The Full Monty–The Ides of March, 2026 )
PROLOGUE
DEAR MR./MS. “SPAM”,
You are in business. I am not. Everything I have written is free to all.
PLEASE QUIT CALLING ME.
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Two Links: 1. The Barton Project ( Earlier selected articles )
https://barton.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=79836717
2. Subsequent Selected Articles:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K3qpwHvh4PtTWvhcDcCtVE2CuBBaJ8_JIWuX6fZelb0/edit?tab=t.0
https://littlegreenbookoftennis.com/2025/07/16/nexus/
TIME OUT !
The comments below comes from a report on the increasing influx of international college
basketball players ;
The international presence in NCAA basketball isn’t just a March Madness phenomenon — it’s a trend that has been steadily growing, according to NCAA data:
?
Why? Because for every international that recieves the scholarship, or money, or education,etc., that bumps an American. While this affects all global sports, basketball hopefuls should be most concerning. Poor kids, black ones predominately, have used basketball as a major and rare opportunity to lift themselves. No pun intended.
For every opportunity offered abroad, we often deny one of our most needy.
While this is a “sticky wicket”, the issue should be “on the agenda” in the making
of reasonable changes demanded ( NIL/PORTAL controls ).
On the other hand
Immigration ?
I began college tennis and basketball in 1965. I recruited my first international tennis player ten years later. Over the next thirty years there were dozens more. The reasons? First- they could play, win, and help me keep my job. Early on tennis coaches, myself included, also realized these guys were nice , intelligent , good people.
Over the years about a dozen stayed in the USA. Reflecting recently on their lives in America, I wasn’t surprised that none of them were less than stellar citizens. Doctors, Business leaders, Computer experts, Tennis professionals, coaches. Their first American great grandchildren showed up this year.
This happened almost everywhere. And it dawned on me it is a story worth telling. Perhaps the most logical access to these stories would be the INTERCOLLEGIATE TENNIS ASSOCIATION (ITA).
These stories would support College tennis. Solicited, collected,edited and published, there would a large number of public relations possibilities.
This is now happening in many different sports. The monied one is basketball. And there are down sides too (https://littlegreenbookoftennis.com/2024/10/30/whoa-nelly/).
Earlier I have described how fast international tennis players thoroughly dominated American college tennis rosters .
” My involement in this tsunami was as a small college Men’s tennis coach. It was tricky in 1970 and it is in 2024.
The NAIA was the first to eliminate quotas. The coaches repealed the One International eligible for NAIA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP play rule.
Coach Jim Verdick of Redlands University warned “…soon some Texas school, with all Mexican pros, will win every year.” He was wrong. The next year Mercyhurst College (Pennsylvania ) won featuring six of six players from Finland won. The paste was out of the tube. ” (See NEXT PLEASE -www.tomparham.wordpress.com )
Subsequently I tried to make the American basketball world aware of this scenario being repeated in our other sports that had international players. Men and women. That began 55 years ago.
John Calipari recently commented on portal issues, and then ( At minute 8:38 ) he confirms the fruition of my admonitions:
“RULES BE RULES!”
Two nights ago I watched Elon men’s play Campbel University. Campbell’s 14 player roster featured six “graduate students” and six international players.
My guess is that the average age of IMPACT players is now 23-25 years of age. Tennis once put in an
“age rule”. Calipari vehemently reveals the profound damage to 17-18 year old American high school kids who are now being ignored .
John Calipari
There are two links below. One is to an interview with Coach Calipari, the second is second is with David Benjamin of the ITA (Intercollegiate Tennis Association.) Both have segments with comments on international athletes in American college sports. To access those comments scroll to minute 8:38 with Coach Calipari and beginning at minute 53 to minute 60 ). David Benjamin gives an accurate and fair summary of this conundrum.
Coach Calipari :
Coach Benjamin:
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Once I questioned my own persistence to a respected professional. His adamant response was “… worth the effort? You’re damn right it is worth it. It’s our children. Child advocacy !”
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I have fought this imbalance since 1970. Look the recent blog articles and the books I have written. But I’m about “out of gas”. I am firing me last bullets. And I write this hoping some younger tennis enthusiasts will jump in the fray.
: https://littlegreenbookoftennis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/helping-by-tom-parham.pdf
The second half of HELPING deals with this issue. TP
Here are random comments from HELPING ( and elsewhere ) :
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August 5th, 1999 From TENNIS WORLD by Beth German:
“The NCAA is also to be blamed for not keeping tennis specific numbers. It is impossible to find out how many international players take roster spots, scholarships or Graduate from college.”
