Tennis team adds to UA athletic tradition

ROB KEYS

Posted on Monday, May 19, 2008

URL: http://www.wholehogsports.com/adg/226237/

I was raised a Hog fan. Let’s get that part out of the way first.

What that means, as any other Hog fan — by birth or otherwise — will tell you, is that there might as well be microscopic Razorbacks running through my blood. By the time I became a teenager, in fact, being an Arkansas fan just seemed like part of my DNA.

This job changed all of that, of course. Reporting on — or writing columns about — the Razorbacks means the bad has to be told with the good.

There have been plenty of times, mostly with the column-writing, when readers have accused me of being “negative,” when all I ever really set out to do is give my take — right or wrong — on all things Razorback. When I write columns about the Hogs, in other words, I try to write the things I would want to know if I was still living down in El Dorado, hundreds of miles — and in some ways a world apart — from the center of the Razorback universe.

One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the feeling I still get in the pit of my soul when an Arkansas player or team does something truly extraordinary. I guess twentysomething years of living and dying with every Razorback football and basketball game will do that to a guy.

That’s why the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention as I was making my way through the stands and toward the field at Razorback Stadium when Anthony Lucas pulled down Clint Stoerner’s pass for a touchdown against Tennessee in 1999.

That’s why I got chills on an otherwise hot and sunny day when Brady Toops delivered a ninth-inning grand slam against Wichita State in 2004.

That’s why I laughed, and got a little watery-eyed, too, when Peyton Hillis scaled the chain-link fence at Tiger Stadium to celebrate with friends and family after Arkansas beat LSU last November.

Believe it or not, another such moment occurred on Thursday when the Lady Razorbacks tennis team — yes, the women’s tennis team — beat Georgia to advance to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.

Forget that Arkansas had been as far as the Sweet 16 just once in its history. Forget that Georgia is a two-time national champ and one of the country’s proudest programs. Forget that a No. 2 seed hadn’t lost at that point in the tournament since the NCAA began seeding the top 16 teams in 1999.

What made a smile fight its way across my face was the way Anouk Tigu sprinted toward Coach Michael Hegarty and leapt into his arms after she finished off Georgia’s Monika Dancevic to clinch the match.

Even as I walked away from the court so as not to get caught up in the small but spirited group of Arkansas fans preparing to unleash a Hog Call, Ela Kaluder kept the smile on my face. That’s because Kaluder was making a mad scramble from her still-ongoing match to join her teammates in the huddle that had formed around Hegarty and Tigu.

Look, this isn’t a story meant to urge anyone to become a more active fan of “minor” sports like tennis or track or golf. It isn’t meant to champion women’s sports, either.

This is a story about an excellent young coach who made his way to Arkansas via Australia — with pit stops at Auburn, Kentucky, Fresno State and Florida — and has turned a sad excuse for a program into something proud.

This is a story about nine young women from nine different countries who came to Fayetteville to become part of the Razorback family, and achieved something most of those in the college tennis know would have bet against.

These Lady Razorbacks are led by the nation’s No. 1 singles player, Aurelija (You can call her Ray ) Miseviciute, who will go for an individual national championship later this week. Kaluder plays No. 2 singles and Tigu No. 3, though you’d think she was playing for a Wimbledon championship every time out the way her emotions flow.

Most importantly, the entire team plays with that certain spirit that any Arkansas fan would recognize as their own. And even though Arkansas’ season ended with a loss to UCLA on Saturday, what these Lady Razorbacks did on Thursday would have made anyone raised a Hog fan want to stand up and cheer.