YEAR IN SPORTS : American dream
Luke Jensen can’t think straight he’s so mad.
When he first picked up a tennis racquet as a boy in Michigan, the sport mattered in the United States. When he won the 1993 French Open doubles title with his brother Murphy, the sport mattered. When he retired to broadcasting on ESPN, the sport mattered.
But now, in the words several years ago of former Sports Illustrated tennis writer and current Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins, ‘tennis is dead.’ The leading cause of death: None of the flamboyant American personalities and rivalries that kept the game in the country’s conscious for 30 years still exists.
No American man or woman reached the quarterfinals of last year’s Wimbledon, the most prestigious of the sport’s four grand slams, for the first time since 1911. Last August the women’s top 10 did not include an American for the first time since weekly rankings were introduced in 1975.
‘It really ticks me off…it really…(sigh)…it’s always…(sigh)…I just think it’s…’ His voice trails off.
Tennis experts were at a loss for words upon hearing Jensen’s decision to take the Syracuse job last summer.
‘I have to say I was a little surprised he went to a place no one thinks of as a tennis hotbed,’ said Patrick McEnroe, captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team, which competes every year for national supremacy in the men’s game. ‘I don’t want to call it risky, but it’s definitely a challenge in that it’s not the South or California.’
Location didn’t matter to Jensen, 40. He needed an outlet, a stable one, to fully carry out his crusade to resurrect American tennis. He had enough of 100 clinics a year all over the world since his retirement after 10 doubles titles in 18 years two years ago.
Courtesy of his connections with Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross, a huge tennis fanatic whom Jensen knew from their days at Southern California in the mid-80s, a university and community suddenly rested in Jensen’s lap.
No one of his celebrity – his team knows him as the long-haired, fist-pumping, bandana-toting ‘Dual Hand Luke,’ the ambidextrous Jensen brother who could serve 130 mph with both hands – can reach as many junior players with his credibility as an ESPN analyst and his stability as a university coach.
His goals: a) build a powerhouse at SU by recruiting only Americans who want to play professionally, and b) make tennis the game of choice for Central New York children.
Never mind the SU program – gender-equity law prevents a men’s team from forming in the foreseeable future – has failed to produce any players or teams of national significance in 32 years of existence (the highlight: three Big East titles in the ’80s). And never mind the city of Syracuse boasts little tennis infrastructure with some 70 courts.
In Jensen’s mind, he sees the 2017 Wimbledon champion removing her SU hat before curtsying to the Queen.
Jensen isn’t the lone missionary. He comes to Syracuse just as national numbers are turning a corner. A 2005 study by the United States Tennis Association and the Tennis Industry Association noted recent surges in many categories gauging interest in the sport. Above all, the total number of Americans playing tennis in 2005 reached its highest point in 13 years (24.7 million).
‘If there was ever anyone to inspire kids to play tennis, it’s Luke,’ said McEnroe, Jensen’s colleague at ESPN, on which the Syracuse coach will continue to flaunt his Orange gear at the four major tournaments every year. ‘He’s great with kids in particular. When we do ‘hits and giggles’ together – what we call kids clinics – he brings the same energy he did as a player and [does as] a commentator.’
‘Everyone says, ‘Syracuse? Why Syracuse?” said Jensen, looking up from the racquet he was stringing in his office. ‘Why not?
‘Why not?’
Sixteen board people sit in a boring conference room anxious to leave.
They are Syracuse public school officials, Onondaga Nation school officials, USTA officials, a Syracuse city official, local tennis pros, Jensen and his assistant coach Shelley George.
For 75 minutes they dissected the Orange Initiative, Jensen’s plan to revitalize tennis in the city starting in May. The USTA will help produce ‘block parties’ – carnival-like festivals with games and prizes for young children – at local schools and possibly Clinton Square. Jensen will eventually invade gym classes to reach the 15,000 elementary and middle-school kids across 32 schools in the Syracuse public school system.
Most invitees around the table are starting to steal glances at their cell phones and PDAs.
But Jensen wants to tell one more story.
He takes everyone to Moscow circa 1990. In between Kremlin Cup matches, Jensen arrived at a city gymnasium to work with the Soviet Union’s top junior players. He then learned the gym had three tattered racquets for the 30 children standing in front of him.
Undeterred, the lesson continued. Hello, conditioning.
Four of those kids won grand slams this decade.
‘That’s why we can do this.’
Christina Tan can’t wait to run five miles in 40 minutes to make next year’s team. She can’t wait to practice all out for two hours every morning starting at 6:30. She can’t wait to be part of the first team to endure what Jensen claims will be the most professional conditioning program in the country.
Tan, a member of Jensen’s first recruiting class, will do anything for someone who leaves such motivating voicemails that she listens to some of them six months later.
Hey, get excited, I want you to help us take Syracuse tennis to the top.
‘I’ve never known anyone like him,’ said Tan, a four-star recruit ranked 104th overall in the class of 2007 according to The Tennis Recruiting Network, the sport’s premier junior ranking Web site. ‘He’s so upbeat all the time. I’ve never met anyone that is so energetic.’
Tan, a Californian, joins Colorado’s Simone Kalhorn (five-star, 81st overall), North Carolina’s Emily Mauser (four-star, 163) and Nevada’s Jacquelynn Tang (three-star, 236) in likely the best recruiting class in school history. If they succeed, Jensen should expect interest from top-50 players within a few years. After all, he essentially recruits every time he’s on ESPN.
