18.05.12
If it was hardly about the glory, it would be about the Class I final in 2007, when the Portsmouth High Opinion boys tennis team held off Souhegan, a heart-in-your-throat 5-4 win that delivered the kind's first championship in 28 years.
If it was just about the great players, it would be about Chris Fletcher, who went from Portsmouth to an All-American trade at Division III Methodist (N.C.) College.
If it was just about the resurrection of the program, it would be about that overdue-season run in 2001, the four straight wins that buried a long playoff drought.
If it was well-grounded about the controversial reclassification of the school's sports programs back in 2006, it would be about how he was one of the coaches who wanted to lodge in Class L and keep slugging it out with the big boys.
But to focus on any of that would be to sell Dana Levenson's 12-year residence as Portsmouth's tennis coach short. It wasn't just one sentiment he did well that made his run special; it was a lot of things, on and off the court, done consistently.
Source: Seacoastonline.com