{"id":473,"date":"2010-04-21T16:02:51","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T16:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=473"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:38:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:38:41","slug":"sports-notes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2008\/spring08\/departments\/sports-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May, some of the country\u2019s best men\u2019s tennis players will converge on the Wallach Tennis Center for the 2008 NCAA Division III Men\u2019s Tennis Championships<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By staging the event at Bates, the NCAA has asked the College to r\u00e9p\u00e9tez, s\u2019il vous pla\u00eet, a phrase that serves up two ideas. The first is the event\u2019s quick return to Bates; it was just here in 2004 and comes back in large part because of the fine job Bates did that year. The second is the event\u2019s local flavor, provided by tournament director and tennis coach Paul Gastonguay \u201989, a Lewiston native and former All-America player who returned to his alma mater 13 years ago \u2014 but not before proving his tennis tenacity among the game\u2019s best.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Like any serious player, men\u2019s tennis coach Paul Gastonguay \u201989 never travels with just one racquet. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In returning to Bates in 1996, Gastonguay was coming back to a family whose local ties are racquet-string tight. His father, Jean, is a retired high school French teacher and his mother, Mercedes, is an artist who runs her own teaching studio. Both are big fans of Lewiston\u2019s No. 1 sport, hockey, cheering on the Maineiacs of the Quebec Junior Hockey League.<\/p>\n

Their son Paul, who spoke mostly French until kindergarten, grew up playing all kinds of sports but gravitated to tennis, captivated by his family\u2019s passion for the sport. His father coached tennis with great success at the high school level, while his uncle Roger was the pro at Central Maine Tennis, off Lisbon Street. In high school, Paul and his brother, Marc, helped lead the Lewiston Blue Devils to a state championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were never forced to play but always found ourselves following my dad to the courts because we loved it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Then it was on to Bates, where tennis coach George Wigton encountered this \u201cslightly pudgy\u201d freshman. Wigton suggested a weight program, and estimates that Gastonguay put on \u201cprobably 30 pounds of muscle, which just made him a whole different player.\u201d Gastonguay also grew in his coach\u2019s estimation. \u201cHe was probably the most diligent, dedicated player I ever coached,\u201d Wigton says.<\/p>\n

Gastonguay earned All-America honors, following in the footsteps of Bates\u2019 first All-America player, Bud Schultz \u201981. After graduation, Schultz, beginning to wind down his pro career, offered Gastonguay a job as a tennis instructor at Longwood Cricket Club in Brookline, Mass., where Schultz was tennis director. Right away, the elder Bobcat saw that Gastonguay was on the ball. \u201cNo one ever wants to pick up balls\u201d after practice, says Schultz. \u201cBut Paul was the first person I\u2019d ever seen who would run to pick them up.\u201d He mentored the younger Bobcat, and Gastonguay readily credits Schultz\u2019s \u201cworld-class coaching\u201d for lifting his own game \u201cto the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, Schultz was an adviser to Ivan Lendl, then the No. 1\u2013ranked men\u2019s player in the world. Lendl called one day to ask Schultz if he could come down to Lendl\u2019s home in Greenwich, Conn., for a few days of workouts. Schultz couldn\u2019t, but suggested the hustling Gastonguay instead. \u201cI sent Paul down to Lendl\u2019s house and he never came back,\u201d laughs Schultz.<\/p>\n

Lendl and Gastonguay played their first match shortly after Paul rolled his beat-up Subaru up Lendl\u2019s gated driveway. He lost, 4-6, 4-6, but won a job as Lendl\u2019s training partner. Lendl, who once described his greatest talent as the talent to work hard, found in Gastonguay the rare workout partner who could return whatever Lendl sent his way for however long.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually worried about him burning out too quickly,\u201d recalls Lendl. \u201cPaul was great for practicing because he would try anything and always go full out. What you need is someone who goes after every shot and tries to make every shot, no matter what the score \u2014 even if you\u2019re beating him pretty handily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Says Gastonguay, \u201cI knew that Ivan was thankful that I would work as hard as he did and never give up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides serving as a training partner, Gastonguay also worked at Lendl\u2019s tennis center in Bedford, N.Y., in the early \u201990s. In effect, he got an advanced degree in all things tennis, the teachers being Lendl, other pros who came and went, and Lendl\u2019s primary coach, the legendary Tony Roche. \u201cPaul learned from the best in terms of how to train for tennis,\u201d says Schultz. Especially from working with Lendl, \u201cPaul learned everything from fitness to technique. Everything from A to Z.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gastonguay was also working on his own professional game, and one hard lesson was the load of money it takes to fund a startup career. Chasing balls was one thing, but chasing money was another. \u201cI was close,\u201d Gastonguay says, \u201cbut it just wasn\u2019t going to happen with my financial situation.\u201d Encouraged by the retiring Wigton to seek the Bates coaching job, Gastonguay returned to Bates in 1996. In recent years, he\u2019s also been raising two daughters with his wife, Leslie.<\/p>\n

