any current pro finish high school?
- Thread starter teto29
- Start date
The Bryan brothers finished highschool. I believe Sam Querrey did as well. I know Roddick went to highschool but i don't think he finished, i think he got his GED...at least that's what i gathered from a phone interview he did with Gimelstob during the US's last Davis Cup match. Blake graduated highschool.
OliverSimon
Hall of Fame
Ya Blake went to highschool, then we went to Harvard!
What was his classification when Blake turned pro? Was it after his frosh or soph year?
Benjamin Becker grauduated from my alma mater, Baylor.
Fee
Legend
Andy graduated from high school (they were teasing each other as those two usually do regardless of who is listening or where they are).
Lsmkenpo
Hall of Fame
Federer went to school until he was 16, than he decided to devote his full time to tennis.
Great Uncle Bulgaria
New User
7th grade ?!? Is n't that about 13 years of age? Is this legal?
Miami Tiburon
Semi-Pro
Its nice to see guys like Isner who attened Georgia have a great college career and now a succesful Pro career. I think with most pro's they probably graduated from High School but they were home schooled or in Academys. But even if they were in Academys they are being schooled in classrooms or in Virtual school. I dont know how it works in Europe school is mandatory like here. I would be interested to know how many Pros attented regular schools not Home school or Virtual school.
Great Uncle Bulgaria
New User
I read in the papers that Andy Murray does not have any formal school qualifcations (Highers, GCSE etc), so even if he did get home schooled he did not have anything to fall back on if his tennis career did not take off.
I wonder how the tennis world would look if there was a requirement for players to have attained at least GCSE level education before they joined the ATP/WTA.
I wonder how the tennis world would look if there was a requirement for players to have attained at least GCSE level education before they joined the ATP/WTA.
How did he get away with that? I thought it was mandatory to sit your GCSE's or whatever the Scottish equivalent is. Unless you mean he failed them, in which case not good Andy not good, even the worst students can usually get at least few F's.
Most sports people are pretty uneducated, to do well at sport you need to have tunnel vision from a very young age, that doesn't lend itself well to learning about algebra or the Versaille treaty. I wouldn't expect to be able to have a wide ranging intelligent conversation with an athelete and if i could I'd asume they were a journeyman.
kimbahpnam
Hall of Fame
i thought most pros would graduate high school at least....it's not that hard.
jamauss
Hall of Fame
I didn't really learn anything useful/helpful in my last 3 or 4 years of public education here in the USA (high school, basically) so I think plenty of tennis players can be as "book smart" as anybody else that graduated from a public US high school even if they don't have the equivalent of a high school diploma. I'm sure traveling the world while on tour makes most of these guys grow up pretty fast anyway whether they want to or not.
Ballbashing Grinder
Rookie
Not necessarily true,Djokovic played barely any Junior Grandslams because he couldn't afford it.He played mostly on the Futures circuit until he made the grade for the ATP tour
OKUSA
Hall of Fame
i agree the USA education system is bunk, it's more grinding than learning. none of the stuff in high school is used for university, other than math if you go into a science/math field. hell, a lot of people i know passed high school and they couldn't even write a research paper, they learn all that stuff in college haha
OKUSA
Hall of Fame
what good is knowing and then forgetting everything you learn in high school? i'm sure you don't remember the date of the first meeting of the virginia house of burgess or whatever, but you had to during high school
they all seem fluent in english, something most high school graduates seem to lack
they all seem fluent in english, something most high school graduates seem to lack
jackson vile
G.O.A.T.
Agreed, I wish I would have just got my GED and then went to college. I wasted so much time and energy in highschool that could have gone towards graduating college earlier!
USA public school (state funded) are a waste!
dirtballer
Professional
On the WTA side I know Lisa Raymond spent two years at college.
JoshDragon
Hall of Fame
Blake, the Bryans, Roddick, Nadal, Isner, Levine, Benjamin Becker, Querrey, and Fish, all graduated.
AndyArodRoddick
Professional
Nadal, are you sure ? Wasnt he like 16 when he showed up ?
Fee
Legend
depends on the pro I suppose
or they could just be 'dumb jocks' skating by on the academics.
I suppose it's hard to generalize. In the US, most graduate from High School, some get at least a year of college, a few get university degrees. I wonder if there are some GED guys amongst the US players? I've never really paid that much attention to that part of it, I just kind of figured they would all be HS grads at least.
