Tennis Talk: Barrett Donner, co-captain of the women’s tennis team, will give you an inside look at what it’s like to be a student-athlete at JMU. With four years of intercollegiate tennis under her belt, she is writing a journal for the bittersweet remainder of her senior year, capturing the inside action of her lively and talented team.
My Last Top 10
And that’s a Wrap.
This morning I sat in a classroom and took my last exam ever. It is hard to believe and has yet to sink in, but after I finish packing up my room and drive my bug towards 81S, I will no longer be a student athlete at James Madison University. It is crazy that I will no longer be a part of this team that has grown to be my heart for these past four wonderful years.
When I came in as a freshman, our seniors would type up a Top 10 list of the greatest moments that happened at our weekend tournaments. These moments ranged from player accomplishments to hilarious things that happened on the bus with our infamous drivers. So thinking back on those, I have decided to do a Top 10 list of what makes this year’s team so special, and why I will miss them so much. Funny how things work out, because each reason of mine has to do with a member of the team, and when you add it all up there are 10 of us, excluding me of course! J
Top 10
- Lyssy, Despite your injuries, your presence and support at every match has been unremitting. Your smile and laughter easily cheers any room. Your compassion and kindheartedness is enough to warm the most frigid day. You always know what to say and are constantly looking out for everyone else. It’s no wonder you are known as the ever-loving maternal teammate.
- Idee, Every morning I wake up and pinch myself, because I can’t believe how lucky I am to have you. It couldn’t have gotten any better than to spend two amazing years on this team not only with my sister but my other half and best friend too. You are impeccably driven, and don’t let minor details get in the way of your plans. This team is lucky to have you. You will be that crazy glue that holds the team together!
- Kelly, For as long as you have been a part of this team, you have been the Rock. Your stability, hard work, and persistence on and off the court have been the backbone of our team. The team can always count on you no matter what, and although you aren’t very vocal about it, you always show up to a match determined to win with your game face on!
- Kinsey, What I admire about you is that you are a tennis player and nothing else when you walk onto that court, and when you walk off the court you are Kinsey Pate again. Always focused and determined as all get out, as just a freshman you raised the bar for JMU Women’s Tennis. For such a tiny thing, you took on the big task of playing number one. Nothing can stop you when you put your mind to it. Let that mindset rub off on the team. J
- Kristin, Watching you play tennis makes me want to get out there on the court. You have a hunger for the ball and you never give up. It’s refreshing every time to see you fight and fight until the very end. For this reason, you will be a great leader for the team in the years to come.
- Leah, You are a ball of fire and it has done nothing but light our team up in the best of ways! Thanks to you, I think we won matches that we could have lost. You have this amazing way of getting our team pumped up and ready to play! Your energy and attitude is contagious. I see you taking our team all the way!
- Becs, Keeping things real and alive has always been your style. You are a scrappy little player with amazing athletic ability. You are a doer, you don’t expect things just to come to you, and on top of all that you are so full of life and have everything important in perspective. You are a great teammate but an even better friend.
- Banana, The team is so lucky to have you as an assistant next year. It is thanks to you that our team is so close. You always take players under your wing and show them the ropes. Your mind is always open and you never judge. You are a leader on the court and the most loyal friend. I learn something new from you everyday. And speaking from personal experience, I think everyone becomes a better person after they get to know you.
- Coach Courtney, Our little good luck charm J. That’s what I think about when I think about you. You couldn’t be more perfect and have really done wonders for this team in only the year that you have been with us. You have a magical way of driving our intensity during practices, and your support has really helped our team as a whole improve in every way!
- Coach Maria, I saved the best for last. If it weren’t for you, I would have never come to JMU and I probably wouldn’t have been playing tennis either. However, they were two of the best decisions I have ever made. I speak for myself and others, when I say that you have an innate ability to positively impact people’s lives. Above is just one example, and that was before I even got here! You are not only an outstanding coach but also serve as a mentor and confidant. You not only help us become better tennis players but help shape us into the women we are striving to be. None of our lives would be complete without you, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you have done for us.
The reasons I love playing for JMU are not because we are the highest ranked team in the conference, but because I have been blessed with teammates and coaches that have made this experience worth the while. As Coach Maria says, “I would rather lose than have a team of players who don’t support each other.” Being a part of a team that has naturally grown so close has been life changing. And although it is not goodbye forever because the relationships and memories we have made will last a lifetime, I often like to think, “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”- Annie
I love you all. <3 Barrett
The Tennis Tutu
Traditions are a set of customs, beliefs, or practices that are passed down and taught by one generation to the next. Traditions are intertwined in all aspects of life; your family may have special holiday traditions, high schools have Homecoming Week traditions, there are religious traditions, fraternities and sororities have initiation traditions, and sports teams have traditions as well.
