VARSITY ATHLETICS

October 12, 2009

Bowen Gets Two For One At Case...

By Freshman Corey Bowen (Midland, MI)

My name is Corey Bowen, and I’m a freshman student-athlete here at Case. From a young age, I’ve always been a tennis player. Although I was skinny, awkward and uncoordinated, my dad worked the on basics with me until I was good enough to go on scholarship to train at the local club (I will interject here to say that my town, Midland, Michigan, won the award for Tennis Town USA at the US Open this summer – yeah!!). Up until my sophomore year of high school, I kept up tennis and soccer, but then a massive lawsuit throughout the state of Michigan resulted in all the high school sports seasons being switched around. Tennis moved to the spring, and I was forced to quit soccer. With the spring season open, I started running cross country for the first time since middle school. I loved it, and earned nearly as much success as I did in tennis – I missed All-State for cross country by three seconds at the State Meet. Looking at colleges, I had some tennis and running scholarships to choose from but I chose a school that gave no athletic scholarships. Case presented me with an option that no other school would have dreamed of; the opportunity to do both.

Getting to know people in both sports, there are a few generalizations I can make about tennis players and cross country runners. The first is that tennis players don’t like to run. In most tennis programs, a fair punishment is to do a few sprints or, much worse, run a lap around four courts. Rare is the day when you will see a tennis player out on a run around the neighborhood, it just doesn’t happen. Secondly, most cross country runners I have met pride themselves in the fact that they are far too uncoordinated to do anything besides run. I would have to agree in a few instances, but as a whole, anyone who says that cross country is not a “real sport” would only have to show up to one workout to start thinking a little differently. To sum this up, I can safety lay claim that right now I am the one and only cross country running tennis player I have ever met in my life. Ever.

When people found out that I was going to do both sports here at Case, most people freaked out on me because of the busyness of the schedule. I will acknowledge that it is basically impossible to be truly in shape for both sports at the same time because playing tennis and cross country really do work entirely different muscle groups. What most people fail to see is that although the two sports require completely different things physically, mentally they are one and the same. The same attitude that is the bread and butter of a tense tennis match keeps me going at a steady pace during the third mile when I’m scared I might have run the first two too fast. Whether it is during a hard practice or a tense competition, I force the same thoughts through my head in either sport; telling myself to stay steady and consistent, to concentrate on my technique, execute effectively and that I’m going to eat the biggest dinner on record as soon as I win this and get out of here!

The most important thing that cross country and tennis have in common is the most important part of either one: the role of the team. They are both individual sports, which is to my liking. You, and only you, decide how you perform, but you can’t control how your opponents hit the ball or handle the course. This also applies to teammates. In either sport, the entire purpose for performing well is to contribute your best efforts for the good of the team. You work individually to succeed together and that is what makes these sports special.

The same mindset that I had my junior year of high school as a tennis player worked for me when I started running cross country. Now, I will test it out in college. We’re getting deep into the cross country season and are looking ahead to the Championship Season. I’ve only played sporadically with the tennis team so far, but I will start up more seriously once my cross country season has finished. I’m sure that by the end of this year, I’ll be able to tell you exactly how tennis and cross country relate to each other at the college level. Until then, I’m just doing the best I can, and enjoying my time doing the things I love.

Posted by: Creg Jantz October 12, 2009 04:12 PM | Category: Women's Tennis

Posted by: cnj4 (Creg Jantz) October 12, 2009 04:12 PM | Comments (0) | Trackback