Eddy Quiroz, a ‘Polymathlete’

It can fairly be said that Eddy Quiroz, who’s giving platform tennis clinics to beginning and intermediate players now at the East Hampton Indoor Tennis Club in Wainscott, is a “polymathlete” given his abilities in sports that have caught his eye, such as soccer, tennis, golf, bowling, boxing, taekwondo and platform tennis, or “paddle,” as it is also known, all of which he’s played at a high level.

At 50, Quiroz continues to play platform tennis professionally throughout Long Island with a 34-year-old Shelter Islander, Shane Donahue.

“I’m defense, he’s offense — we make a good team,” he said with a smile, before overseeing a recent clinic at EHIT. “Partnering with him and battling it out against 20-year-olds keeps me young.”

A native of Puebla, Mexico, Quiroz, who has lived in Springs since 2013 with his wife, Susan Kane, a member of the local Filer family, and their daughters, Zianya, 16, and Maya, 14, said, “I don’t know why, but if I start playing something, I have to keep going until I’m decent enough to compete.”

When it came to golf, for instance, “I took to it right away, but I was so bad the first time that I sat at the range behind the pro for three months just watching him. I set up a practice area at home with mirrors so I could watch my swing — I was tending bar at the Calabasas Country Club in Los Angeles at the time, in 2006. The second time out I broke 100, in three years I was a 2-handicap, shooting 72, 74.”

The same thing in bowling. His youngest brother had said he could beat him on the lanes.

“He was in a league, and I had never bowled. He rolled 180-something, I rolled 130. I was upset — not because he beat me, but because I couldn’t get the ball to do what I wanted it to do. I went back to the alley and studied. Three months later, I qualified for the nationals with a 191 average, and after three years, I was bowling 220s regularly.”

He was “very strategic,” he said, in the way he approached sports, which was why platform tennis, a very strategic game that rewards patience, continues to capture his attention.

Tennis and platform tennis were two different creatures, he said, in reply to a question.

“Tennis is more about power. You must be more measured in paddle, you have less time to set up, you’re mostly thinking about not losing the point … you have to wait for the proper time to end it.”

Paddle overheads, for instance, were hit more softly than in tennis, he said, given that the ball can bounce off the four wire walls that enclose the raised, planked courts. Volleying, too, was different, he said.

“We let the ball come to us if we’re at the net — we absorb the shot, often with our backhand, and simply direct it, often toward the ad side, rather than step in and punch the ball as you do in tennis. It’s like having a shield in front of you.”

With the beginners, he goes over “all the basic strokes … the forehand drive, return of serve, overheads, volleys, transitioning from defense to offense, lobbing defensively — you want your lob to land in the middle, between the service line and the baseline, so that you can reset, so that you can buy time.”

The serve, he added, “can be hit underhand, or sidearm, or the traditional tennis way, though it’s more about placement than power.”

Quiroz also gives platform tennis clinics at the Meadow Club in Southampton on weekends — “from 9 all the way through 4 p.m. on Saturdays, and on Sundays I play with the members” — and caddies at The Hills resort in East Quogue in the summertime. On Thursdays, he plays with the two-time Long Island DI champion Crest Hollow Paddle Boys in Woodbury.

Asked if he’d ever pushed his daughters to play sports, he said, “They began learning golf and tennis early, but when they got to the high school they became fascinated by the theater, and said, ‘Dad, do you mind?’ I didn’t mind. I could see they were very disciplined when it came to the theater, that they were passionate about it, and that they were going to give it their all. I’ve always tried to teach them that it’s all about drive … it’s drive that keeps you going. I can teach them tennis and golf anytime.”