The women of the Northwestern tennis team practice their zingers as often as their serves, and soft shots with backspin aren’t the only things that drop.
Their pants do too.
The Wildcats engage in a hilarious team ritual — de-pantsing. A team member will always have her antenna alert, constantly looking for someone with loose pants.
Every athletic team practices to win. It’s simple logic: Hard work in practice pays off in victories.
But there’s an exception to this equation. The Cats also follow another logic: If you’re having fun, you win.
And this team’s having plenty of fun.
The Cats grabbed the Big Ten title last weekend for the second straight year. And coach Claire Pollard’s hardcore practices and weight-room workouts aren’t the only elements to one of NU’s most successful squads.
With an abundance of off-the-court antics, NU has bonded strongly as a team.
“We try to make fun of everybody,” senior Katherine Nasser said.
Nasser has managed to surprise junior Shannon Duffy with a de-pantsing sneak attack.
“(Katherine) got me in public,” Duffy said.
Everyone on the team has been victimized at least once.
“Sometimes someone lets her guard loose,” junior Colleen Cheng said laughing, “and that’s when it happens.”
Added Nasser: “You have to watch your behind a little bit — it’s out there. Like when you get off the van, that’s pretty dangerous.”
On the road, the team argues over who gets to room with Cheng. For every stay at a hotel, Pollard assigns pairings for each room.
Everyone wants Cheng because she brings a whole bottle of the best shampoo — Salon Selective.
“We all hope to get Colleen,” Duffy said. “She brings a whole bottle of it — not the ones for travel, the portable ones.”
Senior Leigh Weinraub is the funniest. A communication major, Weinraub is the most vocal during dual matches. And away from the court, she spouts the most ridiculous comments.
At first sight, Weinraub came up with a nickname for Pollard: Ostrich. At airports waiting for the team’s flight, Weinraub provides plenty of laughs, pointing at bypassers and giving them precise nicknames.
“She’ll say, ‘He’s a dog. She’s a turtle,'” Duffy said. “Every good story comes out of Leigh — figures, she’s a communication major.”
The most victimized, sophomore Lia Jackson, is nickname “J5,” referring to the Jackson Five. As a high schooler, Jackson exchanged e-mails with Pollard and her America Online screen name was jacksonfive.
Instantly, J5 became her nickname, and being a sophomore hasn’t changed her status with the jokers.
“We basically rip on her all day long,” Duffy said. “She wears these cute skirts to road trips. She loves attention, so we give it to her. She asks for it.”
Freshman Marine “Frenchy” Piriou is a perfectionist. Even after matches, Piriou will cleanly fold her dirty clothes.
Which, of course, encourages her teammates to unpack her bags.
Then there’s senior Jennifer Lutgert, who goes nose-to-nose with Weinraub and Pollard at the dinner table over politics, news and anything else they care to argue about.
And junior Jessica Strickland, who, according to Duffy, “throws out the funniest jokes every once in a while.”
But all this fun isn’t just for fun’s sake. At crucial times during matches, the fun has a different definition.
After dropping the doubles point Sunday at the Big Ten finals, the Cats trailed 1-0 to Minnesota heading into singles play. Put in such a pressure situation, Pollard still told the team, “If it ain’t fun. …”
Then Cheng finished up the sentence: “It ain’t worth it.”
“It makes the whole experience more fun,” Jackson said.
Pollard will appear on TV Thursday as a guest commentator to analyze the NCAA regionals brackets and plans to wave at the camera during the show.
So the Cats will look for more than news on where and who they’ll play in a week.
“We can’t wait for that,” Jackson said. “We’ll be making fun of her so much.”
And when the fun gets going, the win keeps coming.For this team, it’s pretty simple logic.