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REDSHIRT (Definition of an athlete staying out of college competition for a year to develop one’s skills and extend one’s period of playing eligibility: He redshirted last season.
Most humans max out physically at about age 27 or 28, College freshmen start college at 17 or 18.
Aspiring professional tennis players have long been advised to not go to college.
A new scenario has emerged!
Very few make the top 200, who about break even, The conditions are often horrible, lonely and disappointing. One fine college player after trying the pro circuit said ” I got tired of eating mayonnaise sandwiches. You need about 3/4 years to develop physically”.
The galloping allure of American College Tennis is attracting more and more, better and better potential pro players, who are betting on a different developmental arena.
College tennis is becoming the minor leagues of International tennis. 2024 was ample proof that that day is already here. And why not? Annual expenses? That is up to you. Great facilities and coaching, schedules featuring high quality match play. Fine practice partners (a team full ), not to mention a free college education. That most often is worth more than tennis.
And don’t forget- Pro tennis expenses come after years of very similar amounts of annual costs to be in the hunt.
The KICKER–The portal and likeness monies will make very lucrative possibilities for the best borderline international players. True too of the very top Americans. But only a few. Already the first year rumor mill is adrift with wildly questionable numbers and propositions being floated.
THE BAD NEWS IS A LOT OF FINE AMERICAN ASPIRANTS WILL BE IGNORED, And the same is probably true of many “global ” sports. Basketball, golf, soccer, volleyball, track and field are right behind. Tennis just got there first. See NEXT PLEASE (https://wordpress.com/post/littlegreenbookoftennis.com/6105 ).
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Currently college coaches go after the best players . Pretty simple. Earlier the players came from the student body. Then they recruited areas, then statewide, regionally, nationally, and internationally. Now we are attracting elite players world wide. Is Mars next?
We have created a pathway only possible for the very best and richest, What about the majority of our kids?
From Wayne Bryan (Father to Bob and Mike )
One foreign player per team?— fine —helps international good will and is a nice broadening experience for the guys on the team — six foreign players?! — I say the emperor has no clothes. I say burn it down and start over again. Time for a revolt. Carthage must be destroyed! I have been spectacularly unsuccessful in getting this elephant in our American living room removed. I have made speech after speech to coaches and parents in this country and they are 100% behind me and I’ve spoken to the college coaches national meeting in Florida on three occasions in recent years and I’ve hit this topic as hard as only Wayne Bryan can — to no avail.
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Want the best rationale for scholarships from the #1 sport world wide-soccer? Fact: Our men have never won the World Cup. With the advent of Title IX in 1970 our USA women have won three times! The 23 woman roster this time featured all women with college play and college scholarships. I was asked where the Olympic training camp for women was by a colleague from Elon University. Reply: Thirty five miles east. (Six of the twenty three had played for Anson Dorrance’s UNC Tar Heels.) 7. Change comes fast. In 2015 Duke’s women’s golf team finished 2nd in the NCAA. It was on NATIONAL TV. The BLUE DEVILS roster housed no American women. Coaches depend on winning to keep their jobs. I’ll guarantee young women golf coaches made note of Duke’s roster. (And how many good young Asian players are coming along). While this may be new to some it is not to many, myself included. In 1970 the NAIA voted down a “one only international can play in the NAIA Nationals” rule. A grizzled old coach stood and predicted, “… if you allow this, in about two years a Texas team will bring in an all Mexican team and it’s all over!” He was wrong. The next spring Mercyhurst College (PA.) produced the team winner consisting of six “freshmen” from Finland.
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Isn’t it about time some of our organizations screw up their courage and use their time, money and efforts to make these facts available to American parents and players.
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What legal statute keeps us from taking care of Americans first. What does the legal term “state actor” mean to this issue.
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What is not included in the column is the enormity of American college tennis scholarship aid given to international players.
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YOU KNOW BETTER THAN I WHAT IT COSTS AN AMERICAN TO COMPETE AT THE ELITE LEVEL. THERE ARE ONLY TWO MAJOR WAYS TO RECOUP PARENTAL/FAMILY INVESTMENT: 1. PRO TENNIS (IN NC ONLY ISNER, WILKISON, AND SADRI MADE ANY LIFETIME $) AND 2. COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS. THE RISING COST OF HIGHER EDUCATION MAKES SCHOLARSHIPS MORE VALUABLE AND MORE APT TO AFFECT THE CHOICE OF SCHOOL AND SPORT TO PURSUE.
