For Tennis Parents by a Tennis Parent

Welcome to Season 9, Episode 41, of the ParentingAces Podcast! To listen to this week’s episode, click the arrow below:

To watch the video version:

Brittany Collens and Anna Woosley were members of the University of Massachusetts Women’s Tennis Team from 2014-2017. Two weeks ago they received some very upsetting news.

The NCAA is stripping UMass of victories in men’s basketball and women’s tennis for overpaying 12 athletes about $9,100 in financial aid over three years, prompting criticism of the penalty from the Atlantic 10 Conference commissioner.

The NCAA announced the Committee on Infractions had imposed a two-year probation on UMass that will end October 2022 in addition to vacating results involving athletes who received what were determined to be a total of 13 inappropriate payments. For the women’s tennis team, those inappropriate payments totaled $252.

What is the role of the NCAA in terms of protecting student-athletes? What is the role of the NCAA in terms of ensuring fair play?

Anna and Brittany answer these questions and more in this week’s episode.

Please consider signing their petition and helping to spread the word about this erroneous decision on the part of the NCAA. And, above all, #savecollegetennis!

Brittany & Anna’s Petition: https://www.change.org/p/ncaa-support-a10-champion-umass-women-s-tennis-vs-the-ncaa

NCAA Statement: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ncaaorg/infractions/decisions/Oct2020D1INF_MassachusettsDecisionPublic.pdf

As always, a big thank you to Morgan Stone, aka STØNE, for our intro and outro music this season. You can find more of his music at SoundCloud.com/stonemuzic. If you’re interested in House Music, please be sure to check out his social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

If you’re so inclined, please share this – and all our episodes! – with your tennis community. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the ParentingAces website. If you haven’t already, be sure to become a Member of ParentingAces by clicking here.

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