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Wake Tennis 2017-2018

wakephan09 said:
Fair point, but I would have thought golfers would care about their academics too and they had the worst average GPA when I was in school. It's tough to maintain a high average as a team then you can't take (any?) walkons.
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golf also has the highest time commitment of any sport.
 
scooter84 said:
golf also has the highest time commitment of any sport.
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Really? I wouldn't have guessed that. It seems like basketball or baseball, with so much travel for games, would be higher. Plus I would think the weight training outside of practice would require more time in football or basketball.
 
MysteryMen said:
I don't purport to speak for Wellman, but I think at least "one-and-dones" in sports like tennis are probably a lot more likely to care about their academics while they're at Wake than basketball players. And that's one of the main concerns about one-and-dones
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Is there any evidence to back this up?
 
Noah Rubin is the only 1 and done tennis player we've had, and Noah was as good a junior tennis player to attend college in a long, long time, and even then he almost came back for year 2. None of the guys we have now were or are one and done candidates. To make money playing professional tennis is so, so hard. It is deceiving because we are getting guys who have ATP points, but they haven't made any real money, so yes they are playing pro, but they aren't living as a professional.
 
There's a tennis player that posts on the boards, you've probably read his posts. I think it challenges the MysteryMen corollary about tennis players caring more about academics.
 
wakephan09 said:
Fair point, but I would have thought golfers would care about their academics too and they had the worst average GPA when I was in school. It's tough to maintain a high average as a team then you can't take (any?) walkons.
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Huh? Both golf and tennis have a ton of walkons
 
TownieDeac said:
Is there any evidence to back this up?
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Don't see how there could be. But from my anecdotal experience, that's how it goes. Also probably true across the sports generally. Tennis players care about academics in general more than basketball players
 
MysteryMen said:
Don't see how there could be. But from my anecdotal experience, that's how it goes. Also probably true across the sports generally. Tennis players care about academics in general more than basketball players
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For every Chas McFarland there's a socaldeac.
 
MysteryMen said:
Huh? Both golf and tennis have a ton of walkons
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Which of these players constitute your "tons of walkons"?

Petros Chrysochos6-1SOLarnaca, Cyprus (American Academy of Larnaca)
Alan Gadjiev6-6RS FRTashkent, Uzbekistan (ES International School)
Sean Hill6-1FRBerkeley, Calif. (California Connections Academy)
Maksim Kan6-2SRCleveland, Ohio (Orange HS)
Skander Mansouri6-3JRTunis, Tunisia (Pierre-Mendès-France)
Charles Parry5-9FRPalm Beach Gardens, Fla. (Oxbridge Academy)
Christian Seraphim6-10RS JRMunich, Germany (Otto-von-Taube-Gymnasium)
Dennis Uspensky6-2SOAtlantic Beach, N.Y. (Laurel Springs School)

At 4.5 scholarships I doubt more than one of these guys is paying full sticker. And in the context of my post, I meant true walk-ons -- guys with great academics that get into wake on their own merits, try out for the team once on campus, and bolster average team GPA.
 
Looks like golf has eleven guys on the roster and the same 4.5 scholarship limit. It's an equivalency sport also so I'd bet most of the guys are on half-rides and a couple on full-rides.

Eric BaeFRPinehurst, N.C.Pinecrest
Ben BalterSRWellesley, Mass.Community School of Naples
Lee DetmerSOWashington, D.C.St. Albans School
Charlie KennerlyFRJupiter, Fla.The Benjamin School
Paul McBrideJRMalahide, Dublin, IrelandMalahide Community School
Tanner OwenJRHigh Point, N.C.Bishop McGuinness
Kyle SterbinskySOYardley, Pa.The Peddie School
Clancy WaughSRNorth Palm Beach, Fla.The Benjamin School
Woody WoodwardSRBridgeport, W.V.Hilton Head Prep
Cameron YoungSOScarborough, N.Y.Fordham Prep
Will ZalatorisJRPlano, TexasTrinity Christian Academy
 
wakephan09 said:
Which of these players constitute your "tons of walkons"?

Petros Chrysochos6-1SOLarnaca, Cyprus (American Academy of Larnaca)
Alan Gadjiev6-6RS FRTashkent, Uzbekistan (ES International School)
Sean Hill6-1FRBerkeley, Calif. (California Connections Academy)
Maksim Kan6-2SRCleveland, Ohio (Orange HS)
Skander Mansouri6-3JRTunis, Tunisia (Pierre-Mendès-France)
Charles Parry5-9FRPalm Beach Gardens, Fla. (Oxbridge Academy)
Christian Seraphim6-10RS JRMunich, Germany (Otto-von-Taube-Gymnasium)
Dennis Uspensky6-2SOAtlantic Beach, N.Y. (Laurel Springs School)

At 4.5 scholarships I doubt more than one of these guys is paying full sticker. And in the context of my post, I meant true walk-ons -- guys with great academics that get into wake on their own merits, try out for the team once on campus, and bolster average team GPA.
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I think you'd be surprised. Obviously none of them are "true walkons," that's not really a thing in major college tennis, but a good number of them probably aren't getting any money.

