Diary

Josh
Rubens

Past Entries

April 5, 2004

Last weekend we traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, for the Small College Blue and Gray Classic hosted by Auburn Montgomery. The competing schools, Spring Hill College, College of Santa Fe, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Alliant International, Virginia Intermont, and Auburn Montgomery are all members of the NAIA. They were tough squads filled primarily with international players.

On Friday, we faced Spring Hill College and emerged victorious 6-3. After the match, we made our way to the tennis center grille and ate chicken breast sandwiches, chili cheese hot dogs, salt and vinegar potato chips, & mini Powerades. Freshman Yoji Masuoka, who ate three hot dogs, claims he can rival the world's best in competitive eating. I don't doubt the Choda monster.

Due to the delay of our second match, we then terrorized the tennis pro shop for two to three hours. This consisted of reading every "Tennis Week" magazine they had, abusing their Internet (obviously for league members and employees only) to check our LearnLink, and playing cell phone bowling with running commentary of play by play action by our assistant coach, Kyle.

Kyle also performed several backcracking displays on juniors Alex Jacobs, Tyson Ramsay and myself. The way he marinates one's back before applying the crack is remarkable. I believe he also had a bunch of turkeys in bowling, although Coach Browning was repeatedly beating his high score. Good stuff Kyle, keep truckin'.
Finally, after a ridiculously long day, we battled SCAD under the lights in chilly weather, and won 5-0 as the match was played till decision. The match possessed one of the oddest scenes in college tennis history: two players from the same team belting balls at each other.

Tyson Ramsay and Patrick Redmond usually don't play next to each other during singles because of lineup position, and probably never will play near each other again after this incident. Patrick allegedly let a ball roll on Tyson's court without putting forth the utmost effort to prevent it from obstructing play. Ramsay was caught up in the moment, and fired the ball back to Pat's court.

Magically, it struck Redmond in the neck area. If it wasn't for Pat's extensive weight room physique, this might have hurt. Pat was fine, but needed to let Tyson know that this act was unacceptable. Therefore, he fired a ball back at Tyson--it struck him in the ankle. An eye for an eye. You really showed him, Pat.

Back to the story. So after the match, at around 10 pm, we hopped in the van to go back to Atlanta. We had never envisioned our day would take this long as the delay was unexpected, and therefore neglected to reserve hotel rooms or pack extra clothes. We planned on driving the two and a half hours back to Emory for the night. Consequently, we returned to Atlanta at 1 a.m. and had to meet back up at 10 a.m. to return to Alabama. Needless to say, "good decision, way to think it through."

The second and final day of the tourney turned out to be another long delayed afternoon. We arrived at the tennis center at 11:40 a.m. after warming up at an alternative site, only to find out that our opponents, Alliant International, had defaulted.

This meant another huge meal at the grille. The tennis center also had a golf course and some of us went to the driving range and/or putting green to work on our golf. Kyle worked on his chipping, but never managed to chip into the flower pot (a contest we created). We still love you Kyle.

The rest of us napped under trees in the shade until Tyson and I attempted to motivate and inspire Coach Browning's 9-year-old son, Luke, to be a tennis champion. We put him through a rigorous workout which included hand-eye coordination tests, speed and agility drills, consistency groundstoke work, and lessons on the slice serve. No wonder he then decided that a life filled with video games is a better alternative. Hey, we tried.

After a four hour delay, our match versus the No. 2 NAIA ranked College of Santa Fe, finally commenced. We fought hard in an unbelievable team effort and came out on top 5-4. Jesse Ferlianto won a big match to clinch the victory, winning the third set 6-3.

Not to mention, junior Mark Odgers almost defeated the No. 1 nationally ranked NAIA singles player, Angulo, at No. 1 singles. Angulo is like Pelé or Ronaldo in that he only uses one name. Nevertheless, it was a great match and Mark fought hard. We then hydrated, stretched, hugged it out, and piled in the van to culminate a great weekend tourney.

Josh Rubens is a junior from Wynnewood, Pa. He would love to answer e-mail questions from Emory recruits and fans.