Author: Jack Duane

The Stanford men’s tennis team will play its home opener on Saturday against Sacramento State. The No. 9 Cardinal is brimming with confidence after a promising fall season and a successful Sherwood Cup last weekend.

“We got some competition in against some good players, shook the cobwebs off and stayed healthy,” said head coach John Whitlinger, “so I’m pretty happy.”

Sophomore Bradley Klahn leads the No. 9 Stanford men’s tennis team in its first dual meet against Sacramento State this Saturday. Klahn is coming off a victory in last weekend’s Sherwood Cup, and he and doubles partner sophomore Ryan Thacher are ranked No. 1 in the nation in doubles. (Stanford Daily File Photo)

The Cardinal is poised to make it past the second round of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2006.

“We’re going to keep working and keep our sights on the NCAAs in May,” said sophomore Bradley Klahn. “There’s a lot of good teams out there, but we feel pretty good about our team.”

NCAA tennis matches consist of six singles matches and three doubles matches. Each singles match counts for one point and the best two-out-of-three winner of doubles gets a point. The first to four points wins.

Whitlinger hasn’t announced the lineup for Saturday’s match yet, but it is likely that the singles players will be junior Alex Clayton, Klahn, sophomore Ryan Thacher, senior Richard Wire, freshman Matt Kandath and freshman Denis Lin.

Clayton has been awarded the No. 37 national singles ranking and Klahn has been slotted at No. 54.

Klahn is coming off a singles tournament victory at the Sherwood Cup last weekend.

“It’s a huge confidence booster to start the season with a win,” Klahn said. “And I kept improving with each match. But, I’m still working on my fitness and trying to shore up a few holes in my game.”

While the singles lineup is relatively set, the doubles pairings are a work in progress. Stanford’s ability to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament could depend on its doubles teams.

“It’s very important to get that doubles point,” Whitlinger explained, “so we’ll keep tinkering with the pairing over the course of the year to try and find out which teams work best.”

One sure thing is that sophomores Klahn and Thacher will be playing doubles together in the top slot. The duo compiled a 12-1 record during the fall season and enters the spring as the No. 1 team in the nation.

Saturday will be fans’ first opportunity to see the members of the freshman class in action. Kandath, Lin, Sam Ecker and Walker Kehrer make up a group that has been ranked the top recruiting class in the nation by tennisrecruiting.net.

“It’s exciting to finally get to play at Taube [Family Tennis Center],” Kandath said. “Hopefully we can go out there and get a win against Sacramento State.”

The Sacramento State Hornets have been picked to repeat as Big Sky Conference champions. They return league MVP Kiryl Harbatsiuk and senior Anton Stryhas. As doubles partners, they posted a 15-7 record last spring.

Stanford looks to start its dual match schedule with a win on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Taube Family Tennis Stadium.

Saturday’s forecast calls for a chance of rain in the afternoon, but there are no plans to postpone the match at this point.

Hordes of USC football fans are lamenting the departure of head coach Pete Carroll to the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks. They are left behind with the threat of impending NCAA sanctions and the bitter taste of the Trojans’ worst season since Carroll arrived in 2001.

What makes it sting is that USC fans actually believed that “Big Balls” Pete might be the modern college football enigma — a coach who is perfectly content to ignore NFL opportunities and stay loyal to a university. When Carroll was asked whether he would consider retiring at USC, he responded: “I am prepared to do that. That’s the way I look at it, like this is the last job I’m ever going to have. I approach it that way.”

Pac-10 teams up and down the west coast are celebrating the apparent end of the Southern California dynasty. Adding insult to injury, SI.com reported on Monday that USC is currently engaged in a lawsuit stemming from a former assistant coach’s allegations that team doctors were irresponsible with painkiller prescriptions. The plaintiff’s civil suit claim is supposedly in the seven-figure range.

While the thought of obnoxious, bandwagon USC fans crying on each other’s shoulders may not garner any of your sympathy, there is a lesson to be learned from Carroll’s exodus.

The message rings loud and clear — college football coaches do not care about their players, schools and fans as much as they would like you to think. The same ambition that makes them great recruiters and motivators leads their eyes to the big stage of the NFL.

The recent decade has proven that an NFL coaching gig is still the ultimate goal for successful college coaches. Carroll follows in the footsteps of Butch Davis, Nick Saban and Bobby Petrino — a group of coaches who had Super Bowl dreams, but never even won a playoff game in the pros.

It seems that except for a select few, most notably Bob Stoops of Oklahoma, the luster of building a lasting and successful college football program has faded. No one wants to be Joe Paterno or Bobby Bowden anymore.

The unfortunate reality for Stanford football fans is that every win brings an NFL team closer and closer to offering Jim Harbaugh a deal he cannot refuse. Harbaugh has orchestrated a miracle turnaround at Stanford. With success comes national attention and rumors that Harbaugh will join his older brother John as an NFL coach.

Don’t be fooled by Harbaugh’s recent contract extension and declaration of loyalty:

“My resolve and future proudly remains as head coach at Stanford University . . I’m a Stanford man.”

These comments should be taken about as seriously as a headline in the Stanford Flipside. First of all, Harbaugh is most definitely a Michigan man. He played quarterback for the Wolverines and idolizes legendary Michigan coach Bo Schembechler. And if you think he wouldn’t ditch the Farm for an NFL head-coaching job, look up at the ceiling — it says “gullible.”

There’s no reason to be mad about Harbaugh’s misleading statements — in fact, they’re in our best interest. It’s crucial that recruits believe that Harbaugh will be around for their entire college careers.

Stanford fans have a choice to make. We can be like Ed Helms’ character, Stu Price, in “The Hangover.” We can spend every moment of our waking lives fearing that we’re going to get dumped. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that this approach doesn’t work out.

Or we can accept the inevitable — Jim Harbaugh’s time as the head coach of Stanford football is coming to an end in the near future — and enjoy the time we have left.

Make sure to appreciate Harbaugh’s red-faced rants at officials and questionable 4th down decisions. He’ll be leaving the Farm before you know it.
Jack Duane just got himself into a duel with Wyndam Makowsky over Harbaugh’s honor. Wish him well at jduane “at” stanford.edu.