When they are not out competing on the tennis court, the University of Missouri-St. Louis’ men’s and women’s tennis teams are making the grade in the classroom. Six players, two from the men’s team and four from the women’s, have been named by the Intercollegiate Tennis League (ITA) as scholar-athletes. In addition to these six individuals, the women’s team as a whole has won the ITA All-Academic Team Award.
The ITA Scholar-Athlete award was given to Aya Gombo, senior, accounting; Katie Rynkiewich, junior, anthropology; Yuki Takashima, Masters Business administration and Stephanie Thompson of the women’s team. Daniel Anthony, senior, management information systems and Felipe Narjano, sophomore, international business, were the two men to be given the award. Takashima and Thompson have since graduated.
“Since it was my last year on the team, it was great winning the ITA Scholar-Athlete award because I felt like I completed something and someone knows that I worked hard for it,” Takashima said. “I’ve won [the award] every year while I was on the team but it meant the most to win last year.”
Rick Gyllenborg, men’s and women’s tennis head coach, has been coaching at UM-St. Louis for 16 years. During that time he says he has noticed, “a pretty close correlation between how a player does on the court and in the classroom from a work ethic and discipline point of view.”
To be named an ITA Scholar-Athlete a player must have earned a 3.5 GPA cumulative for the fall and spring semesters. To win the award as a team, the average GPA of every member must be higher than a 3.2. The awards are given once a year. Criteria for winning the award were recently changed to just being based on the previous two semesters. A student athlete’s whole academic career used to be taken into consideration.
Gyllenborg believes the changes to be positive. “Now if you have a really bad freshman year,” he said, “you can still be acknowledged for your hard work and achievement as a sophomore or junior.”
“I thank my God, my Coach, teammates and also the Athletic director for guiding me and also being supportive of me all year long,” Daniel Anthony said. “Without their help and encouragement I could not have achieved this.”
Both Gyllenborg and his players receive a certificate. Coach Gyllenborg says before moving offices, “[I] had all the certificates the players had earned on my wall and it was fun to see them accumulate.”
“Our coach focuses on our academic success as well as so he gets very excited when we receive these kinds of awards,” Takashima said.
UM-St. Louis tennis begins its season September 10 in Macomb, Illinois. Last season the Tritons qualified for the Great Lakes Valley conference post-season tournament.
