Mark WiedmerIt was also his 48th birthday, which earned him a serenade of "Happy Birthday To You" from the 250 or so in attendance.
But it was the club's focus on the 60th edition of the tourney - which will be staged free of charge to the public next weekend, April 8-9, on the hard courts of Baylor, McCallie and Girls Preparatory School - that brought back many fond memories for Berke.
"That was a long time ago, 1986, I think," he said. "I played tennis for a long time when I was young. I even won a state singles title a few years before the Rotary. But the Rotary was always special."
The names of the most special talents to capture the event roll easily off the tongues of most longtime Chattanooga tennis fans. Zan Guerry won a record 11 singles and doubles titles combined, including a stunning six straight singles crowns between 1962 and 1967 in the prep school division.
The winner of the next two Rotary singles crowns after that? Guerry's teammate at Baylor - Roscoe Tanner - who stubbornly fell in five feisty sets to Bjorn Borg in the 1979 Wimbledon final.
Here's proof of how much the tournament has grown into a true Southern event since McCallie's Hugh O. Maclellan won the first boys' crown in 1957. While players from Baylor or McCallie won 12 of the first 14 prep division singles titles, the past eight A division titles (the top category changed from prep to A in 1973) have been captured by young men from outside the Chattanooga area.
Those splits of local and regional winners are similar in the girls' A division. After GPS great Kappie Clark captured the first two titles in 1973 and 1974 - and Red Bank High School legend Susan Hill won the A event in 1976 after claiming the B title a year earlier - out-of-towners won the next six and have grabbed four of the past five since GPS's Sarah Evans won in both 2009 and 2010. Baylor's Samantha Caswell won the girls' A title in 2013.
A further indication of the tourney's longtime degree of difficulty: Hill won four straight Atlantic Coast Conference titles at No. 1 singles for Clemson after graduating from Red Bank in 1977. She's a member of Clemson's Hall of Fame and Ring of Honor.
Now a resident of Conyers, Ga., where she and her husband have raised five children - with four of them following her path to Clemson - Susan Hill Whitson came back to the Scenic City this week not only to visit her 84-year-old parents, Frank and Betty Sue, but also to attend the luncheon.
"After 40 years, I don't know that I remember a lot, but I do remember lots of teams would come from out of town," Whitson said. "I remember playing at GPS. I didn't start playing tennis until I was 13, and I never took lessons. But there were men at Manker Patten I played with who really helped me - my dad, Chris Brown, Clive Kileff."
She also tried to model her game, at least in terms of behavior, after Chris Evert, "because I felt like she was a good role model on the court."
The Rotary has produced a number of great role models for today's players to emulate, everyone from GPS's Evans, to McCallie tennis coach Eric Voges - who won a singles title in 1981 and has also coached the Blue Tornado to seven Rotary team titles - to Pem Guerry and Wes Cash, the dazzling duo from Baylor who won three straight Rotary doubles crowns between 1973 and 1975, with Guerry capturing two singles titles during that run.
"One thing that's made the Rotary so special is that it's a true team tournament," Pem Guerry said. "I'll never forget us winning five singles titles and all three doubles titles one year. We got like 35 out of 36 points."
Added a smiling Cash, who has long been one of the nation's top senior players: "If Pem wasn't so stingy holding on to No. 1, I might have had a No. 1 singles title, too. Of course, if it hadn't been for Pem, we wouldn't have all those doubles championships."
For GPS alum Evans, who later starred at Wofford, the team aspect of the Rotary clearly stood out.
Despite her two singles crowns, when asked for her fondest memory, she spoke of the 2010 doubles title she helped win: "I'll always remember playing doubles with Bronte Goodhue against Vestavia Hills (from Birmingham). We were on fire that day."
The tennis world has changed a lot in 60 years. While Hill Whitson played with a wooden Davis racket and Voges fondly recalls the green Yonex he used to win his Rotary title, the 32 teams and more than 200 players who will make up this year's event will also hit with Babolat, Wilson, Head and Prince rackets that produce far more spin and power than earlier generations ever thought possible.
But two things aren't likely to change.
First, said Voges, who will be participating in his 33rd Rotary as either a player or coach, "I think it's probably harder to win the Rotary than the state."
Second, said Hill Whitson, whether you win or lose, "This tournament helps your game tremendously. There are just so many good players."
And so many good memories for those good players to make as they follow in the giant footsteps of the first 59 years' worth of Rotary champions.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.