishers.<\/p>\n
Miami resident, Ana Novak, smiled and said something a lot of people were probably thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be like him if I get to 89,\u201d she said. \u201dHe\u2019s just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Father Time apparently wasn\u2019t invited to the latest party at the Key Biscayne Tennis Association, where members celebrated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[71309,110819,126,53945,71308,123,125,124],"class_list":["post-254497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-community-members","tag-john-rivella","tag-key-biscayne","tag-key-biscayne-tennis-association","tag-local-people","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}