What’s tougher, organizing a professional tennis tournament from the ground up or competing against internationally ranked tennis players in that very same tournament? This week, Joshua Silverstein, a fifth-year University of Iowa student who spent four years playing tennis for the Hawkeyes, got to find out.
While he gives a slight edge to competing, organizing the tournament was no easy task.
“Organizing it was really tough,” Silverstein says. “But playing tennis is a little bit harder.”
The Old Capitol Futures tennis tournament, a United States Tennis Association (USTA) Pro Circuit event, takes place at the Hawkeye Tennis and Recreation Complex. The tournament began with qualifying rounds on July 14 and will continue with doubles championship matches on July 20 and singles championship matches on July 22.
The first professional tennis tournament to take place in Iowa since 1986, the event was organized by seven students in the UI Sport and Recreation Management program. Alex Voss, a lecturer in sport and recreation management, serves as tournament director.
Not only are the students getting real-world experience organizing a professional sporting event, they’re also getting part of the field experience they need in order to graduate, Voss says.
“I have a background in tennis and always had an interest in being a tournament director,” he says. “I knew that if I was able to bring a tournament like this to campus, it could be used for student learning and hopefully could be a guided practicum course.”
In the past, students have partnered with outside professional sports teams for their field experience. However, that left students at the mercy of what those organizations wanted them to do. By hosting their own tournament, students can identify emerging trends in the sports industry and pursue them on campus, Voss says.
Voss says he had the idea to host a tournament on campus in August 2017 and hoped to bring the event to UI during the summer of 2019.
“As I began conversations with the USTA in late November, all of the sudden there was a tournament available in the summer of 2018,” Voss says.
By the time the application process was complete and contract negotiations between Iowa and USTA were complete, it was late May—meaning it was too late to build a guided practicum course around the tournament. However, Voss turned it into an internship and quickly hired the seven interns, including Silverstein. They’ve been planning the tournament since early June.
“The month we’ve been working together has gone fast,” Voss says.
Voss says the students have been tasked with everything from developing a website to community outreach and the logistics of hosting the tournament. During the tournament itself, the students are in charge of making sure the courts are playable, monitoring parking lots, doing laundry, and being a resource for players, among other duties.
“They’ve done well,” Voss says. “The learning curve has been steep and the timeframe has been short. They’ve handled everything I’ve thrown at them well.”
Sport and Recreation Management
Students with a degree in Sport and Recreation Management can find a variety of career opportunities including community recreation, intercollegiate athletic departments, high school programs, the commercial fitness business sector as well as minor and major league sport teams. Learn more on the program website.
Among the interns is Morgan Perkins, a senior from Harlan, Iowa, in the sport and recreation management program. Although her interest is in venue and event management, her duties have ranged from planning the event website to managing social media and branding for the tournament.
Perkins says planning the first year of a tournament has added pressures.
“We really wanted to get everything started in the right place and set the floor for future years,” she says.
Perkins says she didn’t know much about tennis going into process, which created additional challenges. But, she says the experience has been rewarding.
“It’s been really awesome,” she says. “It’s been really helpful to apply things I’ve learned in the classroom to real life experiences.”
Because Iowa hosted the tournament, several members of the men’s tennis team—including Silverstein—were given an opportunity to qualify for the event.
“It’s been a really good experience,” Silverstein says. “I’m excited people get to see our campus and experience the courts we have. It’s be really nice.”
Voss says UI hopes to host the tournament annually and already has been offered the opportunity to host again in 2019.
“The hope is to create one, or possibly two, guided field experience courses,” he says. “In the future, focal points of the course could include sponsorship, fan experience, and additional marketing and community outreach projects.”