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2016JUNE 25, 2016 by ETHOMASPARHAM
“International players ruled the ( NBA ) draft There were 14 international players selected in the first round of the 2016 Draft,
14 BUMPED AMERICANS. HOW MANY KIDS ARE BOUNCING THE BALL WHO WILL RUN INTO THIS EVENTUALLY.
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There are a growing number of coaches who may not disagree with financial need aid only. What if we gave financial aid to our poor tennis players? Isn’t it intended for our needy? I’d rather have financial help for our needy kids than foreign aid given in the name of diversity. You can be guaranteed that if the scholarship money disappears, so will many international tennis players.
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I wonder how many Athletic Directors silently came to a conclusion similar to this? 1. All sports are counted in the standings for our ‘Conference Cup’? 2. We are in a conference with four good tennis teams with all foreign teams and we give 8 girls and 41/2 boys grants to internationals. 3. I can find a better place for that size of budget.
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by Richard Hoffer
You might not notice it in the so-called revenue sports, football and basketball, which are the games that U.S. athletes are most keenly interested in (although 35 foreign basketball players dotted the rosters of teams in the men’s NCAA tournament this year), but in sports like golf, soccer, swimming. tennis and track and field, the college scene is decidedlv international. For instance: In last week’s NCAA tennis championships 33 of the 64 players in the men’s singles draw were foreign. An American, Mark Merklein from the University of Florida, was the winner, but the other three semifinalists all came from overseas. • The winning team at last week’s NCAA women’s golf tournament, Arizona State, included on its roster the top junior players from France, Mexico and Sweden. • Sixteen of the 31 swimmers on this year’s Arizona State men’s team were foreign, as were 12 of the 25 male swimmers at Nebraska. • The University of New Mexico’s men’s and women’s ski teams, which together had 22 members, were dominated by 19 athletes from other countries. •When Track & Field News previewed the NCAA track championships, which begin this week in Boise, Idaho, of the 168 men it predicted would score points, 54 were foreign-born, as were 43 of the 152 women. It’s not just the big schools that are searching for talent abroad. For one example, of the 17 tennis players on the men’s and women’s rosters at Northeastern Louisiana this season, only two listed a hometown in the U.S. (They were Nhut and Anh Diep, of Houston.) Likewise, Barber-Scotia College, a historically black school of 400 students in Concord, N.C., had an all-Nigerian tennis team that was ranked nationally in the NAIA. All this importation of talent is done by certain schools to stay competitive. Ask why NCAA track and field qualifying standards are nearly as high as those of the Olympics, and Alabama track coach Doug Williamson will tell you, “It’s these young people [read: foreigners] who have elevated the level of competition.”
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Pick a school, google men’s tennis . Tag the roster and see for yourself. Just recently I researched the total rosters of Division 11’s top six men’s teams. Of 63 players on the combined rosters, 62 were international.
Kudzu–it spread like kudzu from 1970 t0 1980. All levels, men then women, small to largest.
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Is this right? I wondered. Soon it moved to other world wide sports. Everyone in our area is a basketball expert. I wrote of all sports to:
Mr. Rudy Washington, Editor-in-Chief The BCA Journal (BLACK COACHES ASSOCIATION)
P. O. Box 4040
Culver City, CA 90231-4040
Dear M.r Washington:
I’ve coached college tennis for 30-plus years and I have been dismayed by the preponderance of international players who have usurped many tennis scholarships from American youngsters.
There seems to be a trend toward this in basketball. Has the BCA addressed the danger to American student athletes this poses, in particular college basketball. Should there be a limit to this?
If your Journal has addressed this issue, please let me know. It seems basketball is a game that this should concern.
ETP:1h
Sincerely,
Tom Parham
Men’s Tennis Coach
March 9, 1998
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This cropped up for me in 1970. Tennis has lost scholarships, choice of schools, team opportunities, winning, the quality of player abilities, gained student debt, coaching and teaching jobs, and on and on.
Calipari spotlighted current similarities with American college basketball. Any international sport has the same potential ( track, soccer, golf, volleyball,).
From today’s NEW YORK TIMES (Adam B. Kushner )
American players are doing better than they have in a generation. Both the men and the women are winning tournaments and crowding the top 20.
American tennis associations have done a great job of making sure the best kids got access to top coaching during the past 15 years. Tennis is an expensive sport. Few families can afford the costs of elite development. Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul, Amanda Anisimova, Coco Gauff — all needed help and got it in various forms. Title IX also means the government must provide the same amount of opportunities for women’s sports as men’s sports, which has built a culture of women’s sports over the last 50 years.
‘Challenger level is about survival’: brutal reality of life below elite tennis
Clips from THE GUARDIAN by Ervin Ang
“The cities, conditions are not the best, different from when you play the best tournaments. The Challengers are tough. Sometimes I get very upset because you go a long way to win 30 matches and you’re still outside the top 100. It’s way too much.”
