A response from Dave King, athletic director at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ.

“The women’s team was dropped because there were not enough players to field a team and efforts to revive it since that time have failed due to a lack of interest.

The men’s program was cut for budgetary reasons. However, for several years leading up to that decision, the team struggled to have enough players. Tennis players have been good students academically, often very involved in campus activities and a good “fit” for the university. And for the above reasons, many quit playing during their four years at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ, making it difficult to field teams. With minimum sized rosters, the lower ranked players rarely beat the players above them thereby not getting to compete for the university. There is often more fluidity in golf when determining who will compete on the weekend for the university, which should keep the interest level high for golf.

According to some local tennis players, interest in tennis in the valley is decreasing and even our efforts to create a community based tennis program (similar to the SVASL) have not been supported locally.

The golf programs in our “feeder” schools have been stronger than the tennis programs in those same schools.

Hope this helps. I still long for someone to put energy into a community based tennis program with a variety of formats, ages etc. Dave”