The marvelous 2022 Radford men's tennis team made me think about covering the Highlander netters for The Tartan when I first came to RU in 1980. That's a good thing.

Because much like now, Radford was exceptional in tennis.

Advantage, Highlanders.

Full disclosure – I've always been impressed with tennis players and tried desperately to be decent at the game myself. I had the obligatory Sports Illustrated John McEnroe poster in my room at home and moved it to the wall in my Moffett dorm room. You rarely saw me when I wasn't in canvas Nikes like McEnroe's. (Fuller disclosure, my mom got excited first time I came home in Nike shoes. We had always been a Pic-Way 2-for-1 family, but I was ready to step up and she exclaimed, 'Oh look at that! Your name is on your shoes!')

I was soon plotting to leave Virginia Western Community College and head up I-81 to Radford where I could get back to writing sports, and I was studying up on what I might be writin' about. That's how I already knew – and had seen pictures of Chris Hamilton and Rob Dameron. They were from central casting for that way-cool, tennis-player look of the times.

Hamilton was part Jamaican, long and lean, with a tight Arthur Ashe hairstyle and obviously of much repute with a racquet. He placed at the 1980 NAIA national championships. Dameron had the Ilie-Nastase/Bjorn-Borg hair, wore a headband and just oozed cool. Obviously, I wasn't the only one taken with these guys because their pictures were all over The Tartan and The Beehive.

They helped serve up a stretch when RU tennis twice finished Top 25 at the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) championships, and soon the entire athletic program was rocketing from its no-affiliation beginnings thru NAIA to NCAA II to Division I by 1984-85. I was along for the ride.

I never saw Hamilton play but have it on good authority he was our best those early years. A long career on the European Tour confirms that assertion. Dameron also played on the European pro circuit, would coach briefly at Radford, and become a top-seed in business selling loft-kits to college kids for a time.

What I'm trying to serve up here is that Radford University tennis has a proud history most people don't know. Ron Downs '77, M.S. '84, played on the first varsity team in 1974-75, then became one of our most successful coaches, albeit briefly. He also ran the then-brand-new Dedmon Center. 

Downs coached those ranked NAIA squads in 1980 and 1982, though he gives much credit to 1979 coach Jerry Hutchens '75, and his predecessor, the program's first coach, Joe Nichols, a former Duke player and Radford math professor. Hutchens stepped down to become a Radford fund-raiser. All three coaches had winning records every year, and Downs belongs in our Hall of Fame for his long-term contributions to tennis and really, every other sport in making the Dedmon Center an envied showcase back in the day.
 
Happiness was the Highlander Homecourt Edge
Downs and another former coach, Bruce Harrison, also confirmed something I always believed: RU tennis players looked like they were having a lot of fun and that's because they were. 

Back in the early years, the varsity tennis courts were located across from Peters Hall where Dalton Hall stands. There were tennis courts and then three outdoor basketball courts leading up to the entrance to Heth Hall. This area was inarguably the heartbeat of campus. Heth was the student center and had all the best student organization offices and meeting rooms and even The Highlander Room – a restaurant/ tavern where we all convened for work or play, as needed.

The location of the tennis courts, with Floyd and Peery dorms located right behind, was ideal – for our tennis team. Hear it from Harrison, who played there when he was an undergrad at Emory & Henry: "You'd be out there playing and there was country music, blaring (out the windows), rock music blaring," laughed Harrison. "Everybody had those big speakers back then. Then classes would change, and (students) would stop at the fence to watch or talk to their friends. I called them 'Five-minute Fans.' It was the most people anywhere watching (college tennis)."

His senior year as No. 1 seed, Harrison played Radford's Mike Perrone '85, a Hall of Famer ('03), and he got frustrated with how often friends called out to Perrone and beckoned him over to chat. "I was like, 'Are you going to serve or not?' Harrison said.

"Our home court was ridiculous," added Downs. "It was a big advantage. Coaches would come in and ask if there was anything I could do to shut (Floyd and Peery DJs and hecklers) down. I knew if I tried it would just get worse, so I told them to deal with it."

Advantage, Radford.

Perrone was like a lot of guys at Radford then – except when he had a racquet in his hand – he came from Woodbury, N.J., heading south for college. He was recruited by bigger programs but as a walk-on who could perhaps earn a scholarship. Downs saw him differently: as a top-of-the-lineup talent and he offered Perrone scholarship money.

The Highlanders were 20-5 Perrone's first season in '82. Perrone then played No. 1 singles and doubles three years, qualified individually for the NCAA Division II nationals in 1984, and captained Radford's first Division I team in 1985, ranking among the top players on the East Coast. 

"Radford was a great school for me," he said, now an instructor/pro back close to home. "I wouldn't change a thing. I love the way things worked out in my life these many years later. I'm telling Radford stories to my (tennis students) all the time."

Perrone also played on the European circuit with teammate Billy "Sticks" Gallagher '84. Chris Hamilton picked them up at the airport. They toured France and the whole continent in a Volkswagon van.

Perrone has fond memories of RU, those campus courts, his coach and the atmosphere around Highlander tennis. "(Downs) had a good way of letting you do your thing, bringing together a lot of different personalities," he said. "We had a match on a trip to Florida canceled so he was, 'Who wants to go to Disney World?' I was the first one with my hand up. We had a lot of fun playing tennis but when he was serious you had to buckle down. We respected him."
 
Downs Pumped His Highlanders Up
Downs had simple precepts about his team. "We wanted to make sure we were in the best possible shape, people didn't condition like we did," said Downs, well ahead of trends in that realm.

