Anthony Apologues, Tales of Nationals

I flew out on Saturday, April 20th to hang out with some friends for a few days before the majority of the team was scheduled to arrived on Tuesday, the 24th. I drove over from the Charlotte, NC area, where I was staying, to Raleigh, NC, where the tournament was being held. I arrived at the airport and met Coach Grant Chen, Mark Otten, Nick DeGoede, John Siefke, Ross Newman, Janis Hui, Alyssa Chen, and Chikako Shimura.

After a little search of the parking lot for the mini-van I’d rented we headed to the very excellent Residence Inn to rest up for Grant’s double practice. Before bed the boys sans Grant went on a food run. Unfortunately the city of Cary closes around 9pm, and it was just after midnight. Thankfully we were able to find two Southern spots that were serving until 1am…Wendys and McDonalds. We faked out the Wendys drive-thru girl and hit up McD’s.

Grant was up early to pick up Alana Pfeffinger, who took the red-eye to Cary, from the airport. The team headed over to the Cary Tennis Center for the first practice scheduled at 10:30am. It was a bit warm and the courts were playing faster than what we are used to back at the Los Angeles Tennis Center. The tennis center was pretty empty since most teams wouldn’t be arriving until later that evening. Practice wrapped up and we headed over to what would be a frequent mainstay of the UCLA Club Tennis Team, “The Loop”.

The Loop was a nice casual dining place with a pretty diverse menu that was relatively close to the tennis center. All the waitresses kept hitting on Ross and he didn’t frown upon the attention.

We headed back to the tennis center for Grant’s second practice of the day at 2pm. The team was much more comfortable on the surface. Though the humidity was not something we were used to dealing with. The greatest beneficiary of the humid temperatures was John Siefke whose curly locks were in amazing rare form. His style points doubled. I accused him of using some new hair products but he denied it, and threatened to introduce me to his gun collection if I brought it up in public again.

The team retired back to the hotel to relax after a quick stop at Walgreens. The ladies stocked up on discount Easter candy and just barely avoided eating themselves into diabetic comas. I hung out at the tennis site to attend the manager’s meeting. Linda Milan, head of the SCTA’s Tennis on Campus program, set up a pizza party later in the evening for the three SoCal teams, UCSD, USC and UCLA. USC didn’t attend because they’d rather brood over silly little regional rivalries than have fun. UCSD did come and we had a great time with them.

The night ended with me taking a trip to the airport at 1am to pick up Ricky Wu, Emily Wu and Jason Siu who needed to leave a day later because they’re all nerds. This completed our Cary entourage. Ricky and Emily were full of energy during the 25 minute car trip to the hotel. Only Jason seemed to understand that maybe I was not in the mood to be all chatty at 1:30 in the morning. Guess that wisdom comes with age. I set the alarm in my room for 6:30am and headed to sleep.

Yay, 6:30am and I’m up just 5 hours after returning from the airport with the last pieces to our team puzzle. Our first match of the Championship was at 8am against Rutgers University. Coach Grant wanted the team at the courts at 7:15 for a good warm up. My scouting report based on Rutgers previous years’ performance suggested that they would not be much of a challenge for the Bruins. As such Grant allowed Ricky, Emily and Jason to sleep in. I was not afforded such excess.

We arrived and got in a good warm-up before Rutgers arrived. I exchanged pleasantries with the captain of the Rutgers squad and wrote down the line-up that would dole out Bruin justice. Alyssa and Janis started things off in fine fashion, dominating Rutgers ladies 6-1. Mark and John took care of the men’s side of the doubles coin winning 6-2. Chikako and Ross handled singles posting similar 6-1 scores.

On the sideline before Nick and Alana played mixed doubles for UCLA, Mark and Alyssa made a little bet whether Nick would peg the Rutgers lady during the match. Alyssa cashed in when Nick planted a forehand volley into the side of the Scarlet Lady Knight’s head. (After a little coaxing, Nick apologized for the pegging.) Nick and Alana tied a neat bow on our dominance with a 6-3 win. UCLA wins 30-8.

After the match we returned to the hotel to meet up with our resting teammates and pass on the good news of our victory. We stopped at a hero shop across the way to get an early snack before our 12 noon match versus Portland State. Around 10:45 am, I got a call from Margaret, the captain of UC San Diego.

A crazy weather system trapped half of their team in Chicago the previous night and were scheduled to arrive at 12noon. Margaret asked if I could go to the airport to get them since she and the two guys that did arrive needed to be at the tennis center to play what they could of their match or be defaulted. I explained the situation to Grant who agreed that I could go as long as Margaret and her crew swung by our hotel to pick up our extra team members and caravanned to the tennis center with him.

I immediately took off for the airport. I got a call from Margaret that their team arrived a little early and would be waiting for me. Traffic was really great and I got to the airport in about 20 minutes and headed back. The original plan called for me to take UCSD’s players straight to the tennis center but since traffic was so great I called Grant and Margaret and told them that I could most likely get back to the hotel before it was time to leave.

