“Sheet!”
Tennis umpire Donna Williams of Memphis was calling a college match last
year when she heard a female player from France shout that after losing a point. When Williams
threatened to impose a point penalty for cursing, the
girl protested that she was merely saying “move your
feet” — loosely translated, of course — in French.
Williams was unmoved. In her career she
has been verbally abused by the best of ’em,
including Jimmy Connors in his nasty prime.
Suspecting zees ees bullsheet, she ordered the miffed mademoiselle
to “lose that word!”
Like other officials, Williams carries a
one-page list of forbidden phrases in eight languages,
from knulla (Swedish for the f-word) to figlio di
putana (Italian for son of a bitch) to
couilles (French for balls) to puta (Portuguese for whore).
Poofter, poo-jabber, wanker, and
fanny (don’t ask me) are also off-limits in addition to the familiar favorites.
A working knowledge of polyglot profanity is
a handy thing to have in the new era of American
college sport. Long before the Memphis Grizzlies
and the NBA signed players like Pau Gasol and Yao
Ming, the University of Memphis, Christian Brothers
University, and other area colleges were heavily recruiting
athletes from Australia, Ireland, Austria, and South
America. A college tennis or soccer tournament these days is
basically a little United Nations Assembly for jocks.
While state lawmakers cut programs to balance
the budget and cobble together a lottery to help
Tennessee students go to state colleges and universities,
those same institutions are awarding full athletic
scholarships worth $15,000 a year or more to scores of
foreign students. (In contrast, Bicentennial Scholars
— in-state students who make high grades and a 31
or better on the ACT — get tuition-only
scholarships, and the proposed lottery scholarships are in
the $3,000-$4,000 range.)
Most of these scholarships are in
non-revenue-producing sports like tennis and soccer. U of M
men’s basketball coach John Calipari has been criticized
for recruiting far-flung junior-college players like
Chris Massie, who stay a year or two at the expense of
the local talent. But on the U of M women’s tennis
team, which has eight full scholarships, freshman
Kristen Noble of Germantown is not only the only
Tennessean, she’s the only American. Her seven
teammates are from England, Spain, Austria, and India.
The U of M is hardly unique, nor is it
fielding powerhouse teams. Last year’s Lady Tiger tennis
team was 5-16, losing to the likes of Troy State and
Louisiana-Lafayette — all stocked with international
players. Memphis, in fact, is probably one of the
more exemplary programs. Its women’s tennis coach, Charlotte Peterson, is a U of M graduate in
her 28th season and men’s coach Phil Chamberlain,
a native Australian, is himself a product of the
international system. Tennis players’ GPAs tend to be
the highest of all the jocks.
Chamberlain came to the U of M in 1973 as
one of the top junior players in Australia when it was
the reigning world tennis power. Foreign college
players were still novelties.
“I didn’t know a single thing about Memphis,”
said Chamberlain. “My intentions were to get my
degree and maybe go on the pro tour. But I played
enough great players to realize I didn’t have it.”
He wound up becoming a teaching pro at the Racquet Club, paying back his debt to his
adopted country many times over as one of the
guiding forces of Memphis junior tennis and the
Kroger St. Jude tournament.
But he puts no pressure on his five current
international players to follow the same path, and he
says the university and athletic department don’t
either. Some stay, some don’t. They play because they’re
better, not only better tennis players but better all-around
athletes, with multisport backgrounds in soccer, rugby, or cricket.
Chamberlain makes no apologies to local players. All eight
graduates of the Racquet Club’s junior program were placed in
college tennis programs last year, although few are good enough to
play in the Southeastern Conference or Conference USA.
“I could not compete with American kids only,”
Chamberlain said. “Every American kid I recruit has 25 schools after him.”
The United States Tennis Association, which spends
about $7 million a year on junior development programs, is well
aware of this. “We’re encouraging colleges to adopt a maximum
number of foreign players,” said John Callen, executive director
of the Southern Tennis Association in Atlanta. “But it hasn’t
been met with any success from a coaching standpoint.”
A handful of college tennis coaches, including Anne
Dielen at Birmingham Southern, only award scholarships
to Americans. All eight of her women’s players are
Americans, and five of them are from Alabama. “I kind of
feel like our scholarships (worth $27,000 a year) need to go
to American kids because we are American colleges and
universities, and as long as there is healthy competition, that
is all that we need,” said Dielen, whose husband is
Dutch. “We certainly don’t have the opportunity to export some
of our student-athletes to get free educations over there.”
Not wishing to sound preachy, Dielen said it
ultimately depends on the pressure on the coach to win.
Birmingham Southern, an NAIA school, is about to become
a full-fledged member of Division 1. I said I would
check back with her in five years.
“Well then,” she said with a laugh, “I might not be here.”