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Freshman Tennis Player Becca Shine Begins Blog
September 29, 2010 | Women's Tennis
Sept. 29, 2010
Welcome to the Birdcage
We've been working hard for a little over a month and it's paying off! Last weekend we went to our first tournament in Michigan. It was definitely a different experience from the usual practices in Louisville.
I am a freshman, along with two others, who of course, have to fulfill their freshman duties. During the week in Louisville, these duties mainly consist of getting the balls to and from the courts. However, everything's different on trips. We had to sit in the back of the van, and enter and exit, not through the door, but the trunk. It was much colder in Michigan, and we found out really quickly that the freshman have to pump the gas. Stefan handed us a credit card and said one had to pay and one had to pump. I quickly said I'll pay, thinking I was being smart and choosing the easy job, and we both exited the trunk. I ran in to pay and Julia stood out to pump, and I saw Stefan point towards the windshield saying it's really dirty and the freshman need to clean it. At this point of course my 5' 9" roommate refused to do it because I chose the easy job first, so being 5' 4", I looked up at this massive van and try to decide whether it would be better to clean the windshield from the ground or just hop on the hood and look ridiculous--meanwhile Mrs. Brown is off to the side taking pictures...
Regardless of whatever we had to do, we all had a great time. There always seemed to be something hilarious going on. I was in my doubles match with Sarah when she made a comment about another girl being obnoxious on another court. I waited about a minute and sure enough I hear this loud shriek. It wasn't until later that we found out that the shrieking girl was playing doubles against Julia and Mandy on court 2, while we were on court 9, hearing her from quite a distance. We also found out that a girl from Detroit was rather irritated playing next to the shrieking girl. She was about to serve and heard another shriek. The Detroit girl looked at her and yelled, "Are you kidding me? Not now! This is not ok! Can you take it down a couple notches?" and then proceeded to serve for the next point. Julia, Mandy, and everyone in the stands found the situation to be rather humorous, but the shrieking never ceased.
Overall I think we all had an awesome time on the trip, and it was a great first tournament. A couple of us tried to prank the coaches at the hotel, but because the coaches just somehow knew everything, all that resulted was a little confusion, some new nicknames, and some rose petals scattered out in front of the door of the IPFW coach. They were put there by mistake, but I don't think anyone bothered to pick them up, so he got some love the next morning. Even though we had fun on the trip, we were serious while playing, and the enthusiasm we took with us on court was awesome. I think we all had an awesome first month and we're ready for another one. Peace! :)
