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Thursday, February 21, 2008

Redshirting in College Tennis; New Rankings; Stanford Offers Free Tuition

Although I've been a college football fan for a long time, thereby coming in contact with the term "redshirt" frequently, I was never exactly clear what it meant. I'd heard it applied to college tennis, and thought it was about time I learned about the process and its uses in NCAA Division I (&II) athletics. This article, for The Tennis Recruiting Network, is the result, and I want to thank Michigan's Bruce Berque and Virginia's Brian Boland for patiently answering all my shockingly stupid questions.

The new college rankings were released Wednesday, both team and individual this time, and the only change was Clemson's Ani Mijacika edging out Arkansas's Aurelija Miseviciute for the top spot in women's singles. The Stanford women dropped to third after their loss to Georgia Tech at the Team Indoor, and they are likely to fall again when the next ratings are released on March 4th, having dropped a 6-1 decision to Cal on Wednesday.

I happened across this story in the Mercury News about Stanford's announcement that tuition would be waived for families with incomes under $100,000, and that student loans would be discontinued. This follows a trend set by several Ivys, but only Stanford offers athletic scholarships, which got me thinking that in non-revenue sports like tennis, which has only 4.5 men's scholarships to give, this could be an advantage. Of course just getting into Stanford is the biggest challenge, but tuition cost is now something middle-class families don't have to worry about when applying.

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