Coaching success has included various coach of the year honors; seven straight (2000\u201306) team appearances in the NCAA Championships; and Will Boe-Wiegaard \u201906 winning Bates\u2019 first-ever NCAA singles title in 2006. This year, he\u2019s got some exceptional young players, including Amrit Rupasinghe \u201910, Sri Lanka\u2019s national singles champion, and Ben Stein \u201909 of Pelham, N.Y., who\u2019s advanced from a modest junior ranking to the top 25 in Division III.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul has done nothing short of a miraculous job in recruiting players and also developing good athletes, like Ben, into excellent tennis players,\u201d Schultz says.<\/p>\n

In 2006, Gastonguay was inducted into the Auburn-Lewiston Sports Hall of Fame. Flattered to be chosen, Gastonguay was nevertheless confused, accustomed as he was to reading about his Bates elders, like former athletics director Bob Hatch or Dave Harkins \u201953, being inducted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to make sure they realized I hadn\u2019t retired or anything,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m a long way from done here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sports Notes<\/h2>\n

TOURNAMENT 101 <\/strong> As he did when the NCAA Division III Men\u2019s Tennis Championships came to town in 2004, head coach and tournament director Paul Gastonguay \u201989 will enlist the help of Bates students, who\u2019ll do everything from training local middle-school students to be ball boys\/girls to making sure umpires\u2019 chairs are moved as the sun shifts. And as in 2004, this year\u2019s group will get Short Term credit under \u201cProfessor\u201d Gastonguay, who organizes the student help into an academic independent study in tournament management. \u201cThey\u2019ll write a daily journal to account for how things went that day and what improvements they\u2019ll need to make,\u201d says Gastonguay, who\u2019ll also expect a final paper.<\/p>\n

\"\"WOODEN RACQUET<\/strong> Tennis player Mallika Raghavan \u201908 (right)\u00a0of Chappaqua, N.Y., was one of 14 national semifinalists for The Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup, an award recognizing outstanding role models among professional and collegiate athletes. Raghavan studied in Thailand during fall 2006 and drew on that experience last winter to help coordinate an East Coast tour by two Thai organic rice farmers (\u201cA Fair Trade,\u201d Summer 2007). But that\u2019s just one of her many projects. \u201cShe is the ultimate example of an athlete who shares her talents and abilities to help others,\u201d said Gastonguay. A four-year letterwinner and team co-captain, Raghavan \u201cdeveloped parts of her game that allowed her to become an aggressive, all-court player,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

TOP TO BOTTOM<\/strong> The Slovenski Indoor Track at Merrill is getting a new Mondo Super X Performance surface, similar to the outdoor track. The surface reflects light very well, so the facility will seem much brighter (also helping will be 139 new lights that use half the power but offer twice the luminescence). Men\u2019s track coach Al Fereshetian notes that \u201cthe current track is very fast, but that\u2019s because it\u2019s so hard. This one will be equally as fast, but much more forgiving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nMAYORALTY\u2019S BACK?<\/strong> We noticed a different kind of Bates mayoralty at recent indoor dual meet with Colby. Serving as meet officials were (above) Lewiston mayor Laurent Gilbert and Auburn mayor John Jenkins \u201974.\u00a0Also\u00a0in attendance was South Portland mayor Jim Soule, father of hurdler Emily Soule \u201911.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May, some of the country\u2019s best men\u2019s tennis players will converge…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":455,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-473","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10789,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/473\/revisions\/10789"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}