Do you remember former basketball walk on Dwayne Pina? He's now part of Tim O'Shea's staff at Bryant.
Chris Snee was excited about his first Pro Bowl. For those who missed the game, Snee's NFC squad won.
Among the many teams that I don't give enough attention to is BC Tennis. They won two matches over the weekend. Considering they play without scholarships, they've put together a nice program.
WEEI's focus remains the pro teams, but their expanded blog roster occasionally dips its toes in college sports coverage. Here is what they had to say about BC recruiting. (Thanks to Fred for the link.)
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2 comments:
Your Dwayne Pina mention reminded me of Dwayne's teammates, Antonio Granger. I Googled him, he was still playing professionally in Europe as recently as 3 years ago.
ATL: Long time reader, first comment. I usually respect your informed views, but I have to make some points about BC men's tennis. Nothing against the players, because any success is due solely to them. However, considering the quality of our academics and athletic program, BC tennis should be much better. As is, the program is a non-factor on the national scene and far from one of the powers in the Northeast. The fact is, we don't have a coach who knows how to or tries to develop players. To his credit, he at least tries to recruit (but isn't very good at it), which is sadly an improvement over the prior coach. Not that Gene pays any attention. The poor facilities are perhaps the best excuse, but plenty of lesser schools with good coaches overcome such challenges in other sports.
The lack of schollies should not be an excuse. The max is only 4 1/2 for men (8 is standard for women, including BC). The Ivies also don't have schollies but most are perenially much better than BC and often ranked highly (top 75 are ranked in tennis). BC has not been ranked in this decade and probably much longer. All other ACC teams are currently ranked, including Maryland, which I believe also lacks scholarships. BC has yet to win an ACC match in its tennis history and was typically around 5th or 6th best (of 8 teams I think) in the Big East until we left. In recent history, most BC wins have been over OOC small schools with weak athletic programs and no schollies like BU, URI, Colgate, etc.
If BC tennis starts to beat ranked opponents, scholarship teams from major conferences, or ACC teams, we should respect that because it would be progress. Until then, this program's lack of respectability should be attributed to poor coaching and should be unacceptable to BC and all of its alums.
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