International players filling college rosters

[MatRatUSF]

I know a lot of you don't like to read about tennis, but take a look at this article, it's very interesting.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-tennis16may16,0,6179966.story?coll=sfla-sports-front

When Florida Atlantic set out to improve its tennis teams, it followed a path used by a growing number of schools: looking overseas for players.

The result for the women's team has been two conference championships in the past three years and a roster with eight international players.

But Friday the Owls faced Miami, which is built primarily with Florida players, and was defeated 4-0 in the first round of the 64-team NCAA tournament.

Outcomes like that make Vanderbilt women's coach Geoff Macdonald shake his head.

"We're basically selling out U.S. kids so a coach or a school has a better chance to win," said Macdonald, whose fourth-ranked team is the only men's or women's top-10 team without an international player.

Macdonald's team also played Friday, winning 4-0 over a Tennessee-Martin team that did not put an American on the court. In Saturday's second round, Vanderbilt won 4-0 over another all-international team, South Alabama.

So Vanderbilt moves to this week's round of 16 having not faced an American through the first two rounds of the tournament. After soundly beating second-tier teams with international rosters, Macdonald said he asks himself, "Why didn't those scholarships go to American players?"

That question is asked a lot this time of year, as the NCAA men's and women's tennis championships get under way.

Since the 1980s, more colleges have turned to international players to build their programs, and now international players dominate the game at the highest level. On the men's side, 68 of the top 100 Division I players in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings are international, as are 50 of the top 100 women.

In its latest survey, conducted in 2002, the ITA found that of the nearly 7,000 Division I players -- 30 percent of the men and 29 percent of women -- were international.

The percentage of international players who receive scholarships is much higher, probably close to 100 percent, as each men's team is allowed 41/2 scholarships and a women's team can grant as many as eight.

"It's a very controversial issue and gets very emotional both ways," said David Benjamin, ITA's executive director. "It's up to each individual school to decide what number they are comfortable with."

It is also a factor in Division II, which also offers scholarships, as 30 percent of male players and 17 percent of women are international. Last week, West Florida, with eight international players, won the men's championship, and all-international Armstrong Atlantic State took the women's title.

When the trickle of international players turned into a flood, coaches proposed a cap on the number of international players a team could have, but Benjamin said the ITA was told such a limit would be illegal.

Baylor is an example of a team going global. Ten years ago both the men's and women's programs were struggling. Then the school started looking overseas. Today, the Baylor men are defending NCAA champions and heavy favorites to repeat, and the women are ranked No. 14.

Combined, Baylor's tennis teams have 17 international players and one American, a little-used men's player.

Men's coach Matt Knoll makes no apologies for his team, which is 30-0 this season and won its 54th consecutive match Saturday by beating Texas.

"The world is becoming smaller. Look at outsourcing, the European Union. I think the NBA and college athletics reflect that," Knoll said. "We are a private, Christian-based college, and our players fit with our mission."

Many international players have been developed by tennis federations and played in professional tournaments as amateurs, giving them an edge over American players.

Many coaches say there is finite pool of top-level U.S. players and that those players are pursued and won over by the top programs.

"I know juniors ranked in the top 50, and they have two dozen coaches after them," said Marcia Frost, editor of College and Junior Tennis. "There is not as much competition for foreign players. You can get a solid player easier and cheaper."

That was the case for FAU, which has a limited recruiting budget and is not able to lure players away from Miami, Florida and Florida State. Seven of the nine men's players at FAU and 8 of 11 women were international this season. That means 75 percent of the tennis players are foreign at a university where 98 percent of the 26,000 students are from the United States, and 93 percent of those are from Florida.

"There are not enough good players to go around, and the top programs pick them off," said FAU Athletic Director Craig Angelos. "If you go international, you have a much greater pool to draw from, and they are looking for places to play."

Clemson men's coach Chuck Kriese has been a vocal opponent of the influx of international players, but even he has succumbed. He has two international players on his roster, but he said he works to keep his team as locally based as possible.

"It is my duty as a coach at a state school to recruit South Carolina first, then the South," Kriese said. "I am a teacher first. I have to take that approach."

Kriese, who has been coaching for 30 years, said international players are now part of college tennis and fighting it is a waste of energy.

Kriese and other coaches are advocating a better distribution of players.

"There has to be a balance," Kriese said. "I would be dead set against having more than three or four on my roster. To have six or eight, it would be terrible. It would be wrong."

Macdonald said Americans are losing out at mid- and lower-level schools such as FAU, Tennessee-Martin and South Alabama, where international players fill the roster.

"A lot of times the international kid isn't any better," Macdonald said. "Coaches seem to think, `Here's a Swede, he or she must be really good.' It takes work to develop players, and a short cut is to go to Slovakia."

FAU is searching for coaches for its men's and women's teams, and Angelos said he would like to get more of a balance on his rosters. Angelos said he can reduce that percentage by limiting the amount of money for scholarships, since a scholarship for an out-of-state or international player is double that of one from Florida, $12,500 vs. $25,000.

"After I give [the coach] that figure, I would ask them to have a nice balance," Angelos said. "You want to have good players, and you want to win, but you also want to reflect your university."

Ted Hutton can be reached at thutton@sun-sentinel.com.

[Markeymark]

I posted an article a few weeks ago about how international basketball players are having a tougher time getting into the US post 9-11. I wonder if the same effect is being felt in the tennis world.

I understand the desire to "reflect your university", but it rings hollow in light of the amount of scamming and coddling that goes on with athleteship kids playing football and basketball (to call them scholarships would be an oxymoron.)

