Beginning of the school year

Whitman is official off and running! Classes started yesterday but many members of the team been on campus for several days getting moved into dorm rooms/apartments/fraternities. Since most everyone back on campus it was time for an opening week dinner at coaches house!

Let me say I got a HUGE beef brisket from the market for the dinner -- dang thing was so large I had to cut it in half to fit it into the smoker! To go along with dinner I went to farmers market for a couple ripe watermelons, fresh green beans (I figured the mom's would be happy to know their sons were eating a veggie). To finish off the night I made dutch oven blueberry cake! I'm certainly not a dutch oven pro but I must say the cake was unbelievably moist and yummy.

Unfortunately I was so busy cooking and serving that I didn't have time to snap many photos. What I did take can found here.

Looking forward to more opening week activities with the team.

Tennis Alumni Reunion

Calling all tennis alumni -- the 2011 Whitman Tennis Reunion is ago for Nov 4-6 in Las Vegas! I've had great verbal response to the event and a group of dedicated alumni are working on putting the event together. All tennis alumni will be receiving something via email and/or mail about the reunion.

It was pointed out to me that Southwest currently has great deals into Vegas from the Pacific Northwest airports ($80 each way). Might want to jump on this deal before it ends!

More on the event later....

Uncorking a Great Time in Walla Walla

Enough of the tennis camps for junior players -- here is a very special tennis camp for the parents! July 21-24 we are hosting a tennis/wine tasting/gourmet food event at Whitman. Camp consists of morning tennis instruction, afternoon private wine tastings, and evening dinners with with winemakers.

If you haven't been to Walla Walla recently (or at all) you are missing a real treat. Home to over 120 wineries Walla Walla has been called one of the wine capitals of the United States. Along with the wineries there are a plethora of great restaurants in the area. Walla Walla is now one of the top vacation destinations for wine enthusiasts. Talk about a perfect pairing -- tennis at Whitman and Wine Drinking in Walla Walla. Also the profits from this event go to the Whitman tennis programs.

Joining me running this camp is our women's coach John Hein. John is an incredible coach and brings a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm to the courts. And speaking of enthusiasm Coach Greg Patton of Boise State will be helping direct the camp. We are very lucky to have Greg joining us at event. He is one of the top coaches in the nation and brings unparalleled energy to the courts. He is the only person in college tennis to be named College Coach of the Year with two different teams (UC Irvine and Boise State) and he was the US Junior Davis Cup coach to Sampras, Courier, Chang, Wheaton (among others) when they were cutting their teeth on the professional ranks.

Here is a link to the camp flyer. If you know someone who loves tennis and wine make sure they get a copy of the flyer!

If you have any questions please email me at coach@whitman.edu

End of the year rafting/camping trip

Talk about a whirlwind week! After returning from St. Louis there was only a day left in the final exam period so many players were busy taking exams and wrapping up the school year. The period between the end of finals and graduation is nicknamed "Camp Whitman" because the campus is alive with activity but no classes/homework/tests. Just a few days of hanging out with good friends before the summer. I decided to take "Camp Whitman" a step further and took members of both tennis teams on an overnight rafting trip down the Wallowa and Grande Ronde Rivers.

Big thanks to Minam Raft Rentals for providing us the rafts. As usual their service was awesome -- we showed up at their shop Thursday afternoon and the rafts were waiting for us to load. Let me say the Grande Ronde river was running hard which created some issues (more on this later). A couple weeks ago the river was running was at 5.5k CFS (cubic feet per second) but during our trip the river was almost 13k! In fact the towns of Elgin and Troy were experiencing some minor flooding.

We had a great float Thursday. Weather was near 70 and the high water flow created some fun rapids. About 6pm it was time to get off the water and set up camp. With the high water flows it takes some planning and hard rowing to beach a raft. I along with two other rafts managed to pull out at one of the best camp spots in the canyon section. However one raft (ET, Steven, and Jake) wasn't paying attention and overshot the take out. Since there is no going upstream we reloaded and chased the wayward boaters down the river. Once we all grouped up I talked about the importance of proper planning and rowing to get the rafts ashore in the high water. Once again I took the lead to scout for good camp spots. At another wonderful looking spot I and two boats pulled off only to see the ET/Jake/Steven raft miss the take out! Let's just say it took a total of four take out attempts (and a new rower in the ET/Jake/Steven raft) before we managed to get everyone ashore.

