 Mark Lazerus is a Medill senior. He can be reached at [email protected]. |
The scowl took a while to make its first appearance — this was just a lighthearted scrimmage, after all. But down a break and tied at 30-all, Todd Martin finally let a little frustration out. After racing into the corner and throwing his 6-foot-5 frame at the ball only to see it trickle off the frame and roll harmlessly down the line, Martin grimaced, grunted and flung his racket into the air.
His opponent had him shuttling along the baseline all match, and Martin was finally getting a bit peeved.
“He plays really well,” Martin would later say of his foe. “He’s way more athletic than most players are. When he puts that to use, I can see how he can give lots of guys fits.”
Agassi? Sampras? Well, no. It was Brad Erickson, who despite being Northwestern’s top tennis player, is hardly one you’d expect to have one of the world’s best on his heels.
See, the best part of the Homecoming festivities didn’t take place at Ryan Field or up along Sheridan Road. Those who found out about it discovered that the weekend’s most intriguing and appealing event was going on Friday afternoon at the Vandy Christie Tennis Center, where the 1990 NU men’s tennis team — the best this school has ever seen — held its 10-year reunion.
Martin, along with the entire starting lineup of NU’s last Big Ten champion squad, came back to Evanston to celebrate “The Year the ‘Stache was Trashed,” as their T-shirts blared, rubbing in the fact that their Big Ten title win that year forced coach Paul Torricelli to fulfill a preseason promise and shave off his mustache (“which I had forever,” he says).
Torricelli, who has been directing one of NU’s top programs since Martin was in junior high, recalls that team as one of his all-time favorites — and for good reason. Besides Martin, who was the No. 1 player in the country for most of the season and the Big Ten Player of the Year, the team boasted another All-American, Steve Herdoiza, eventual All-Big Ten selection Giora Payes, and a host of other talented and colorful players. Even recent alum and aspiring pro Doug Bohaboy, a week removed from rotator cuff surgery, stopped by to see the show.
The 1990 squad had gotten together on previous occasions — weddings, birthdays and the 1996 Rose Bowl — but Friday was the first time the entire starting lineup had been in the same place since the end of the 1990 season.
Herdoiza even cut his honeymoon short a couple days to make it.
“It’s been a while,” Martin said. “And it’s also been a ton of fun.”
They came just to hang out, spend some time with the team, catch a football game and just relax, but an impromptu intra-decade scrimmage broke out instead.
The always-crucial doubles point went to the young ‘uns, as the current Cats took two of three matches. Martin and Chris Gregersen ousted NU’s top pairing of Erickson and Joost Hol 6-3, but the other two matches were dropped by the slightly-overweight, if not over-folicled 1990 squad.
The usually stoic Martin was having the most fun of anyone, letting loose with a thundering, “Come on, Fat Cats!” on several occasions to get his gutty guys going.
One of the more intriguing singles matches was Hol against Herdoiza. Sure, Herdoiza was past 30, but Hol was shaking in his adidases.
“It’ll be tough,” he said.
Tough? But he’s, well, old. Ten years past his prime, even.
“Ten years past his prime? Come on!” Hol fired back as the former All-American warmed up behind him. “Look at the guy, he’s good. In 10 years it’ll be my spot, and I hope I’m that fit.”
And after a surprisingly quick loss, Hol might want another shot in 10 years against the then-fortysomething Herdoiza.
But the highlight of the day was the Martin-Erickson battle. Martin fell behind a break early but kept winning key points. Of course, he wasn’t serving-and-volleying, and his first serve was doing a suspiciously accurate imitation of his typical second-serve. Not that Erickson had it easy.
The 21-year-old stud of the current Cats was drenched in sweat, frantically chasing down impossibly deep ball after impossibly deep ball, only to have to scramble all the way to the net after an impossibly perfect drop shot. Meanwhile, the elder statesman of the ATP hardly broke a sweat, calmly returning everything Erickson fired at him.
The king of the five-setter showed his flair for the dramatic Friday, essentially steering the pro set to an 8-8 deadlock and into a tiebreak. At this point, the scrimmage turned just a bit more real.
Martin shed the jokes and smiles as Erickson stepped up, grunting furiously with each shot, desperately trying to push the ball out of Martin’s condor-like wingspan. The 75 or so friends, family and fans who had heard of Martin’s appearance by word-of-mouth were finally silent, treating each point like it actually mattered.
The big man had yet to rip off a booming 135-mph serve, instead giving Erickson something a normal human being could react to. But at 10-9 in the tiebreak, serving for the match, Martin finally let one fly. The ball screamed off his racket and whimpered off Erickson’s, giving Martin the win and Erickson a reason to kick himself.
“It’s safe to say he went a little easy on me,” Erickson said. “But a guy on that level, in a situation like that — I don’t care if it is a scrimmage — he’s gonna put something in that’s got some juice in it. But it was kind of cool. Just for a brief moment, I thought I had a shot.”
In the end, it didn’t matter. The current Cats nipped the “Fat Cats” 4-3, so dinner was on Martin and his aging cronies. After the match, Martin took Erickson aside, patted him on the back and offered a few minutes of saged advice.
So the fans lucky enough to hear about it had some fun, the older guys got some much-needed exercise and the Cats got some free coaching and a day free of the typical fall practice doldrums.
“I hope it’s enjoyable, I mean it’s not like it’s a total waste of time for them,” Martin said. “My guys are hitting well and they’re good competitors. If it were a 20-year reunion, now maybe that would be a little silly.”
Maybe. But, just like Friday’s silly little scrimmage, it’d certainly be worth watching.
