With the noose of its budget tightening around its throat, Arizona State cut three men’s programs: tennis, swimming and wrestling. Oh…and the cut of the programs also handily keeps ASU in agreement with Title IX. Darn lucky how that worked out.
But pretend that just wasn’t put out there. I don’t want to have this huge discussion. I wrote papers about it in college and it inevitably comes up when you work in athletics and I’m just sick and tired of talking about it.
Really I have nothing new to add to this tired-out argument, but I think a moment of silence …read more

She played three years of collegiate tennis for Arizona State University. Then she took a bit of time off. Okay, a lot of time off.
Sheila Johnson is the newest addition to the Grand Canyon University women’s tennis squad. She’s 60 years old, the oldest active collegiate tennis player in the nation. Johnson is 4-2 in doubles play and 4-4 in singles play. She may be spotting a few years to her opponents but what she lacks in speed and agility, she makes up for in finesse and experience.
The best line of the whole story though was probably this:
“Let’s raise a …read more

I was one of those college students. I didn’t know what I wanted to major in so I just picked something. People kept telling me it didn’t matter what I majored in, as long as I got that piece of paper that said I wasn’t as stupid as I had been at the beginning of the four years.
If only I had gone to Ferris State University in Michigan. I could have majored in professional tennis management (PTM).
Ferris’ program is the first bachelor of science program in PTM in the world and the only 4-year program accredited by the USPTA. It …read more

There is a song by the Beatles called “All the Lonely People.”  And in that song is a line that says, “All the lonely people, where do they all come from.”  Switch out ‘lonely people’ for ‘tennis players’ and ask that question again.
Where do all those professional players come from?  Where did Roger Federer come from (and all of the rest of the top-ranked players in the world)?
They didn’t come out from underneath a rock, that’s for sure! I was just reading a story about the Notre Dame men’s tennis team posting a 26-14 singles record at the Tom Fallon Invitational. Irish …read more

It may be a bit odd to start off a tennis blog with collegiate tennis – women’s collegiate tennis at that!  I’m sure many expected me to start my soon-to-be extremely awesome tennis blog with something important. But what is important?  Another spiel about how awesome Roger Federer is? About how many weeks he has been dominating the number one position?  Or maybe yet another post about Maria Sharpova’s on-court wardrobe? They will be covered, believe me.  But not right now.
Right now, I want to talk about women’s collegiate tennis. I was at a match the other day at Washington …read more