Tennis

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sealhall74
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Another dismal year for women's tennis is in the archive journal. Tommy needs to be bold and replace it with something worthwhile (i.e. a recruit-worthy sport) that does not have a huge facility cost associated with it. I mentioned rifle in a previous post on the former board. I still think it is the best option. Badminton is another nice alternative. I have not been in Brophy Hall in a while. I know they play volleyball there and have a new basketball practice court. Given the available space there, anyone have a guess on how many badminton courts could be set up in there for concurrent use? Western Hall could probably facilitate even more badminton courts than Brophy. Back in my day, I still remember a guy in Seal giving me a serious beating on a badminton court in Brophy leading to a very nasty case of the DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscles Soreness). He was totally into it with the gut-strung rackets and all. It is a great sport to play for fitness and very exciting to watch IMO.

Badminton is gaining in popularity across the nation at the high school level while tennis seems to be falling out of vogue for the general masses.

http://espn.go.com/high-school/story/_/ ... opularity/

It is also an IHSA-sanctioned sport for girls:

http://www.ihsa.org/SportsActivities/Gi ... inton.aspx

Not only that, if you play college badminton at this time, you are competing against some of the better universities in the nation.

http://www.badminton-information.com/be ... grams.html

Come on Tommy, dropping Tennis is the right thing to do. We may or may not Badminton as a club sport right now, but let's get serious and put some real money into it.
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ST_Lawson
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If I had to guess, I'd say you could probably set up 6 courts pretty easily (possibly more) in Brophy. Don't know how they'd have to do it in Western Hall (it's not lined for it there). You also have courts at the rec center that are set up to handle badminton as well.
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wiu712
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The 2013-2014 Women's Tennis Team was a very young one with 4 of the 7 team members being freshmen.

They finished the year 0-19 overall.

Six of the seven players (five being underclassmen) will be returning for the 2014-2015 season.
LocalFan
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Given the incredibly tight funding situation, eliminating both the men's and women's tennis programs is a solid idea. The programs don't even have a full-time coach, as the current coach is a graduate assistant elevated to interim status. Use the money saved by eliminating these programs to better fund other, more successful programs. By eliminating both a men's and women's program there should be no Title 9 issues.
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Tere North
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Western used to have a top-notch badminton program headed by the late Donna Phillips.
meganeck
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WIU did hire a new tennis coach. She played at IPFW, so Tommy was familiar with her
meganeck
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The women's tennis team got their first win this past week and it was their first D1 win in 4 years. Hopefully this program is on the rise.
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sealhall74
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I love to play the game of tennis when I am competing against someone of comparable ability. But if the guy on the other side of the net is much better, it is the absolute worst game to play. He is not even working up a sweat and taking me out love and/or one. When all is said and done, I feel like I wasted my opponents time on the court as well as my own and he probably feels the same way. That is why I don't like the NCAA forcing all sports programs to play at the same level. Fingers crossed this new coach can turn it around for us.
Embrace the pace of the race.
brewer2125
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The program under the current coach has had a couple of decent recruits, so that is looking up. Give her (and that process) some time to develop (likely it will take more than a year or two to get traction). Past recruiting appears to have not been done very well. Illinois has many, many highly ranked juniors, so talent is accessible and not that far away.

BTW, WIU tennis does not have a "huge facility cost" - WIU's on-campus tennis facilities are absolutely minimal for a DI program and honestly are about the equivalent of a park district facility (and, except for resurfacing the courts, are pretty much the same since I graduated in 1986. Most DI universities - even those with losing programs - have FAR SUPERIOR facilities. If you think that doesn't affect a recruits decision, then you need to learn more about recruiting.

Drop the tennis program for Badminton? Then why not add Bocce, or horseshoes... I'm sure recruits will flock to WIU to play badminton. C'mon, be serious.
brewer2125
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If you really want to cut an expensive program that is consistently not performing, then take a good look at WIU women's volleyball.... 68-141 since 2007, and that was with intense recruiting by so-called experienced coaches (which the women's tennis program historically has never had). And, on top of that, the Chicago area and Bloomington areas are replete with some of the most elite volleyball clubs in the nation - Sports Performance, Illini Elite, Fusion, First Alliance....no reason why women's volleyball should have that record given the nearby high level talent. If there should be a cut based on a consistent lack of performance - where resources have not been the issue - that cut should be women's volleyball and use some of that money to upgrade the tennis facilities and give tennis a real chance, for once, to develop and grow like women's volleyball has had for years but did nothing with.
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