I recently received an email from junior player, Lauren James, asking if I’d be interested in publishing her story on ParentingAces. Lauren is a high school junior in Florida and is the first athlete in DIII Carnegie Mellon University history to be accepted as a student-athlete as an 11th-grader. She decided to forego her senior year in order to head to college a year early. Lauren shares her story below in the form of a Q&A we did via email. I have published it exactly as she wrote it. My only edits are the added links throughout. As Coach Todd Widom told me, Lauren “is going to run companies!” Enjoy!
ParentingAces (PA): At what age did you start playing tennis? What sparked your interest in the sport?
Lauren James (LJ): While growing up abroad in England and Singapore, I played tennis, soccer and netball, swam and ran cross country; however, upon return to the U.S. at age 11, I was able to take my favorite activity (tennis!) much more seriously. I started working with a coach out of Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Florida with the promise that I’d be good enough to succeed in tournaments within a year or two. By the time I began competing, however, the dream of initial domination was not realized.
Instead I was struggling in the consolations of Level 7 USTA tournaments. As my thirteenth birthday neared, my tennis recruiting record reached an astounding 13 wins coupled with 52 losses. Leaving my private “high performance” coach coerced a search for the best after-school training. While balancing maintaining all As in school and keeping my Chinese proficiency acquired abroad, I mapped out every tennis academy within an hour drive – we tried them all. This totaled six different academies within a single year. After striving for success with the big names in the area known for building players, I went to Todd Widom. However, Todd was not a fit for my situation. He trains homeschooled blue chips, national number-ones and Easter Bowl champions, so my after-school schedule coupled with a one-star level was not apt for his program. However, Todd called Layne Hollander, the coach with whom I’ve worked since September 2016, to suggest that he should consider working with me.
This timing was serendipitous as Layne had just sent a player, whom he took from over 1000 on TennisRecruiting to 189 by graduation, on a Division I full-ride. He was searching for a new player to transform, and I was dying to do the work to transform myself into a new player.
PA: At what age did you realize you wanted to play tennis in college?
LJ: Even back when I was a one-star recruit, I had a dream. Regardless of my tennis level, I have always wanted to play tennis at a top academic school.
I knew a good ranking on TennisRecruiting.net and UTR would be the way to get there; however, I did not know how to achieve that imperative “good ranking.” Every Wednesday morning, I would wake up particularly early (out of distressed aspiration) and check the new rankings on both systems. Then, I would systematically record my updated number on my excel spreadsheet, appending the new data point my plot. Week after week, I would still be in the 700s and knew that was not going to cut it — especially when I witnessed yet another blue-chip commit to one of my dream schools. I knew I needed to find better training and continue to be determined to realize my objective.
When meeting Layne for the first time, he told me about the many recent commits to D1 schools with whom he had worked recently; I knew a results-driven coach was going to be my match. Staunch, allocentric, fervent and zealous by the very definition of the words, Layne was the perfect fit to aid in my pursuit of collegiate tennis.
PA: What changed in terms of your tennis training and competition schedule once you made that decision to become a collegiate athlete?
LJ: Since coming back to America in sixth grade, I had wanted to play in college – with dreams of Stanford, Northwestern, Duke and Ivies. However, to turn these dreams into reality, I’ve made objectively-stupendous strides thanks to fervent dedication.
My schedule reflected this zeal and drive. From the beginning of my Freshman year, when I started training with Layne, I transitioned from training a couple days after school to a rigorous schedule that spans every day of the week. With Layne, I start my mornings off right with morning fitness, constituted by an hour of elliptical often followed by light lifting, from 4:45-6am. This time frame allows me to be out of the house by 6:20 and at Pine Crest, with breakfast in tow, by 6:45. After finishing a full day at Pine Crest at 3:38pm, I head to practice (often just with Layne, but sometimes with friends) and train from 4:30-6:30pm.
Coming from so far behind, the whole process was incredibly busy. On weekends, we attempt to train for 4-5 hours on court, and I usually pair it with a session on the elliptical at home. Layne and I would often drive over two hours to compete in practice matches against any athlete, regardless of age or gender.
From the first time Layne watched me, even before we started working together, he noted that I was extremely stubborn in how I wanted to win points. He liked the fact that when I played big points, I’d rather take the shot than let the opponent seize the moment. Often noting my version of an NBA player’s “shooter’s mentality,” From the start, I played often, and lost often, but every tournament aided in development. All of my matches were charted completely; Layne and I could discuss what strategic mistakes were being made — then we could rectify them.
PA: What colleges were you pursuing?