I got back to the hotel around 11:35. UCSD went to our room to change into their tennis clothes. Around 11:45 we were back in our cars headed to the tennis center. Grant was, for lack of a better term, freaking out, since our hotel was about 20 minutes from the tennis center. I was not concerned since the original time depended on the tournament running on time, which it never does, and in the off chance it was running on time we had 15 minutes before the team would be defaulted.

Grant likes being wound up and on a mission so instead of talking him down from the cliff, I let him maintain his level of panic. The last time I’d seen Grant so upset was when he realized he left some of his hair products in Los Angeles and would have to buy replacements. I personally felt that the long-term benefit of doing the favor for UCSD was worth the team possibly being a little late for a match. I wouldn’t have risked us being defaulted, but I knew that was not really in the range of possibility.

I’ve refrained commenting on Grant’s driving of his mini-van since I personally didn’t have a problem with it. Of course, I was usually driving my mini-van so did not have the frame of reference most of the players did. Suffice it to say, that Grant in panic mode gave him full license to treat the Cary surface streets as his own personal motor speedway. I followed at a safe distance so the police helicopters wouldn’t track me along with Grant. Grant got to the tennis center in 15 minutes. My car arrived two minutes later at 12:02.

I dropped off the players from my car and as previously planned with Grant headed off to the secondary site to scout our 4pm opponent, University of Central Florida. My scouting report on Portland State, our 12pm opponent, suggested that they would, like Rutgers, not pose much of a threat to the Bruins. However, Central Florida had some good results in previous years so Grant and I thought I should go and do some reconnaissance. They were playing Rutgers at the secondary tennis site, so we’d be able compare them against our vanquished foes.

It took me about 15 minutes to find the secondary site which was on the other side of town. Central Florida men’s doubles team looked pretty solid putting a whooping on the Rutgers men’s team, but Florida’s ladies were pathetic. Rutger’s ladies, who were completely outclassed by the Lady Bruins in the morning, actually beat Florida’s ladies. Grant texted me that through doubles and one singles we were up 18-2 against Portland. Central Florida’s ladies singles player put up a better fight against Chikako’s morning opponent, managing to beat the Scarlet Lady Knight in a tiebreaker. With such obvious weaknesses in their lady players it was apparent that Central Florida would be no threat to the deep Bruin team.

Grant texted that mixed doubles was starting and I should head back over to the main site to pick up the team. I stayed to make sure Central Florida didn’t suddenly pull out a lost Bryan Brother and William Sister combination in mixed doubles. They didn’t so I took off to meet the team. I arrived with just a couple points to go in the match. UCLA won 30-3. Grant was relaxed again, and his hair was perfect.

The team wanted to know my scouting report on Central Florida. All I would say to them was that I needed to talk to Grant first. There was really no reason not to talk about Florida’s lame-ness with the team, but I was the only one with the information that everyone wanted so why not make them work for it. That’s just how I am. Actually, I wanted the team to maintain the mindset that we had a really tough match coming up at 4pm.

Back at our suite, I informed Grant that our fears of a hard fought match with Central Florida were not based in reality. As such, I recommended that we go with a line-up closer to the one that faced Rutgers, instead of the one we had planned for Gold Bracket play. He took my advice and we made some modifications to the line-up. At 3:30, we loaded up the vans and headed back to the tennis center to tie up the G Group title.

Meanwhile, quietly in the back of the mini-van, little innocent Alyssa Chen was planning the comic moment of the entire trip. It’s always funny when good girls go bad, and this was the worst. Alyssa caused such a commotion that on-court play was interrupted, Ricky admitted a love of watching chickens fight, and Alana was minutes away from lecturing the freshman girls on the birds and the bees. But you’ll have to wait until the next part for the details.

We took a relaxed ride back to the tennis center. This basically meant that I drove in front of Grant’s van which kept him within legal range of the speed limit. Alana stayed back at the hotel to work on a paper…further increasing the nerd rating of the UCLA Club Tennis Team.

After warming up with Florida for a bit we sent Janis and Alyssa out to secure the ladies doubles points for the Bruins, while Ricky and Nick did battle for the Bruin boys set. Janis and Alyssa were not as crisp as they were in the Rutgers match which opened the door for Central Florida to score some points. Central Florida, which had three women on their team, put their only decent woman into the doubles match. She was the one that beat the Rutgers singles player. She gave the Lady Bruins something to think about, but it was more a brain teaser easily dismissed by Alyssa’s faux-apologetic point blank overhead at her feet. The Lady Bruins won 6-4.

The Central Florida men brought a lot of power to the table, thankfully they didn’t bring much accuracy. It would have been a quick victory if Ricky weren’t having a contest with himself to see how many sitter volleys he could dump into the net. Thankfully Nick’s experience and pin-point returns were enough to overcome the freshman’s foibles. The men took their set 6-2.

