Night Before Match Thoughts- Curtis and Kroll

Coach Rodgers has asked Mark Kroll and myself to share the thoughts and feelings we have before the first match of the year with all of you.  He phrased it as, "the wily veteran and the young kid."  This will be my last semester of tennis at Coe and with that comes many emotions.  The first is sadness and that may sound weird the night before two matches but the reason is, I have fallen in love with the game of tennis in the past 8 years and in four months my competitive career will be over.  There have been plenty of matches where I did not like competing (mostly because I was that nervous), but now I realize how much I enjoy being on the court and playing my heart out for my teammates.  Tomorrow will be my first time competing in the first group of singles players and not coming out of the bull pen (a new challenge for my nerves).  Enough with the sadness and what I will miss in four months but now lets move on to what I am feeling about this upcoming season.

The 2013 Coe College men's tennis team is the most talented team I have been apart of in my 4 years.  Talent is great but talent does not always result in success so I am very excited to see how the team performs.  I think we will have a great year and I don't have much else to say tonight but I know i will after the matches are over.  My final thought is that I hope I be a good captain this year and lead the rest of the team in a very competitive but respectful manner.  Tomorrow will be the first big test for myself and for my teammates.  Go Kohawks!

Those are certainly inspiring words capt'n. As a first year student at Coe and first year member of the Kohawk tennis family, my thoughts on the first match of the season are pretty straight forward: hit the ball over the net. Sitting here in the office, writing my portion of this blog I am not feeling any nerves. I'm sure that as I step on the court though the butterflies while start to flutter, and hitting a basic forehand (which is already a bit of a challenge for me) will become increasingly more difficult as the match time approaches. Especially since I "have never played a tennis match before" according to Rodgers (just one of his many jokes). I'm looking forward to watching my teammates compete on the courts and hopefully we can set the tone for the rest of season. Not knowing much about the conference I am not the most qualified to say how good or bad we will do. However, after just three weeks into the spring season I can say that as a team we all work really hard and are more than willing to leave everything we have on the court. I'm excited to see where the season takes us and by the way the coaches and upper classmen talk about the season, I think we are in for some fun.

The negative-one-thousand-degree-wind-chill-walk over to the racquet center will certainly be interesting, hopefully we will all make it over without going face first into the ice. It will be a good day of tennis for the Kohawks tomorrow. The energy of the team is electric which is something that makes being a Kohawk so special. If you have the chance to make it over to Clark to watch and support we would most certainly appreciate it, and if you can't due to distance we all know that you are thinking of us and we acknowledge that as well.

So, from a veteran and rookie, Curtis and Mark, here is to a great season for the men of Kohawk Tennis!!

Let's go get 'em boys!!