Even though our take out was later than originally planned we managed to have a wonderful meal of steak and chicken fajitas, dutch oven rice and a special pot of dutch oven beans. Was quite the evening of cooking -- I had two two-burner stoves and two dutch ovens cooking at the same time!

With the sound of rushing water outside the tents most everyone had a great night sleep (Jake and ET didn't bring sleeping bags so their sleep wasn't so great). Friday was pretty uneventful: two dutch oven breakfast meals, pack up camp, load up rafts and float the final stretch to our final take out.

Certainly a fun way to wrap up the year. Here is a link to pictures from the trip.

Season Ends in ST Louis

All good things must come to end and unfortunately for us it ended a bit too early. On Saturday we were defeated by a very competitive UW - Whitewater team 5-2. We knew going into the match we were going to have a tough match. Unfortunately the match was a bit too competitive and the Whitewater team took an early lead and never looked back.

Over the weekend the weather in St Louis was cold and rainy forcing indoor play. Even though we have plenty of experience playing indoors, I think the move was more a benefit to the big serving Whitewater team. In doubles they were able to control the momentum of the matches with big serves and returns. At #1 doubles Andrew/Conor lost to one of the top teams in the central region 8-5. As a side note the Whitewater duo will be playing in the NCAA doubles championship next week. At #2 doubles ET/Jeff played their usual solid doubles to tie the match at 1-1. At #3 doubles we were broke in the 3rd game of the match and the Whitewater team served their way to an 8-6 win (they were never broken).

Going into singles we were down 1-2 but still full of confidence. The previous weekend we were down 1-2 against LCSC and managed to come back and win 5 of the singles.

In singles we had a great team battle. Early on each team raced out to a lead in 3 of the singles. Whitewater won the 1st sets at #1, #4, and #5 while we won the 1st set at #2, #3, and #6. Unfortunately this really backed us into a corner knowing we needed to take 4 of the singles to win the match. Whitewater got on the singles board first winning at #1 and #4 putting them up 4-1. At #6 Adriel got us back into the match with a 6-0, 6-4 win. While ET was close to a victory (6-3, 5-4), Whitewater took #5 singles off a ball that hit the net cord and dribbled over for a winner. Tough way to lose an individual and team match -- dribbling ball off the net cord.

Such a tough ending for our season. We went into the match prepared but didn't play our best tennis. One thing I really appreciated during the match was how hard everyone competed. Everyone put forth an amazing effort. The Whitewater team simply played better tennis and had just enough to gain the victory.

Even in defeat the weekend was a great finish to our season. We earned a trip to ST Louis as the #2 seed in the Midwest bracket (Whitewater was the #3 seed). We had a great time being together and had time to reflect on the amazing journey we had all been apart of. The negative part of the trip (besides the loss) was it took place right in the middle of finals week. Everyone was busy studying and taking tests.

The trip was a great learning experience for the team. Even though we lose three important members of the team to graduation (Chris, Etienne and Quin) we are already thinking about what we need to do to get ready for next season. Even after a long season our eyes are now turned to training over the summer and getting ready for the fall season.

At the NCAA's

We have arrived at ST Louis and are getting ready for our round of 32 match against UW Whitewater. We had the opportunity to watch Whitewater play today (they won 5-1) and we are in for a battle! Looks like UW-W plays good doubles and is solid through their line-up.

Our match tomorrow is scheduled for 2pm. However there is a good chance for rain and if we get rained out the match will be at 5pm at a nearby club.

I won't be provided twitter feeds during the match but WU-STL has a tournament page that provides live scores.

http://bearsports.wustl.edu/Sports/Content/Pages/2011NCAAMensTennis.aspx

Wish us good luck!

Whitties headed to St Louis!

Just got word we are being sent to St Louis for the first round of the NCAA's. We will be the #2 seeds in that bracket and play the winner of Wisc Whitewater and Westminster. Needless to say we are very thrilled to be out of the CA region.

More later...