As the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl junior international tennis tournaments are rapidly approaching here in South Florida, I noticed a new trend in the way colleges are recruiting their student athletes in order for their universities to compete well with their competition. The last time I participated in the Orange Bowl was in 2001 and the competition was top notch with the likes of Janko Tipsarevic, Robin Soderling, Gilles Muller, Juan Monaco, and many other great players who were competing to win the prestigious event.
Fast forward to the 2010 Orange Bowl, this was the year that I began my coaching career and I had a few players competing in the Orange Bowl. I saw a major difference in the way that colleges were trying to recruit players to their universities. When I played in 2001 and in prior years and I did not remember seeing many college coaches at these tournaments. When I attended my first Orange Bowl as a coach, I noticed swarms of college coaches making notes and recruiting, trying to pick up some great talent for their team. I was in shock at how many college coaches there were at this tournament.
There has been a lot of discussion about how foreign tennis players are taking college scholarships away from the American player. As expected the parents are very unhappy about this new trend; which in truth is not such a new trend. You see, these college coaches do not go to Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl to solely recruit American tennis players since they can do that during the school year or in the summer at the Super National tournaments, where all the top American tennis players participate. The college coaches are at the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl tournaments to analyze and scout the foreign tennis players.
I have been blessed to go through all the levels of tennis from junior, to college, and on to the ATP Tour. I have been offered multiple college positions at some prestigious schools, and many of the players I competed with in amateur and professional tennis have become college coaches. Just like any other profession, if you do not have results, you run the risk of being fired and then you are out of a job. These are the stresses that the college coaches face when trying to assemble the best team they can, so that they can produce great results, and continue to be employed. This is no different from being a head coach in any of the other major sports fields in the United States. You hear it all the time in football, whether it is college or professional, about how the coaches are let go at the end of the season due to insufficient results. College tennis is no different.
The facts I am writing about have been verbalized over the past couple of years to the players I train on a daily basis. Whether you are American or not, the coaches are trying to field the best team they can, and they will definitely take a foreign player over an American due to the level these players can play at. College tennis is a business based on results, just as I run a business based on results. For the top-notch universities in this country, if they cannot sign the top American kids, they need to go the foreign route for their top couple of players just to compete with the other universities.
Tennis is a global sport. There are amazing tennis players all over the globe that would love to get that same scholarship that an American kid would love to be offered. The difference in whether you receive that scholarship or not, at your desired school of choice, will depend on your level of play and results.
