| Parlaying Tennis into
Education
By Andrew Curry
Special to the Washington
Post
April 16, 1998, District
Weekly
A passion for
tennis could be the ticket to a college education.
And the Washington
Tennis Foundation is working to help some of its young stars make that
connection.
Housed in a
small room overlooking the William H. G. Fitzgerald Tennis Center's stadium
court in Rock Creek Park, the Center for Excellence is designed to maximize
the college admissions and scholarship potential of the high school student
athletes who take part in the Foundation's tennis coaching programs and
tournaments. Every Saturday afternoon from September to June, the program's
30 participants gather, in two groups of 15 for two hours each, in a small
room festooned with colorful banners from colleges all over the country
to work with center staff and volunteers on college- and career-related
skills such as essay writing, public speaking and computer literacy.
"The Tennis Foundation has
been around since 1955, but its goals have changed as the needs in Washington
have changed. We've branched out from just tennis to helping kids succeed
in life," said Tennis Foundation Executive Director Jennifer Brown Simon.
The Center for Excellence's
goal is to use its participants' zeal for tennis, in many cases inspired
and encouraged by the Tennis Foundation's community outreach programs,
as a way to focus them on the future and get them into the college of their
choice.
Though the program's participants
range from graduating high school seniors to eighth-graders, college is
on everyone's mind. The center supplements its basic programs with seminars
for parents and kids on the process of applying to college and for financial
aid. There also are more specialized sessions that address NCAA eligibility
requirements and the differences between Division I, II and III schools.
"The main goal is to help
them lay a very strong foundation for college so that they will get into
a college of their choice and stay in and be happy once they get there,"
said center Director Kpakpundu Ezeze, who also works as a private college
admissions counselor in Woodley Park.
Since it opened last November,
the center has worked with a small pilot group of young athletes. The staff
hopes to expand the program next fall to include 50 students while maintaining
its commitment to helping those most in need.
"Essentially, they're receiving
private counseling, and we want to open the program to the kids who most
need it but can least afford to pay for it. We deliberately recruit most
kids from economically disadvantaged communities," Ezeze said. "Ultimately,
we'd like to open it up to hundreds of kids, but we're going to need a
facility to house it."
Expanding the program will
take work, staff members said. The center uses donations to cover its costs,
which run about $ 800 per student. Still, with a small pool of dedicated
volunteers and donated computers, center officials are optimistic. "We're
hoping to double the size of the center in the fall. We need money for
that, and we're working on it right now," said Brown Simon.
Until then, the program is
doing its best to get students ready for college, whether they are years
or months away from finishing high school. Ninth-grader Shannon Ambush,
a seven-year veteran of Tennis Center programs, is already thinking ahead.
"Dr. Ezeze has a lot of experience
with colleges and what they look for, and he's telling me what courses
I need to take, what competitive schools look for," she said. "I thought
college was far from now. I probably wouldn't have thought about it until
12th grade. Now that I've had the program, I know preparing early is really
important."
Michael Greene, a senior
at Coolidge Senior High School, has received more tangible guidance from
the program's staff. He included the first essay he wrote for the center
in some of his 11 college applications, and as a college-bound athlete
he found the center's seminar on NCAA regulations invaluable.
"The speaker from the NCAA
clearinghouse was helpful in telling us what requirements we need to get
through," Greene said. "It's a long process, and if he didn't come in,
I'd be lost." |