"We also spent a lot of time on doubles. We won a lot of matches when we trailed after singles and pulled it out in doubles."

"We won so many three-set matches," said Perrone. "We were always in great shape."

Well, all except maybe Sherman Steele  '83, who garnered a lot of attention for his training table habits.  My fellow Tartan sports editor, Ron Barker '82, penned a feature on Steele's sterling stomach and I remember WDBJ-TV in Roanoke coming up for a feature. He once ate 50 doughnuts on a bet and could put away 1 ½ Sal's Sicilian pizzas in a single sitting. Try feeding him on a $10-a-day stipend.

Steele, though, as Downs and Perrone recalled, also helped the team eat up a lot of victories. Yeah, they were having fun. Wish I had known about the doughnut bet back then. I could have been a contender.

Likewise, players at other schools saw how much fun the Highs were having. Tim Lobello '83, came to Downs after a match with Emory & Henry, where Lobello played, and told Downs he'd love to play at Radford. Downs made him go through his coach before he'd talk with him. Lobello, long-haired and headbanded, fit right in. He was an ace on good teams. 

Karl Altau '83, played in 1982 and was at the bottom of the playing pecking order, but one of my favorite classmates. He wasn't around for later Florida spring excursions but remembers the team staying at Downs' house in Christiansburg over break. He also remembers the conditioning.

"I think we even ran the steps in Ron's home," he said. "We ran a lot of steps (in Peters Hall). There was lots of running. It's probably the worst I ever felt and the best shape I was ever in."

Perrone hated the "crabwalk drill" Downs employed in workouts in a Peters Hall basement mat room. "I used to get so sore I could hardly walk to class," said Perone, who, ironically, had a very distinctive walk everyone remembers. He walked on the balls of his feet. Downs joked it was so Perrone looked taller, but I always thought it made him look cocky like he was gonna kick butt on the court. He usually did.
 
Winning on the Court & in the Classroom 
Perrone was the best I saw until Rachid Benjelloun '94 became our first Big South Player of the Year in men's tennis. He was nationally ranked his last three years, including going 30-5 as a junior when he beat seven players rated higher. Harrison thinks if the program could have afforded to fly Rachid to more solo competitions, he would have climbed even further.

As it was, Benjelloun became a Hall of Famer in 2016, after that star-studded career, including Academic All-America honors in 1994. RU's greatest player, Martin Sayer '09, was a fixture on the Big South Presidential Honor Roll for four seasons in addition to four-time BSC Player of the Year. He earned the 2009 Christenberry Award, the league's top academic honor.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention what my pal, Karl Altau, is up to these days. He has been Managing Director of the Joint Baltic American National Committee since 1997, and advocates on behalf of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania before U.S. Congress and other international governing bodies as JBANC's spokesman. He led the drive to get all three nations into NATO.

He was recipient of Radford's 2020 College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award. Altau, whose family has roots in Estonia, has been even busier since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The current Highlander tennis program is still producing winners. Coach Rob Bareford's team is expected win the ITA All-Academic Award for the fourth straight year. It goes to squads with a team grade-point-average over 3.2.

Couple that success with a conference crown and NCAA Tournament appearance for the second time in the last three years of play. (Everyone left the courts early in 2020 because of Covid.)

Then figure Radford as a northern team in a southern-based league. Almost everyone else is playing outdoors year around. The success is remarkable.

This year, Bareford's band not only won the Big South title, but dominated conference awards and wasn't done until they dropped a decision at powerhouse Wake Forest in the NCAA Tournament. Junior Demis Taramonlis was named Big South Player of the Year, rolling to a 14-6 record, undefeated in conference at No. 1 singles and doubles.

Senior Andres Silva, one of Bareford's first recruits, posted 15 singles victories and teamed with Taramonlis in doubles. The Valencia, Venezuela native was second-team all-conference and first-team all-doubles with his Grecian teammate. Guilherme Severin and Konstantinos Raptis were all-conference doubles and Aditya Balsekar won 17 singles matches and dominated as No. 5 seed to earn second-team singles honors.

"Demis would have been Player of the Year as a freshman (had Covid not come around)," said Bareford. "He has a chance to leave his name all over our record books and he's just a fighter, so consistent and well-rounded."

That's what Bareford wants of his Radford recruits, domestically and abroad. The Highlanders have seven international players, but all the Highlanders share common tennis DNA. "My guys are all so passionate, so competitive, just like me," said Bareford.

Statewide budget cuts and the pandemic have hurt the Highs – and all colleges and student-athletes, but especially at mid-majors like RU. Silva is transferring to William & Mary for his extra (Covid) season because there isn't money to keep him. Bareford is a court-is-half-full coach and doesn't dwell on those things. Next service.

Heading into his fifth season, Bareford loves Radford's size and diversity and is selling those traits and all the things we love about the school around the world to top prospective student/athletes. The tennis players are still the cool guys on campus, playing at the Dedmon Center on one of the region's top tennis complexes, and there's precedent for success on and off the court here.

Radford tennis alumni know. 

They're smiling and just want to add how much fun it is being a Highlander. 
 
Mike Ashley '83 was a national award-winning writer and columnist('Sidelines') for the Radford University student newspaper The Tartan as an undergrad. Then Radford and the University just couldn't get rid of him. He worked in sports information for the Highlanders 1983-85, and again 1987-97, after two years at Virginia Tech. He has been a freelance sportswriter in Fairfax, Va., the past 25 years, still covering Radford and the Big South, along with other less important college teams for several national publications and online services.

Ashley gave up tennis in the mid-90s after trying for years to hit a decent backhand. He writes an occasional column for the Radford website to share his recollections with Highlander fans.