By Randy Capps
The news hit me like a ton of bricks. “Gardner-Webb is shutting down its tennis program.”
An old friend called me with the news a while back, and despite the fact that I’m never short on a sarcastic comeback, I was struck dumb.
My alma mater, in the midst of its most successful run of success in school history, is pulling the plug on men and women’s tennis after this season. The stated reason was “a strategic restructuring of its athletics sponsorship offerings.”
The real reason is money. Sources tell me that the courts need to be redone at a cost of a little over a million dollars, and the powers that be want to spend that someplace else.
I’m aware of the modern challenges facing a small Division 1 school’s athletics department. With the rise in NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) and the need to shift money from schools to the athletes themselves, the pressure to spend more for competitive football and basketball teams — the ones that play the road games for big checks at places like North Carolina and other bigger schools — has never been higher.
The non-revenue sports are the ones that get hit first. To stay in Title IX compliance (this could be a much longer column) GWU added women’s flag football and women’s acrobatics and tumbling to its athletics offerings.
But that doesn’t make me feel any better. I went to Gardner-Webb, in part, because I was allowed to walk on to the tennis team. It’s where I met lifelong friends, experienced a slew of new cultures and basically grew up — all while fixing my backhand.
My first two tournament T-shirts and my tennis windbreaker are still hanging in my closet. I wasn’t the best player — I was on the roster because I had a pulse — but I bled red and black all the same.
It’s not a stretch to say that Gardner-Webb changed my life for the better in a number of ways. I got a great education, and my first two media jobs were a direct result of my internships. And I owe some of it to the Runnin’ Bulldogs tennis program.
I’m just sad that it’s going away.
