Written by Administrator
When it comes to working with a college tennis team full of soon-to-be pro athletes, my motto is this: you can’t make this stuff up.
How else can I explain a six-day trip to a national tournament in Virginia in which I was the only girl on the bus? Or that, yeah, I did spend Valentine’s Day in this company? Or that I purposely ate lunch at the same time from the Boar’s Head Sports Club with the obvious assumption that my digestion would somehow impact the outcome of the matches?
Well, the eating part turned out pretty well. Thanks to my daily sandwich selection, Tennessee finished second at the ITA National Indoors last week. And we all know that the whole tournament hinged on a sports information director studying a menu at 11 a.m. each day. Among the many lessons learned:
1. Tennis folks exist, and they love the sport and the players involved. Apparently, there’s no end to what people will read if it gets posted online. That was evident when Tennessee’s two All-American players gave me a comprehensive fashion account of their teammates, and I published it practically verbatim.
2. Yes, live blogging tennis matches is a popular feature on Tennessee’s Web site, believe it or not. That’s what I do during the three- or four- or more-hour matches, and the coaches will always ask if I’ve done my special pre-typing hand exercises. Can’t risk a wrist cramp during a third-set tiebreaker.
3. Just because most tennis players have competed extensively at country clubs and other fancy places their entire lives, it does not mean they know the art of tying a necktie. This shortcoming was discovered at the pre-tournament reception.
Even with the help of YouTube instructional videos, a few needed further assistance in the hotel lobby. One player avoided the tying issue all together with a purple tie imbued with zipper technology. A senior had apparently grown three or four inches since his parents had last bought him pants; he repaired the length problem by completely ripping out the hem on each leg. Dressed to the nines, indeed.
4. It doesn’t take much effort for an 18-year-old who had just finished a three-set match to eat two $5 footlong sandwiches from Subway at a single sitting.
5. The most important lesson deals with restaurant etiquette. It’s a gripping tale otherwise known as “How Not to Get a Tip If You Are a Restaurant Server.”
As was the case the whole tournament, I was the only girl at the steakhouse table one evening. Business as usual. I arrived a minute or two after everyone else, and the server approached and started in with the usual “Hello and Welcome” speech. Except that he threw away the script to the speech. And started ad-libbing in strange and horrifying ways.
“Hello, gentlemen and . . . lady. Sorry about the pause there. I was just checking to make sure you were a lady before I said that. Moooving on.”
The awkwardness was stunning. At that point, I wish I’d thought of an amazing comeback (I’ve since thought of several far too many hours later, ala George Costanza).
A rule of thumb is just to shut up. It would have been best not to explain the reasoning behind a pause in the sentence. The waiter leapt off the point of no return.
He later gave pet names to everyone when he was taking orders, something you should really only do if you’re a 55-year-old woman with five teeth working at Waffle House. Tennis is a strange sport in which players can shout at themselves, question the umpire’s call, suffer an apparent mental breakdown and somehow sum up the composure to hit a baseline winner. All in five minutes.