The college tennis world is clearly different from the revenue producing college sports. It's too bad more kids who came up through the USTA aren't getting the opportunities they deserve. This is especially true at taxpayer-funded universities.

[USFCollin]

What the hell kind of jingoistic crap is this?  I don't care if the kid is from Timbuktu or Tibet, if he or she is good enough to play and has met all the educational requirements for the NCAA and the school they choose to attend, then put a jersey on them and tell them to play hard.  We are the richest country on earth, and giving young people a chance to get an education here benefits us as well as them.  

"I would be dead set against having more than three or four on my roster. To have six or eight, it would be terrible. It would be wrong."

Oh how TERRIBLE to have a team that reflects international diversity and brings it to a Southern college campus.  Who wants a bunch of foreigners running around talking in whatever language when our kids are trying to learn how to be great Americans?

NTERNATIONAL ENROLLMENT HIT ALL-TIME HIGH IN 2001-02:

USF attracts students from all 50 states and more than 115 countries. The number of international students at USF increased 30 percent -- to 2,573 -- in 2001-02, the Office of International Student and Scholar Services reports. The College of Engineering attracts the highest number of internationals, with 749 students, followed by the College of Business Administration, with 440. The top countries of origin among foreign students are India (533), China (190), Belize (98), Venezuela (98) and Colombia (87).

Oh yeah, that's right... USF and every other school in America!!!

[GarySJ]

I'm with Collin on this one. Every now and then someone bemoans the overabundance of non-US citizens on college rosters. What's the friggin' problem? Coaches are paid to win games, and I don't blame them for doing whatever it takes to do that.

Much like the Big Ten/ACC opposition to Friday night college football, this sounds like a case of "we don't have to do it, so we can be self-righteous about it."

[Papa_Bull]

There was a very recent article addressing this particular issue to USF tennis. Gigi Fernandez spoke about it and said that she would like to get more American players but it seems the foreign players don't care as much about facilities.

If I can find it, I'll post it here.

[Papa_Bull]

Here is the Oracle article I referenced:

Sports

International flavor

Tennis coach Don Barr says better facilities would attract more Americans.

By John Calkins

Asst. Sports Editor

April 15, 2005

Men's tennis coach Don Barr says he would like to recruit more American players.

But a major reason he says he can't land as many American recruits is because of the absence of a top-notch tennis facility (which will be provided when the Athletic Department's upgrades are implemented). But as it stands, USF's tennis complex lacks sizable bleachers, a roof and lights.

"When we're competing against schools like Florida State, Florida and Miami, who have excellent complexes, that's important to the American kids," Barr said. "And you can't blame them."

Of the top 50 players in Division-I men's college tennis, 32 are from outside the United States. Among the top 50 women's players, 26 come from somewhere other than the United States.

And while reasons for this trend may vary from school to school, it seems first-rate facilities -- or the lack thereof -- make a large difference at USF, where 13 of the 15 players on the men's and women's rosters are from outside the United States.

"Every year I always go after the American kids first because I like to get a good balance," Barr said.

But since he hasn't been able to land a significant number of Americans, Barr, like other coaches around the country, recruits the best players from their respective countries.

Junior Juan Barragan played for Ecuador in the 1999 and 2000 Davis Cups, and senior Uli Kleindl was once ranked the second-best player in Germany, according to Barr.

"Foreign kids just want to come to America and play tennis and go to school at the same time," Barr said. "They don't have the privilege of doing that in their home country. Being able to recruit top players from other nations allows us to compete."

Women's tennis coach Gigi Fernandez predicts her team will have more Americans in the future.

"I think there will be a trend of us recruiting more of them," she said. "I think we used to lack the facilities, but we don't anymore."

While Fernandez said she would like to see the tennis courts improved, she cites the nearly one-year-old $15 million athletic facility as a valuable tool in recruiting more American players.

"I think it makes us highly competitive as far as academics, weightlifting and sports medicine," Fernandez said.

Like the men's team, the women's team features some of the best players from their respective countries. Freshman Liz Cruz is rated one of the best players from El Salvador and the same can be said for Gabriela Duch, who hails from Mexico.

"I think it used to be really hard to get American kids excited about our program in the past," Fernandez said. "My hope is that in three to five years, our team will be 50 percent American."

http://www.usforacle.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/15/425fbc12b4330

[Brad]

... but it seems the foreign players don't care as much about facilities.

We need to get some Latin American baseball players that feel the same way...

[RJWGoBulls]

I am with Gary and Collin on this, the best players should play.

There is a whole world out there that the seemingly majority of Americans seem to believe they are better than just because.

You guys have the best university system I have experienced, over here there is not a second though given to going to watch the football(soccer) team play, the attitude it is happens, who cares!  due to this good system  and the scholarships on offer the best players from overseas are likely to be drawn to it (with the exception of football in europe at least cause if you are good enough you will have been at a football academy at a professional club since you were 12, and if good enough turning pro at 16)

International Diversity is a good thing, unless y'all are afraid of a lil competition!

[GarySJ]

International Diversity is a good thing, unless y'all are afraid of a lil competition!

Sadly, I think that's what this is really about. Nobody would be signing these international players if they weren't in some way superior to domestic players.

[Velcro]

Go no further than the NBA/USA olympic team getting its arse handed to it by a teams with supposedly less talented players.  They are actually more skilled and better at playing team ball and that is why they are so coveted now.  Coaches realize that foreign players, especially those in europe and south america, have a different set of intagibles that are tougher to find in amongst the me-first big money egos in US high school basketball.