N
nikdom
Guest
Interesting topic. Thought of this after seeing the thread where folks are parsing Serena's words. How educated is she? I don't see a point in parsing the words of someone whose intellectual capacity is rudimentary.
MajinX
Professional
to be fair intelligence is too complicated to just "rank" as dumber and smarter, the football players maybe educated but not generally more intelligent than a tennis player who has just finished highschool for example, application of knowledge and life experiences/perception (and a magnitude of other stuff) can really factor into one's perceived intelligence. Not to mention all the generalizing and sterotypes we automaticly apply to what we see and feel is accurate to a certain individual.
LameTennisPlayer
Professional
Wasn't there a thread not too long ago about Youzhny completing his Phd in Philosophy?
not if you listen to interviews from guys like lukas podolski or lothar matthäus lol
Also, isn't Mario Ancic an attorney now?
joechiang
New User
Clay lover
Legend
He is talking about American football players, who don't turn pro until after they graduate from college/university.
i figured as much but still. it even strengthens my point since alot of the people who appear to be as dumb as a brick wall in football (and with football i mean real football, not amerocan football. football is where you use your foot) finished school. how they did is a mistery to me tho oO
most american football players even graduated college and still.. alot of them dont seem all that bright :/
gamesetmats
New User
Somdev Devvarman also played college tennis (University of Virginia) and graduated with a degree in sociology.
Crisstti
Legend
Good thing they don't...
Did Murray's family have money?, 'cause if that's the case, no point in him finishing highschool instead of focusing on his tennis career.
I agree. Nothing much useful to learn in highscool over here either. The way I see it, if a tennis player is doing well enough, they should just focus on their career.
Not finishing highschool has nothing to do with someone being dumb or not. Most people do finish it and are not exactly very smart.
I don't think Nadal graduated. He certainly dropped out. If he finished it later somehow, I don't know (really don't think so though).
You don't need to be smart to finish highschool.
But what kind of college would you have gotten into with a GED?
The standards for high school education vary widely between countries. In the US you can "graduate" high school and barely know how to read and write, while other countries require you to pass serious exams to be awarded a degree.
As for Nadal, he has some kind of degree, not sure if it would be equivalent to US high school. He mentioned in his biography that it was important to his parents he get some qualifications and they sent him to a boarding school for a year or so to make sure he concentrated on it. He managed to pass the exams there. His mom wanted to him to take exams to get to the next level (college prep or sth like that) and gave him some books to study on his own time, but he "accidentally" left them on a plane somewhere in east asia and that was the end of that, lol.
As for Fed, he was never a great student and felt school was a distraction from focusing on tennis and so quit at 16 which is when his tennis career really took off. He was ranked somewhere in the 50's as a junior when he dropped out, w/in a year he was junior #1. That said most folks don't realize that when Fed was 14 he had to go to school in a language he didn't know which is awful for kids. That he was able to learn French at a decent enough level to at least be passing his classes while also training seriously at the nat'l tennis academy is impressive IMO.
As for Nadal, he has some kind of degree, not sure if it would be equivalent to US high school. He mentioned in his biography that it was important to his parents he get some qualifications and they sent him to a boarding school for a year or so to make sure he concentrated on it. He managed to pass the exams there. His mom wanted to him to take exams to get to the next level (college prep or sth like that) and gave him some books to study on his own time, but he "accidentally" left them on a plane somewhere in east asia and that was the end of that, lol.
As for Fed, he was never a great student and felt school was a distraction from focusing on tennis and so quit at 16 which is when his tennis career really took off. He was ranked somewhere in the 50's as a junior when he dropped out, w/in a year he was junior #1. That said most folks don't realize that when Fed was 14 he had to go to school in a language he didn't know which is awful for kids. That he was able to learn French at a decent enough level to at least be passing his classes while also training seriously at the nat'l tennis academy is impressive IMO.
vernonbc
Legend
Milos Raonic graduated from high school eighteen months early. He took extra classes (and advanced level courses) and graduated at the top of his class even though he had barely turned 16. Instead of accepting a college scholarship he moved to the Tennis Centre in Montreal and started doing some touring but his parents insisted he continue his education and he took online classes in finance and economics up until last year. He's a very smart young man.
W
woodrow1029
Guest
nevermind...
im not talking smart or not smart. im talking thick as a brick lol
