Team-First Attitude Propels Michigan to Massive Turnaround
5/11/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
May 11, 2016
Adam Steinberg with Runhao Hua
By Brad Rudner
Is tennis a team sport? Adam Steinberg certainly thinks so.
One doesn't need to look any further than what his men's tennis team has done over the last year. One year ago, U-M suffered through its worst season in 25 years, going 7-17 in dual matches.
What happened last summer and fall, though, was nothing short of a cultural renaissance. Steinberg tore everything down and built it back up, leading his men to a 20-7 record (an unthinkable 13-win improvement from the year before), a national ranking (No. 24 in the most recent Oracle/ITA National Collegiate Tennis Rankings, and that was after starting the year outside the top 75) and an NCAA Tournament berth. The Wolverines face East Tennessee State in the first round on Friday (May 13) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
How'd that happen?
"Once you become a team and start holding each other accountable and playing for each other, it changes everything," said Steinberg. "Practices are electric. The environment is better. You're moving better. You're motivated. You know your teammate has your back. When that happens, all of a sudden, your tennis improves. I believe it to my core.
"It sounds simple, but it's not. It's something we practice every second of every day so that it's not just talk. It's practical. We work on being a better teammate every day. That's led to them being better tennis players, better people, and we're a better team because of it."
Everywhere but the college game tennis is an individual sport, especially when growing up playing on the junior circuit. You play by yourself, for yourself. It's just you and the guy across the net (unless you're playing doubles, of course). Chances are the only people cheering for you are your coach and your parents.
So when tennis players get to college, being a part of a team is a foreign feeling. Most of the very best players don't participate in high school tennis and don't know what it's like to have teammates unless they've played other sports.
Teaching teamwork, Steinberg says, is the hardest part of his job.
"Any successful team I've ever had is because we played together better than anyone else," he explains. "When a guy is losing, we want that guy to help everyone out and not just take but give. Psychologically, when you see a teammate losing but he's helping everybody, that's everything. Everyone can be a great team guy when they're winning, but when adversity hits, when things aren't going well, that's when we need to become a team. That's the unselfishness that we're trying to teach every day, but it's not easy."
Steinberg has a national championship pedigree, having won one with Pepperdine in 2006. His formula works -- he averaged 22 wins per season at Pepperdine -- but it takes time to sink in. When he arrived on campus, he inherited a team with two seniors and seven freshmen or sophomores. There was an adjustment period, and last year was proof.
Alex Knight remembers it well. Last year, as one of those underclassmen (redshirt freshman), Knight went 13-16 in singles matches, most of them at the No. 4 position. This year, Knight is 16-9, most of them at the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the lineup, another example of the improvements made despite the big jump in competition.
Back in the fall, Knight felt things were starting to change for the better. As he put it, "We had a hell of an opportunity in front of us.
"We all remembered what happened last year," he said. "We didn't want to repeat it. At the same time, I don't think we would be where we are now without those struggles. It was extra motivation."
It's now safe to say that it's worked. The Wolverines were dominant at the Varsity Tennis Center, going a perfect 14-0 in dual matches for the first time ever. They beat three ranked opponents (Duke, Tulsa, Penn State) and outscored opponents by a 71-14 margin.
Last year, their seventh and final victory came on April 23. This year, they reached that mark on Feb. 20.
What's more impressive is that they're doing it with depth. This team doesn't have any superstars. They have only two ranked singles players -- sophomore Jathan Malik is the highest at No. 96 -- and no ranked doubles tandems.
"We don't have the superstars, but that doesn't mean we can't be great," Steinberg said. "We have 11 guys on this team, and there's not one guy that I don't feel comfortable with playing."
Added Knight: "Everyone has their own responsibility. There's no 'Well, this guy's a freshman. He doesn't have an opinion.' We value everyone's opinion. If someone has something to say, they're not afraid to pipe up and get us talking about it."
One of the hallmarks of Steinberg's team-first attitude is energy. Every match, an intensity fills the air. Guys will cheer one another on from adjacent courts, even to go as far as shouting things to players on the opposite side.
Evan King, the team's current volunteer assistant, has played in those kind of matches before. During King's four-year career at Michigan (2010-13), he faced Pepperdine twice, both at the No. 1 position. The first match came during his freshman season. He lost in straight sets.
"To be honest with you, I was pretty overwhelmed with the whole situation," he said. "His players were good, but what got to me was the No. 3 and No. 5 players that were on either side of me were getting about as excited for their No. 1 player as he was. I felt like I had to worry about beating three people."
If that behavior rattles an opposing player -- an unintended consequence, to be sure -- then so be it. It's not quiet, but that's exactly the way Steinberg likes it: loud, energetic, electric.
With all 11 players slated to come back next year, the future looks bright. But Steinberg is quick not to look too far ahead. He doesn't want his players becoming complacent.
"They want to win big now, and they can do that," Steinberg said. "We still don't have everyone buying in all the time, but it something we work on every day. When we get there, that's when everyone should watch out."
Players Mentioned
