43
YSU tennis team on upswing
By JOE SCALZO
YOUNGSTOWN
The best men’s tennis player at Youngstown State University grew up in Zimbabwe (which has a tropical climate), went to high school in Chattanooga Tenn., then spent his first two years of college at the University of Arkansas.
Then Tariq Ismail came to Youngstown. In the winter.
“It was freezing,” he said. “I got bronchitis because I wasn’t used to that kind of cold. I missed a lot of classes that first semester.
“My first season was kind of tough.”
And not just because of the weather.
Ismail had played on two state championship teams at McCallie High School — which has one of the state’s best athletic programs — then competed at in the Southeastern Conference, where his older brother Imraan was already forging a solid career as a Razorback.
After redshirting his first year at Arkansas to rehab a patellar tendon injury he suffered in high school, Ismail realized during the fall season that it would be difficult to secure a permanent position. But, by then, most of the nation’s top programs already had their rosters set. In January of 2009, he applied to YSU because he had a friend on the team who told him the Penguins were looking for players.
“I didn’t even visit,” he said. “I had no idea what I was walking into.”
What he found was a last-place Horizon League program in need of both talent and leadership. After a solid spring — he finished 9-11 playing No. 1, 2 and 3 singles as well as some doubles — he emerged as the team’s best player in 2008-09. He went 2-2 last fall and 9-6 in the spring; unfortunately for him, the Penguins went 1-14 last spring.
“It was tough,” he said.
YSU hired Mark Klysner in the offseason to replace Eric Ronan, who resigned after a decade with the program.
Klysner, a Denmark native who later competed on the Canadian Junior National Team, came to YSU after spending the last two years as a Division I assistant.
Klysner was an assistant for both the men’s and women’s programs at Fairleigh Dickinson last year. The Knights’ women’s team won the regular-season conference title and had won 10 straight matches before losing in the Northeast Conference tournament final. The men’s team placed second in the NEC. He spent the 2008-09 campaign as a men’s and women’s assistant at Austin Peay.
A strong recruiter, he brought in three quality freshmen, including Tariq’s younger brother, Zeeshan and may bring in a few other recruits in January.
“Tennis, fortunately, is not like many other sports where it takes 3-4 years to grow and build a program,” Klysner said. “You can turn things around in a year with a good recruiting class.”
In addition to upgrading the talent, Klysner set out to change the culture of losing and looked to Ismail to provide leadership.
“He definitely carries a lot more responsibility than any other player on the team,” Klysner said. “He shows a lot of leadership qualities and tends to care more than the average student-athlete.
“He has a vested interest in seeing the team win and be successful in the future. And he goes out of his way to help everybody else on the team.”
Ismail has embraced Klysner’s arrival and his role.
“Nothing against the last coach, but the program wasn’t run as professionally as it is now,” said Ismail. “Mark brings in a lot more experience, a lot more knowledge in modern coaching styles.
“He knows a lot of people, he knows how to put together a good program and he has a good setup. There’s a lot of discipline, a lot of hard work.”
Ismail said his biggest challenge has been in reining in his fiery personality on the court.
“To show leadership, you have to behave the right way all the time,” he said. “You want to make sure you’re having a positive effect on the team, not a negative one.”
Ismail went 2-2 at last weekend’s Frank Beeman Invitational at Michigan State, falling to the Spartans’ Ronnie Hulewicz in a marathon three-setter.
After a win against IPFW, he lost to Dayton’s Robert Salcedo (a Boardman High graduate) before teaming up with Felipe Rosa to beat Dayton’s top doubles team. On the tournament’s final day, Ismail again beat an IPFW player, then joined with Rosa for a doubles victory over Chicago State.
An integrated science major, Ismail wants to eventually teach secondary education and coach at either the high school or college level in the United States.
Until then, his current coach would like to see him become a key player for what he hopes is a team on the rise.
Klysner’s first goal is to qualify his team for the six-team Horizon League tournament in the spring.
“It was appealing to me in taking the job that I knew it was going to be a challenge,” Klysner said. “That’s half the fun of it.
“We have a great school with great facilities. There’s no reason why we can’t put together a good team.”