You have to keep in mind that Lazarov, who's coming in January, is almost certainly getting a lot of money, so we're probably not maxed out on using scholarships right now for the fall. And wouldn't be surprising if the other January guy is getting some too. We're going to have 10 guys on the roster in the Spring, and guys like Mansouri, Chrysochos (and maybe Uspensky) are no doubt getting a lot of money. I'd be shocked if Mansouri, Chrysochos, and Lazarov alone don't account for at least 2.5 scholarships, so that only leaves two scholarships for the other seven guys.

I can almost guarantee that at least two of those guys aren't getting any money, and I'd be very surprised if 2-3 of the others were getting anything substantial. You win in tennis by giving almost full scholarships (like 80-90%) to 5-6 guys and then taking a bunch of walkons who get nothing and hope that one or two of them pans out, not by spreading your 4.5 around equally.
 
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My wild ass guess is that the guys from Palm Beach Gardens, FL and Berkely California are getting the least money. I know that our tennis coach is an amazing recruiter, but I doubt he is able to pull in highly regarded players from Tunsia, Cyrpus and Uzbekistan, and getting them to pay full freight at WF.
 
Good points from both MM and Pilchard.

My point, I guess, was that tennis and golf don't seem to me like other sports that recruit or try-out (often) local kids who can get admitted on their own and pay their own way. It is a well-known practice at many D1 schools as both a nod to the local community and a strategy for raising average team GPA.
 
Sean Hannity's kid is gonna set the world on fire next year.
 
wakephan09 said:
Good points from both MM and Pilchard.

My point, I guess, was that tennis and golf don't seem to me like other sports that recruit or try-out (often) local kids who can get admitted on their own and pay their own way. It is a well-known practice at many D1 schools as both a nod to the local community and a strategy for raising average team GPA.
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Well I think it's driven by the fact that given the limited scholarships, there are a ton of kids who are good enough to actually get recruited by schools (and could play at them) but not good enough to get any money from them. We've had a number of men's tennis players over the years who came in as walkons and turned out to be very good players for us, including at least one on the team right now. Whereas in basketball, only very rarely is a school going to recruit and regularly play a kid that it's not going to give a scholarship to. So you have to get your walkons from students already on campus.

And while taking walkons through tryouts may in some respect be a nod to the community and strategy for raising GPA, in basketball and football the primary reason is so that you can have a scout team to run the other team's plays during practice.
 
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Rafi said:
Really? I wouldn't have guessed that. It seems like basketball or baseball, with so much travel for games, would be higher. Plus I would think the weight training outside of practice would require more time in football or basketball.
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Every golf tournament takes 3 days plus travel and practice round. Golf plays both fall and spring. In practice if you are going to play 18 holes that takes 3 hours minimum. Plus golfers these days do lift weights and work out.

I tried to walk on at Wake and tryouts were 4 rounds during the week. I had a physics lab one day and asked about how to work around it - they looked at me like I was an idiot for worrying about class...
 
scooter84 said:
Every golf tournament takes 3 days plus travel and practice round. Golf plays both fall and spring. In practice if you are going to play 18 holes that takes 3 hours minimum. Plus golfers these days do lift weights and work out.

I tried to walk on at Wake and tryouts were 4 rounds during the week. I had a physics lab one day and asked about how to work around it - they looked at me like I was an idiot for worrying about class...
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Not to take anything away from the hard work of golfers, but having been around a lot of sports at Wake, I didn't get the sense that they were one of the ones that required the most time commitment. I'd guess basketball, football, and baseball were.
 
MysteryMen said:
Well I think it's driven by the fact that given the limited scholarships, there are a ton of kids who are good enough to actually get recruited by schools (and could play at them) but not good enough to get any money from them. We've had a number of men's tennis players over the years who came in as walkons and turned out to be very good players for us, including at least one on the team right now. Whereas in basketball, only very rarely is a school going to recruit and regularly play a kid that it's not going to give a scholarship to. So you have to get your walkons from students already on campus.

And while taking walkons through tryouts may in some respect be a nod to the community and strategy for raising GPA, in basketball and football the primary reason is so that you can have a scout team to run the other team's plays during practice.
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Fine; so to bring it back to the source of this entire conversation, sports like tennis and golf are taking fewer true walkons that are admitted purely on academic merit than other sports. For these other sports, this can boost their average team GPA.

I was just trying to figure out why golfers were such shitty students. Then again, they might have busted out the highest team GPA the next year, so who knows.
 
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