Colorado HOF tennis player Becky Bucolo achieved unprecedented perfection
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (BVM) — Winning four consecutive state titles is a remarkable accomplishment for any high school tennis player. Winning every match without dropping a single set in all four years seems almost impossible.
Becky (Varum) Bucolo managed to achieve this unlikely feat while at Cheyenne Mountain High School, but she can still vividly remember how she almost didn’t even make it through her freshman season unblemished.
“I was down 5-4 in the state final against Kristin Guilford,” said Bucolo, a 1998 Cheyenne grad. “I very easily could’ve lost that set. I was super, super tight and if I had lost that first set, who knows?”
Bucolo went on to win that match — and every other match of her high school career — in straight sets. And when she realized that she had swept every one of her opponents during her perfect freshman year, the goal of perfection became a little more realistic.
“I thought, ‘Oh wow let’s try and go another year and do the same thing,’” Bucolo said. “From the get-go that wasn’t what I was setting out to do; I was just trying to do my best, but then it kind of in the back of my head became an ultimate goal.”
By the time her high school career was over, Bucolo was 68-0 and had become the first- ever Colorado tennis player to win four consecutive No. 1 singles titles. The three-time Sportswoman of Colorado selection was inducted into the Colorado Tennis Hall of Fame in 2009, and this year she’s officially being enshrined into the Colorado High School Activities Association Hall of Fame as a class of 2019 inductee.
Bucolo was ranked as high as No. 18 nationally by the United States Tennis Association during her senior year of high school. She took her success to the collegiate level at Notre Dame where she became Big East Rookie of the Year as a freshman. She was an All-American by her junior year and was voted team captain for her senior year with the Fighting Irish in 2002.
These days, Bucolo is married with four children and lives in Elmhurst, Ill., but she’s still playing tennis at a high level. In May 2019, she earned her first gold ball from the USTA by winning the clay singles title in the women’s 35-39 division in a national tournament in Kentucky.
“As a junior, I never won one of the national tournaments, so as an adult, that really became one of my goals,” said Bucolo who also won a silver ball clay doubles with her sister, Joanne.
Bucolo doesn’t plan on leaving the court anytime soon. She now teaches as a tennis pro at CourtsPlus in Elmhurst where she continues to gain satisfaction from a game in which she once achieved an unprecedented level of perfection.
“The tennis court is definitely my comfort zone and my happy place,” Bucolo said, “I really just enjoy being on the court, whether I’m hitting myself or coaching other players, and that can be 4-year-old children to juniors trying to get scholarship offers or adults. I love the whole spectrum of the game, and anytime I’m on the court I feel like it’s home.”