When I became a part of the JMU Women’s Tennis team four years ago, I decided to order 10 purple and gold tutus, one for each girl on the team. Now if you haven’t seen them around by now I am quite surprised! If you have no idea what a tutu is then just think about what dancers wear. They are also known as crinolines, and were worn by ladies under their dresses to make them poof out, dating all the way back to the 1800’s. The ruffled tutus are girly and go out in a complete circle when you give them a twirl. Now, when the tutus came in, it was love at first sight and what I thought would just be a fun gift for the girls that they would just put away in their closets, transformed into our own little tennis team tradition. Every year since, we have ordered new tutus for the incoming freshmen. It is kind of our way of saying welcome to the team.
Far from throwing these tutus to the back of our closets, these flirty skirts come out for almost every team occasion, except on the court of course! We wear them to every tailgate and football game, Day with the Dukes, community service events, and just around campus for fun. However, our favorite time to wear them is when we travel for spring break! Every time we wear the tutus we draw a lot of attention and people have the greatest reactions. The overwhelming majority are positive reactions but there are people who think they are the most ugly things on the planet. We’ve gotten everything from whistles, to snickers, to outright bursts of laughter, but we love it all.
The best part about these tutus is that they not only bring us together as a team, but they also keep the JMU community close and alive. We will be in airports or at rest stops and have all sorts of people come up to us saying they attended JMU, or their daughter’s husband played soccer there, or just random people questioning where we are from and why we are wearing these crazy things. It is a great time to show our school spirit!
When we are out in our tutus we wear them with pride because not only do we love our team but our school as well. In a way, these tutus are a perfect representation of the personalities the girls on the team have on and off the court, fun, loud, a little quirky, and unique. Hopefully, this representation will stay that way for years to come and that this tennis tutu frenzy will continue as a JMU Women’s Tennis tradition and not merely a passing fad!
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African Dance with the JMU Women’s Tennis Team
Throughout the year, we participate in a multitude of different cross-training activities that attempt to enhance our physical fitness and overall health. These conditioning activities are done to help strengthen our core muscles and to keep our minds and hearts healthy. Cross-training is important for a tennis player because these activities hone in on specific athletic skills that may need improvement and merely practicing on court for a couple of hours will not suffice. Activities such as lifting weights, yoga, kickboxing, the beep test, and jumping rope all help to maintain our fitness throughout the year when we are not hitting balls. Furthermore, they are physical activities other than tennis we do as a team to ensure that we don’t get bored or burnt out of being on the tennis court. Cross-training is so important for any athlete. Our coaches have us do these activities mainly to help improve our overall performance on the tennis court.
Although we do love our weight trainer dearly, our favorite cross-training activities are the classes we take at UREC. I mentioned a few above, but we have participated in Yoga, Pilates, BOSU, Worldbeat/African Dance, Step, Cardio Craze, and Kickboxing. Among those, my favorite is Step, however, the most interesting class we have taken yet is definitely African Dance.
If there is one thing you know about the tennis team, it is that we all love music and will dance at any chance we get. I was once told that tennis is like a dance. Each player moves around the court to their own song, they set their own rhythm and pace, and the game plan and strokes are their dance moves. To be a good tennis player, you must be able to play your game or dance to your own rhythm at all times, the key is to not get caught up in your opponents dance. As you can see, it is a highly individualistic sport.
However, African Dance was nothing like this. Unlike tennis, African Dance is a community dance, more like a team. African Dance was a time to connect with each other and be a part of a collective rhythm that gave us a sense of belonging and of unity. This class was also a time to laugh and enjoy being together. The most fun and difficult part of African Dance was that it utilizes the concept of polyrhythm and total body expression. By this I mean that every part of our bodies moves with different rhythms in the music. Our shoulders would be shimmying to the left while our hips were circling to the right. It was sheer madness and unlike any dance that we have ever done before! We were using muscles that I didn’t know existed, and were moving our bodies in ways I didn’t think possible. It was so fun to see everyone try their best to perform these complex movements to amazing music from African countries to the islands of the Caribbean. By the end of the class, we were sweating, already sore, and laughing embarrassingly because intramural basketball players walked in right when we were in the middle of a move that was somewhat a combination of the chicken dance and the Egyptian.
African Dance was a great team experience. Just like team sports, African communities are all about togetherness and beating to the same drum. A team is not a team if they do not work and contribute together. Our tennis team must think and play as a team if we want to take it to the next level. Aside from the fact that we each walked away sore and with a few new dance moves, this was a cross-training activity that not only improved our fitness but really helped to enhance the ‘team’ aspect of this highly individualistic sport.
