justin's Blog
TOC Awards
Today was a great day on the job! Today we selected the first ever recipients of the USTA Tennis On Campus Club and Leader of the Year awards. The selection committee is a sub-committee of the USTA’s Tennis On Campus Committee (volunteers from around the country). I drafted the criteria and online application for the award back in the end of 2008. The awards went “live” at the beginning of January, and applications closed at the end of February. We received quite a few strong applications for both the leader and club of the year awards – the decision process would prove not to be easy.With the volunteer committee spread out across the country, the only way to make these selections was via conference call. Many of the conference calls that I partake in seem like a waste of time – there is something to be said for in-person meetings. In any event, with just three other people and myself, this one wasn’t too bad. Especially since we all agreed on the top candidates for each category right off the bat. When individuals in a program you work on everyday separate themselves from the field, it’s not hard to see.
Sooooo, congratulations to the University of California, Davis Club Tennis Team and to Steven Azeka from California State Polytechnic University – the first recipients of the USTA’s Tennis On Campus Awards! Both of these award winners will be recognized in front of their peers at the 2009 USTA National Campus Championship in Surprise, Arizona, as well as on TennisOnCampus.com, USTA.com, and various other online and print publications. And Wilson Sporting Goods has offered to help out and offer up some product for both, too!
The next step for these awards will prove to be a daunting task, though. With a great first round of national awards, it’s imperative that in the next academic year the TOC Awards begin to get engrained in each of our 17 USTA Sections. A few of our sections already have similar awards – we used some of their criteria to create the national awards criteria – so hopefully those are easy transitions. The other sections are all in favor of the awards, but the actual implementation of them (and making sure they are consistent in criteria, etc.) may be a bear. We’ll see…
Until next time, are you playing TheField?
Justin
Posted: Mar 17, 2009