Unite With Student Population

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Of all of the people you will meet, your own student population is the most important. They are the ones who will become members of your sport club tennis team, the ones who will help you run the team behind the scenes, and the ones who will become your friends and teammates on campus.

Another invaluable resource amongst your peers are the leaders of other organizations on your campus. Talk to your rec-sports director and obtain a list of other sport club presidents. Contacting some of them and setting up a short meeting would be a good idea. They are in the same position that you are, just with another sport. They will be able to help guide you in the right direction with the structure of your new club tennis team, will have some valuable insight into the recreational sports department on your campus and how it functions, and will be able to answer many of the questions that will arise throughout this process.

You should also establish strong relationships with the student government and activities leadership groups on campus. These organizations are usually responsible for deciding how all of the money from the student fees that are built into your tuition gets distributed. Some of this money is for recreational sport endeavors, like your club tennis team. Not knowing these people and how these organizations operate could potentially cost your team thousands of dollars in missed funding! Find out who these people are on your campus and meet with them. You will most likely need to register your team with the student activities council the semester before you request funding from them, and be prepared to submit a semester budget for your team as well. Make sure to attend some of their meetings, too; they can be great places to network with other campus leaders and will provide you with some great ideas about campus fundraising, promotion, and organization.

"Universities pay a lot of lip service to the ideas of ‘making a campus smaller’ and ‘promoting diversity,’ but few of their official efforts ever take. In my experience, club tennis did more to introduce me to a diverse group of people than any other activity during my four years. Besides the  myriad racial, geographic, and religious distinctions encompassed by the team, how often do you get a mechanical engineer, a film student, and a political science major to agree on anything? Well, when the question is how badly do we want to beat Michigan State on the tennis court, the consensus comes quickly. With my teammates over four years, I’ve had breakfast in a sidewalk cafe? in Harvard Square, been trapped outside in a lighting storm at the University of Texas, gotten hopelessly lost in Toronto, started ‘Go Blue’ chants in Bloomington, Indiana, and spied alligators in Daytona Beach, Florida. I’ve played on blue courts, carpet courts, clay courts, Astroturf courts, and in one unforgettable venue, a court built in the middle of an indoor track with a long-jump pit twelve inches removed from the baseline. I’ve had old high school nemeses become friends and teammates under the unifying banner of Maize and Blue. I’ve been on airplanes, subways, taxis, and my fair share of University minivans in pursuit of a competitive match and a long weekend away from the library. Most importantly, I was able to continue doing something I love with people who shared that love. Tennis is the ‘sport for a lifetime,’ and thanks to club-level athletics, it need not take a break during college.” - Andrew DeSilva, West Bloomfield, MI

Click here to continue reading: Chapter 1, Connect With the USTA

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