She would never call it that, but Tina Snodgrass’ transformation from journeywoman all-sport athlete into varsity tennis player is something of a Cinderella story.
This time last year, Snodgrass, a sophomore, was gearing up to go to nationals with the Oregon club tennis team. Fast forward twelve months and Snodgrass is getting ready to go to the NCAA tournament this week in Palo Alto, Calif. as a member of Oregon’s Division I women’s tennis team.
“I’m sure if you’d have asked Tina at the beginning of this year if she’d expected to be on a team playing NCAAs in May, she’d have laughed you out of the room,” Oregon coach Paul Reber said. “But that’s the situation she finds herself in now, and credit to her, she’s working hard and really deserves to be here.”
Becoming a Duck
The Oregon varsity team began the year with eight scholarship players. But in January, the Ducks lost one of their freshmen to homesickness and the other to medical problems. Reber went hunting for a seventh player to complement his starting six. He identified Snodgrass as a possible addition to the team after he saw her practice with the club team, and invited her back for a private tryout where she played a set against Oregon assistant coach Monica Poveda.
Snodgrass lost 6-3 and stepped off the court disappointed because she felt that she’d played badly. So she was very surprised when Reber thereafter invited her to join the team.
The next week was a whirl of paperwork, new faces and new routine for Snodgrass.
“At first when they invited me on the team, it was really surreal,” she said. “I think it only really sunk in when I went to the equipment room at Mac Court and they gave me this huge duffel bag just like packed with clothing.
“And that’s when I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is gonna be a completely different lifestyle.’”
But even after she’d officially joined the team, Snodgrass never expected to see much playing time.
The Division I level of play was so much higher than what Snodgrass was used to that for the first few weeks, she couldn’t even practice with the team. Instead, she worked with Reber individually, and played practice matches with Duck alum Janice Nyland.
Top to bottom overhaul
Everything changed when sophomore starter Claudia Hirt injured her ankle in practice right when the Ducks began the Pac-10 stretch of their season. At that point, Reber’s insurance policy matured and Snodgrass was called into action.
Starting in lieu of Hirt at the No. 6 singles spot and in doubles with Carmen Seremeta, Snodgrass played three dual matches for Oregon, competed in the Pac-10 Championships, and finished the year 0-5 in singles and 0-4 in doubles.
For Snodgrass, a former Corvallis High School standout who lettered in tennis, basketball and soccer, and who also played No 1. singles for the Oregon club team last year, having zeros in the win column has taken some getting used to. Because until this year, Snodgrass had played tennis mostly at a level where she was able to excel.
“I’ve been in high-pressure situations before, but I’ve never really been the weakest link on a team before,” Snodgrass said. “In high school especially, I knew that I was the strongest one on the team, and so even if I was losing, nobody else could have done anything about it.
“But in this situation, Claudia’s injured and I’m playing in place of her, so it’s a bit more like, ‘Ahhh! There’s more pressure on me because if I lose it, the team could lose it.”
Snodgrass says that a lot of that pressure is self-imposed and that the team has been nothing but welcoming and understanding. Yet she still feels a responsibility to pull her weight.
“I know it’s not necessarily my fault when we lose, but it kinda feels that way,” she said. “It’s in my head. If we lose a match 2-5, I’m conscious about it and I recognize that I could have had something to do with it.
“But at the same time, I’m not the only one who lost, so I can’t get too down on myself and I have to keep telling myself that this is a new situation for me. It’s not something I ever expected to do. I mean, I’m playing Division I tennis.”
The woman from Corvallis is playing Division I tennis in the strongest conference in the country alongside – and against – world-class players who rubbed shoulders in the junior ranks with some of the women now playing on the pro circuit. Snodgrass herself can barely believe it.
“In high school I was playing a lot of different sports and doing choir too. I never even thought about going to a Division I school to play tennis,” Snodgrass said. “It was always a fun thing for me and I was really looking forward to playing club tennis here. I wasn’t even sure if I’d make the club team.
“Tennis has never really been my life. And it’s really something I’m proud of actually, – I enjoy being a well-rounded person who can excel at tennis in some ways. So I have a lot of respect and admiration for these girls who’ve put in so many years and so much hard work into one thing and really taken it and run with it.”
Old loyalties retained
Despite her varsity commitments, Snodgrass has continued to practice with the club team. That’s been a challenge in itself because of how completely tennis has suddenly consumed her life: with varsity practices, club practices, management tasks from her role as club team coordinator, and varsity matches on the weekends, Snodgrass is continuously toeing the thin line between “busy” and “overwhelmed.”
“My whole life is a routine right now,” she said. “It’s something that I’ve had to get more used to because I just haven’t had that much time to not think about anything.
“Like, I’ll get out of class or out of practice and then be automatically thinking about how much time I have ’til my next thing, and how I can get my errands do before that. It’s really been a lesson in time management.”
Yet, she’s still found the time to compete for the club team. Snodgrass recently traveled to Ashland with the team and played No. 1 singles against Southern Oregon and Albertson College of Idaho, Division II schools that the club team sometimes schedules matches against.
“The Division I team is my first priority, but I didn’t want to give the club team up because that’s a group of people who have become some my closest friends,” Snodgrass said, “I love spending time with them and I love playing tennis with them.”
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