Emily Wu played the singles set. Florida again played their top lady. Had they done a little scouting they might have saved her for mixed doubles. Though Florida’s singles lady was able to steal a tiebreaker from her Rutgers counterpart, Emily was not feeling very generous and only relinquished a single game. Ross played the singles set for the Bruins taking on his second knight of the day after dispatching the Rutgers Scarlet Knight in the morning. Ross proved quickly that on court he was the king, crushing UCF’s Golden Knight, 6-1.

Cruising into the mixed doubles match with a 16 game lead had the Bruins in a boisterous state. On the sideline we began choreographing dance moves to Fergie’s “Glamorous”. I had some very innovative moves in the works. My attentive students Alyssa and Janis picked up the moves I’d set up for the chorus pretty quickly. However, the more complex shuffle-shuffle-hip-snap-pivot-POW move I’d created for the bridge took a little longer. We had to settle down to watch Chikako and John secure the mixed doubles point before perfecting it.

The entire team gathered in the central bench area of the courts to root on John and Chikako. Florida played one of their strong guys from their doubles tandem. Unfortunately for the Golden Knights their best lady player could not play in the mixed match since she played the women’s doubles and singles, and tournament rules prevents a player from playing more than two sets in a match. As such, Florida was forced to play one of their sub-par back-up women.

With such a glaring weakness, it looked to be another quick rout for the Bruins, but Florida wouldn’t go away without a fight. Unfortunately Florida was not ready for the Bruins on and off-court unified front to distract and cheat their way to victory. With the match score around 2-2 Lady Bruin Chikako Shimura had already fought off a couple break points, and had earned a game point.

Chikako stepped to the line, gave the ball a few bounces and looked over at her partner John “Curly Locks” Siefke for a strategy signal, but he was too busy teasing his bangs. Chikako hit a good serve out wide to UCF’s male player. He returned a good cross court shot that left hairstylist Siefke without a play. Shimura was there and played a good deep backhand back to the Golden Knight’s male. UCF’s player stepped in and framed his shot which went high in the air toward Chikako’s corner of the court.

What next happened is a prime example of why there will always be war, there will always be prejudice, Bone Thugs ‘n Harmony will never again have a top 10 song, and at our core mankind is a dark creature. Edmund Burke wrote, “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” As long as we have the most superficial of bonds, we will ignore what’s right and choose to do what’s in our own best interest.

UCF’s framed shot sailed high and deep to the ad-corner of the court where Chikako waited to make a play. The ball bounced and Chikako immediately called the ball out. Unfortunately, to every one else on and around the court, the ball was clearly in. Not on the line and questionable…but clearly in.

An uncomfortable silence settled around the court. The UCLA blue wall of silence quickly went up, as our entire team on the sideline held its collective breathe so as not to let the truth of the situation escape. Grant who was standing near the gate that separated the courts turned away as if he didn’t see the truth, but he did. John “Jheri Curl” Siefke had originally turned around to see the result of the framed shot, but quickly turned around to avoid facing the situation at hand.

UCF’s players on the sideline were stunned into silence as well. Had they not been bucking for the sportsmanship award they might have made a demonstration. UCF’s player that hit the shot asked Siefke politely, “are you sure that was out?” Siefke put down his styling comb and lied, “I really didn’t see it man.” He then turned to Chikako and in a conciliatory moment said, “that was a tough call.” We could have offered to play a let, but it served our interest to take the point and the game, though we knew we were wrong. So goes life.

Play continued without further incident as the play seemed to have taken the steam out of UCF’s engine. Interest on the sideline began to wane and random discussions began amongst the Bruins.

One useless conversation focused on the different nicknames we go by. It eventually shifted to what we called on-court Bruin Chikako Shimura. Someone said they called her ‘ko-ko’, a few others ‘Chi’, someone else ‘Chica’. I being the comic genius threw out the one-liner, ‘I just call her by her second syllable’. Small smiles appeared as different dirtied minded members realized what I was going for. The small response I’d expected, but then little Alyssa turned to me. She focused her innocent little brown eyes on mine and said in her angelic youthful girl voice, “Cock?!”

I was not prepared for her to say that. It completely overloaded my systems and I yelped out loud. So loud in fact that it disturbed the UCF player that was serving and caused a fault. Grant yelled a chastisement and our on-court team offered UCF a let. (See how easy it is.) I was a mess on the sideline and the rest of the team that didn’t hear Alyssa’s word of the day, wanted to know what I found so funny. So I asked her to repeat it and she did. “What?! Cock. Why, what is that???”

Everyone heard it this time, and her statement of naiveté. This sent most everyone on the sideline into a giggle fit. Except Emily Wu, who added, ‘I don’t get it, what is a cock?!’ Well, that pretty much killed us all, and led to sustained laughter for the rest of the day. In the background Chikako and John finished off Florida 6-3, giving UCLA a 30-13 win, and perfect 3-0 record in Group G to advance to Gold Bracket play.

We headed to lunch at The Loop to reflect on our successful day and to be further entertained by Alyssa. By the end of the day we would successfully turn that innocent mind into a dark cesspool with a little help from Grey’s Anatomy. More details in Part 4 of what is looking like 6 parts, but I’m making no promises.