May 23, 2010
Macdonald’s New York Times Tennis Blog
This August the NCAA will enact a rule change requiring tennis players to enter college within six months of their high school graduation. The legislation is a direct result of a 2006 article by New York Times sports writer Joe Drape. That article, titled “Foreign Pros in College Tennis: On Top and Under Scrutiny,” consulted head tennis coaches around the country on matters of eligibility and fairness, including Vanderbilt’s Geoff Macdonald.
The NCAA rulebook states that a player forfeits amateurism by playing for a professional team of any kind or by collecting prize money that exceeds the player’s expenses. While top American juniors are wary of anything that might jeopardize college eligibility, teenagers in Europe and South America who have never heard of the NCAA often collect paychecks with their trophies. Many international players try their luck on the professional circuit before being offered tennis scholarships in their twenties.
“The victims of the loophole are 17- and 18-year old American players competing for scholarships with older, more experienced foreigners,” says Macdonald. “Nobody is anti-international. We’re anti-professional.”
Coaches vying for national titles feel the weight of job pressure and are persuaded to recruit overseas. Once in college, international players dominate Division I tennis. In the 2006 singles championship, 43 of 64 men and 29 of 64 women were foreign.
“The crackdown on former professionals in college tennis will join Title IX as one of the positive social changes the NCAA has affected,” Macdonald says.
Coach Macdonald has taken a political stance on several issues relevant to Vanderbilt tennis. Next, he would like to see the Brownlee O. Curry tennis complex made green. The university’s recent push toward sustainability would be strengthened by renovation of a campus focal point.
“The building’s roof has plenty of room for solar panels,” he adds.
More than ideology, though, Coach Macdonald’s passion is with literature. He earned a degree in English from the University of Virginia and, after several years on the professional tennis circuit, entered the creative writing program at the University of Florida. A short story written with the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project appeared in newspapers in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and St. Petersburg, Florida. That was 24 years ago.
As a reader Macdonald is voracious. His appetites are wide and include the novels of Henning Mankell and J.M. Coetzee and the poetry of W.B. Yeats and Vanderbilt professors Rick Hilles and Mark Jarman. Not least is the writing of his wife, acclaimed poet Kate Daniels.
“Kate is a naturally great writer. She writes quickly and easily. It’s fun to watch her work and to read the results.”
Only recently has Macdonald revived his own writing. He authors the blog “Straight Sets” for The New York Times, analyzing tennis matches in depth during each of the Grand Slam tournaments.
“It’s an excellent opportunity to get back to writing. I study those matches anyway to discuss them with the team, and now I can watch with an eye toward writing about them.”
The job has also improved his reading: “I’m interested again in how things were written, on top of their value as entertainment.”
Tennis is the running theme in Macdonald’s involvement with the writing life. He credits his association with Vanderbilt for maintaining valuable relationships. Coach Macdonald has taught and played with such literary luminaries as Philip Levine, George Plimpton, Padgett Powell, and Peter Guralnick.
Macdonald has collected several ideas for fiction over the years, but has been stalled by his commitments to coaching, he says. Between the early publication of his short story and his recent tennis blog he led teams at LSU and Duke before coming to Vanderbilt.
“Life happened,” he says.
These days Macdonald spends long hours inside the tennis center, but makes a point of keeping on-court and off-court life separate. To get away from tennis he loves to bicycle. This summer Macdonald will ride through northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago with his 19-year old son Gus. When the time is right, maybe he’ll do some writing about it.