Jensen already envisions when those four will make their splash – at Notre Dame, currently the No. 2 team in the nation.
‘We play (the Irish) March 6th of 2008, and we’re going to beat them there,’ Jensen said. ‘We’re leaving the 5th after we play Rutgers here, and we’re going to get on the plane and go straight to Notre Dame. My expectation is that match will be the biggest match of every one of my players’ lives up to that point. Notre Dame may not know we’re coming, but that’s a mistake they’re making.’
The current players are caught in the middle.
None of them signed up for Jensen’s demanding regime that officially started in January in place of the discarded Mac Gifford. In some ways, Jensen eases up. In other ways, he slams his foot on the gas. All in all, the mixed signals appear awkward.
Consider:
The players dismiss all this. They love him anyway.
‘I like how positive he is,’ senior Ashley Lipton said. ‘It’s always nice to have someone positive on your court [during matches] and even in practices. It’s also nice having someone intense, because you’re going to work hard for someone that is working hard for you.’
The team completed a remarkable turnaround to likely secure a bid in the Big East tournament that starts Thursday in Tampa, Fla. Syracuse won six of its last eight matches to even its overall record at 8-8 and extend its conference mark to 4-3. The field of 12, based more on strength of schedule because the 16 teams play a different number of matches, will be announced today.
‘Our goal was to make the team the best that they could be for April,’ said George, Jensen’s hand-picked assistant. ‘We had to tailor our conditioning early in the season until they picked up their fitness level.
‘I’ve had several girls comment to me they didn’t really like it that much in the beginning because we we’re asking more than in the past. But they understand now why they were doing what they were doing.’
Still, however the dynamic changes following this transitional season, Jensen’s fervor for his players’ well-being will remain the one constant between this year and next year. A human side actually exists beneath that tennis-obsessed exterior.
When Carolina Huignard needed her wisdom teeth removed, Jensen drove her. When Chelsea Jones needed a ride to the airport for her sister’s wedding, Jensen drove her. When another leg injury sidelined Katie Bramante for the rest of her Syracuse career, Jensen told 2003 U.S. Open champion and current world No. 4 Andy Roddick, America’s most successful contemporary player/flamboyant personality, to give her a call.
Road trips? Never dull. For example, ever since Votavova kept her birthday a secret in January, Jensen decided to celebrate a different player’s birthday each road trip at a team dinner. No matter whether it’s actually someone’s birthday.
During the team’s four-day Spring Break trip to Las Vegas last month to scrimmage Indiana, three blew out candles.
A spotlight suddenly illuminated Vasilyeva in front of hundreds at the restaurant in the hotel Excalibur. Catherine Zawadzki munched on cake at the Stratosphere’s Top of the World. Anne Magellan made a wish at Hard Rock Cafe.
‘He loves embarrassing us,’ Lipton said.
Said Jensen: ‘In the end, it’s, How can I be an example for these kids to go about and beyond what the contract says? Coach Mac did that, picked the girls up [for practice]. We do that. I don’t even think it’s anything that special, if a player needs something or a student needs something or anybody needs something, if I can help in any way and give them a lift that’s within the rules, I’m going to do that.’
Jensen owes Gross, Syracuse’s AD, to do it all – the Orange Initiative, the team national championships, the individual titles.
Gross convinced Jensen to concentrate on tennis in the first place in 1986.
Then a football graduate assistant working with the defensive backs in a tryout, Gross recognized the nationally ranked tennis player, and couldn’t believe Jensen actually preferred football.
‘We have place-kickers bigger than you,’ Gross told him.
Jensen quit football.
Twenty years later, Jensen, unmarried, bolted Atlanta thanks to Gross, to share an old, rented house a half-mile from Drumlins Tennis Center with George, to build American tennis players in Syracuse, N.Y. No other goals compare.
‘This was the one variable that was missing from his life,’ Gross said.
George said like his office at Manley, Jensen’s room at home remains a perpetual disaster. (‘It could use some picking up.’) The new Syracuse coach said he’s so busy he can’t settle down until the summer. There’s always a player to scout, a clinic to run, shoes to order.
‘He’s bringing a huge level of energy and commitment,’ said Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor, who attended her first SU match March 24, a 5-2 win over Missouri. ‘This would be a huge boon for the Syracuse community, and we’re behind him.’
Jensen will certainly produce better teams and create more awareness in the city fairly quickly. Whether he succeeds at the level he wants with both goals will take years, maybe decades, to determine.
‘To me, I just don’t see it not working out,’ Jensen said. ‘All I’m looking for is effort. If you give me your effort, if you say, ‘Coach, I will do whatever it takes.’ And then after practice, ‘Coach, you know, I’m just not happy with this. What do you think I can do to get this forehand better? What can I do to get my footwork better?’ That’s a win.
‘Any kid that applies themselves will get better. You can’t fail. Because the thing is, obviously we want to win hardware, we want to win trophies. But I define winning as what we do with a player from point A to point Z. That process, how many steps. If they apply themselves and they want to get the most out of Syracuse, all they have to do is try.
And win Wimbledon.
Published on April 15, 2007 at 12:00 pm
