How Can College Tennis Survive? We can moan to college presidents and athletic directors all we want, but it won't do any good. They can't print money and money is the fundamental issue driving their decision making.
There's also the related problem of the adverse impact of Title IX on collage athletics. For a revealing story about this see:
http://www.tennisfax.com/comment.htmThe best thing we can do is offer collage administrators and staff specific suggestions and programs for preserving college tennis in some format. We also need to accept that the present format may not be the best format, particularly at levels below Division 1.
What's the biggest problem with college varsity tennis? It's not a spectator sport. It should be, and it could be, but it isn't. Why? Here are some reasons:
1) Little effort is made by college coaches or athletic departments to promote the sport to the student body or community. Potential spectators don't know when matches are scheduled and where they take place. Because of the lack of tennis facilities (indoor and outdoor), matches may take place off campus at little-known tennis clubs. Matches are frequently held on weekday afternoons. Matches can change venues at a moment's notice, and with no notice to spectators.
2) The format of collage matches makes it virtually impossible for spectators to know what's going on in terms overall competition and even in individual matches. This is especially true in multi-team events such as the Atlantic 10 Conference Championships. If players even bother to flip the score boards, spectators don't know who is red or black. It's a simple, easily solvable problem but it has a major negative impact on fostering spectator interest. These shortcomings eliminate the elements of suspense and drama in a tennis match, keys to spectator excitement and interest in any sport.
3) Tennis pros think it's better for kids in their junior programs to spend their time endlessly wacking tennis balls, instead of occasionally watching players at the next level, the level their kids are aspiring to. I have little contact with junior tennis players, but I can't believe they wouldn't get pumped after watching a good college tennis match, particularly a tournament like the Atlantic 10 Conference Championships. Wayne Bryan passionately made this point at the Middle States Tennis Conference a couple of years ago.
A second important issue is weather it may be better to invest limited resources and energy in intramural rather than varsity college tennis. Varsity tennis programs directly impact a dozen or so students. However, intramural programs can engage a far greater number of students in a positive social and physical activity. Unfortunately, intramural tennis programs are non-existent at most universities.
While attending the Community Tennis Development Workshop in Cincinnati I learned about an intramural collage tennis program developed a few years ago at Virginia Tech called the Collegiate Club Tennis Association (
http://www.cctatennis.com/index.asp).
The developer of the program, Seth Lipstock, received a USTA award at the CTDW. For details see:
http://www.usta.com/tennisnewswire/fullstory.sps?iNewsID=27944&itype=&iCategoryID=Regrettably, this valuable program hasn't spread beyond a few colleges in Virginia. If the USTA truly appreciates the value of this grass roots program they need to help Lipstock market and promote his innovative concept. The format and details of Lipstock's program may need some tweaking or latitude (
http://www.cctatennis.com/rules.asp), but the concept is solid and needs the support of organizations whose mandate it is to grow tennis.
The Collegiate Club Tennis Association is exactly the type of program college presidents and athletic directors must be made aware of if we expect a positive response to our outrage at the elimination of varsity tennis programs.