The life of a player can be far from fancy. Casual fans may look toward Carlos Alcaraz’s lucrative sponsorship deals with envy, but those on the fringes of the top 100 and beyond live a starkly contrasting reality. The less glamorous side of the sport involves endless travelling, cost cutting to make ends meet and battling bouts of loneliness.
Kevin Clancy, a sports psychologist who worked with Ireland’s top players, believes tennis and golf are the most psychologically demanding sports. He says: “It’s roughly about 20% of the time that you’re on court and hitting the ball, so there’s 80% of the time where you’re doing a lot of thinking.
“Tennis is a sport that mentally could beat you up really, really badly. For players at Challenger level, it’s about survival. They need to play more tournaments and have that constant pressure of, ‘I need to perform and get points’.
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“These players are playing in front of a man and his dog in the middle of nowhere. It’s really tough from a psychological perspective.”
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“It’s not just forehands and backhands, it’s how much can you suffer? How much can you travel? How much can you sleep in different beds every week? We take almost as many flights as pilots. It’s a lonely sport.
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For all their sacrifices, a juicy financial return is far from guaranteed. In 2024, Nikoloz Basilashvili returned from an elbow injury and earned $63,183 in prize money. But after subtracting flight costs and paying his coaches, the Georgian said he made a net loss of about $120,000.
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“You are mostly alone and you don’t really have a lot of friends to talk to. I don’t know if there is any other sport like this, to take a flight on the same day you play a match and then next week you are in another city.
Whoa, Nelly
AI rules ! Access to data gives new insight to college tennis. See link:
I repeat this observation of the recent tournament
“Wake Forest University won the 2025 NCAA Men’s Team Tennis Championship. They beat Texas Christian University 4-2. Both are elite private, protestant schools. In the title match both teams played only the same six team members in singles and doubles. There was one American that played for WFU. One for TCU.
The unitiated might think this 5:1 ratio favoring international starters is unusual or new. Sadly the truth is it is a typical formula among men and women, NCAA Divisions 1 and 11, NAIA , JUCOS. Often total rosters and six starters is just as common.”
Here is some more amateur research:
Sixty two teams qualified.
Ten players was the average squad size. About 600 squad members.
Men are allowed 4 and1/2 scholarships. About 270 grants.
Assuming sholarships are awarded to the players that actually play ( 6 or 7), rosters and box scores reveal that about 80 grants of the 270 go to Americans.
While there were exceptions ( Stanford started 5 Americans ), the “typical ” squad of 10 listed 7 international members. The average ratio of starters was 5:1 international.
Thirty three of the 60 teams had zero or only one American starter.
2025 NCAA MEN’S D1 CHAMPIONSHIPS –MEDIA GUIDE
I’ll follow you down ’til the sound of my voice will haunt you
(SILVER SPRING ) by Fleetwood Mac.
Most college spring sports are over. Baseball never quits . Anything emerge with all the changes this year?
I played and coached college basketball and college tennis.
Here is an earlier quote that panned out:
It is pretty obvious some fundamental changes occurred in the 2025 FINAL FOUR college basketball tournament : No Cinderella, all four top seeds make it. Best bet is a large state University that can pay em, a seasoned and proven coach, some internationals to augment big, fast dudes. No need to recruit high school aspirants other than the rare Cooper. 18 years old—need not apply.
This a link to the whole article:
Wake Forest University won the 2025 NCAA Men’s Team Tennis Championship. They beat Texas Christian University 4-2. Both are elite private protestant schools. In the title match both teams played only the same six team members in singles and doubles. There was one American that played for WFU. One for TCU.
The unitiated might this 5:1 ratio favoring international starters might be unusual or new. Sadly the the truth is it is a typical formula among men and women, NCAA Divisions 1 and 11, NAIA , JUCOS. Often total rosters and six starters is just as common.
August 5th, 1999 From TENNIS WORLD by Beth German:
“The NCAA is also to be blamed for not keeping tennis specific numbers. It is impossible to find out how many international players take roster spots, scholarships or Graduate from college.”
Thankfully the NCAA and the ITA have made data much more available. And the ITA video on the history of college tennis in America cites the long standing issue surrounding international players that continues . (See SEVEN MINUTES–below ).
(SEVEN MINUTES )
As the spring tennis season ends with the upcoming National Championships, would this be a good time to “…let it all hang out” ?
The fact is American College sports will have more and more appeal and possibilities for all global sports.
“like a snowball rolling down the side of a snow covered hill—it’s growing!” (The Temptations )
SEE-
( WHOA, NELLY)
SEE–
The Little Green Book of Tennis 