City Kids Caught up in a Good ''Racket''

School is almost out in the Capital Region and parents are racking their brains over what their kids will do with themselves until September.  With all the stories about young people getting into trouble in the ''downtime'', Jerry Gretzinger found something in Albany that's free and fun, and can keep kids out of harm's way.

And it's a program that's serving up aces.

It may seem obvious that something called 15 Love is about learning tennis skills.

But what's not so obvious is that instructors spend more time on life skills.  The organization offers free tennis lessons to children and includes something they call ''off court'', where they assemble all the kids to talk about drugs, money, education, and family.

15 year old Djuan Blakemore of Watervliet say, "When you come here you think it is about tennis but that takes the back burner."

"We trick the kids by giving them free lessons but we're really about life skills and education," says program director Amber Marino.

Marino claims the 15 love program is about keeping kids off the streets and encouraging them to follow through on their dreams.

"We have a very intense college prep program and we have a leadership program."  When asked if those things have anything to do with tennis, Marino reponds, "Not at all".

It all started 18 years ago when tennis legend Arthur Ashe came to Albany to jump start 15 Love, the brain child of area business people.  Since Ashe's death in 1993, other such tennis programs he adopted have struggled.

According to Marino, "He started a few around the country and we're the only ones still going from that original model."

It's meant the world to people like Domingo Cortes, a school teacher, 15 Love program director and, once upon a time, participant.  15 years ago, the year Arthur Ashe died, Cortes found new life in 15 Love.

"They invited me to come play," he recalls, "and I never left."

15 Love competely changed his life.  Cortes was the first person in his family to graduate high school and the first to graduate college.  He attributes both accomplishments to the support he received at 15 Love.

Blakemore, one of dozens of young people currently enrolled in the program, says he doesn't know where he'd be without 15 Love.

"I dont think there are good alternatives," he says. "A lot of my friends are out on friday and saturday nights getting wasted and stuff.  I would never do that. Here is where I want to be."

For more information on 15 Love, visit their website, www.15love.org.