Late in 2012, Winthrop University Basketball Coach Pat Kelsey took advantage of the fact that his team just played the number four team in the country. He had more microphones in front of him after the game than ever before and a voice that he didn’t usually get.

In this and the next edition of Long Island Tennis Magazine, I will be interviewing two former players who graduated from Stanford with me in 1996 and were my roommates/teammates. Both Jim Thomas and Jeff Salzenstein played professional tennis for 10-plus years after their four years of college and have some good insight and advice for today’s juniors about tennis life as a pro, college and junior player.

A great source of untapped recruiting wisdom is from former Long Island players who have finished college. These young adults have all the experience of college and are still young enough to relate to today’s junior players. I asked two Long Island-bred college graduates some recruiting questions and tapped on their wisdom. Our panel for this discussion includes Allison Dender from Washington University in St. Louis (Class of 2010) and Ryann Cutillo from Wake Forest University (Class of 2012).

"Back in the day,” people were never home-schooled to play tennis. Back a “half-day ago,” it was done by a select few who had a slightly reasonable chance to make a living as a professional tennis player. It was considered putting all of your eggs in one basket. But what about today?

At this point in my college consulting career, each of my consults fall into one of a few categories. For example, many consults are with parents of freshmen in high school who want to know whether their child should make an academic or athletic run through college doors.

For two weeks in May, I couldn’t stop following tennis. I looked forward to coming home at the end of the day and watching more tennis. It wasn’t the French Open that captivated me … it was the NCAA Tennis Championships which I loved watching on the computer and on ESPNU.

Humbly, Jay Harris and I know a lot about college tennis. But this does not stop our college tennis debates. Jay was kind enough to let me interview him for some insight.

My experiences were 15 years ago, but I remember them like yesterday. I stepped foot on Stanford’s Palo Alto, Calif. campus, an academically and socially unconfident kid from Long Island.

The life of a college tennis player is different in many respects and similar in many respects. Here are some nuggets of information about college tennis life. More nuggets will be available in the next issue of Long Island Tennis Magazine.

In the last issue of Long Island Tennis Magazine, we discussed three myths: (1) Going to a school that you would want to attend if you ever stopped playing tennis; (2) The importance of liking your coach during recruiting; and (3) Asking kids on the team about the coach and school is worthless.

I used to get mocked from my friends about that all the time. I was fortunate enough to get admitted to a college (Stanford University) that rejected some of the smartest kids from my high school (Roslyn High School). I wasn’t a moron, but by my own admission, I didn’t have the standard academic profile Stanford usually looks for. I had earned a high enough national tennis ranking that the tennis team was very interested in having me attend and contribute to the Stanford program.