LJ: My top choices were MIT, Caltech, Georgetown and, of course, Carnegie Mellon. Georgetown and Villanova, as division I schools, offered an interesting proposition, but using Reddit and Quora to crowdsource information on career placement led upstanding STEM schools to steal my heart — Caltech, MIT and Carnegie Mellon.
PA: What ultimately led you to choose Carnegie Mellon?
LJ: With the intent to go into trading, or something tangentially-related, I want to obtain the most technical background possible. Regardless of if I actually pursue a technical career as a quantitative analyst, go into Sales and Trading, or change courses a bit and go into investment banking, private equity or venture capital, having one of the strongest technical backgrounds available will be a puissant asset.
Learning how to talk about Principal Component Analysis on the job is easy; understanding how to calculate an eigenvalue and eigenvector is hard. I wanted to go somewhere where I could acquire the deep technical foundation: a top STEM school.
Choosing Carnegie Mellon in particular was an arduous task given the amazing choices. Carnegie’s devotion to new technology is truly unmatched — it was the first school to offer a university-level course in computer programming and created the first Machine Learning department in the world. Being part of this legacy of innovation will grant me an unparalleled background in cutting-edge technologies that will shape our future world, thus abetting me pursue my dreams in the capital markets. Also notable is that Carnegie Mellon’s undergraduate computer science, machine learning and statistics programs are ranked first in the entire world. This was a huge draw, and the opportunity to go as a junior really sweetened the deal.
PA: What led you to choose Division III over the other divisions?
LJ: The incredibly strong academic programs at the Division III level was the most potent attraction. However, Division III does have an unique edge over Division I: the format differences. The tennis scoring in Division I forces players to traverse nationally for no-ad tennis and 10-point tie-breaks. Division III plays full format: the best of three six-game sets with ads. Watching CMU compete in conference was an exhilarating five-hour ordeal that came down to the last court.
PA: If you’re comfortable sharing, are you receiving scholarship money at CMU and what percentage of overall cost?
LJ: Top academic Division III institutions offer extremely generous need-based aid, but do not offer either merit-based academic or athletic support. However, by matriculating a year ahead of schedule, we did save a year of Pine Crest tuition. There are many other institutions that would have offered to fully fund my education, either because of tennis or strong academic performance, but I’m incredibly thankful that my family has given full support of my decision to attend CMU. I would not be the person I am without their utmost support throughout every facet of my development, and am decidedly grateful.
PA: What do you think helped you go from a 1-star to a 3-star recruit?
LJ: In one of my first conversations with a college tennis coach interested in recruiting me, the coach inquired about my progress. “I see you’ve come from way off of the TennisRecruiting map, through the Hot 100 rankings twice and ended up in my target recruiting zone.” She continued: “Some players jump, albeit rarely this much, because they are now seven-foot-tall super athletes and have gained coordination that they lacked before. But you’re 5’9”, so this can’t be you. Others jump because they weren’t playing tournaments. However, you used to play 30 tournaments a year. How did you do it?”
Before I responded, I hesitated to lightly chuckle but didn’t have to think twice to answer — it’s all in my program, coaching and training.
Although much of my progress is due to my individual sessions with Layne, I’ve been able to make huge strides of the summer and winter breaks. Layne runs a completely free clinic, sponsored by the Plantation Community Tennis Corporation (a 501c3 nonprofit, referenced by its initialism “PCTC”) at Veltri Tennis Center from 7-9am over college breaks. During these brutally-arduous mornings on courts 11 and 12, I get to hit with many of the top current and former college students from across the country. A selection of those who have helped me the most and need a special shout-out include Katherine Castro (of the University of Pittsburgh), Brianna Gomez (of University of North Carolina at Greensboro), Laura Romero (of South Dakota State University), Melissa Sakar (of Columbia University), Andrea Stanescu (of Georgia State University), Mimi Kendall-Woseley (of the University of Houston), Lela Daszuta (‘20 junior player) and Mia Gonzalgo (‘22 junior player).
PA: Was your star rating important in terms of your tennis recruiting efforts?
LJ: The first time I met Layne, he indicated the prospect of rising one star a year in the Class of 2020. I had not yet considered early matriculation, but based on Layne’s projections, with a sedulous attitude, I would be in three-star range (201-400 nationally) in Class of 2020 by Spring 2019 and four-star range (76-200 nationally) by Spring 2020.
With assiduous work, we were ahead of schedule. During the Spring 2019 period, I was ranked 160 in Class of 2020, placing me well into four-star range. Earning my fourth-star was a particularly-invigorating accomplishment, as one of Layne’s most recurrent statements is “four stars are disciplined.” I finally earned the banner of discipline and elation ensued. However, when my college coach announced my commitment into the Carnegie Mellon 2023 tennis recruiting class – my class changed, and I lost my fourth star.
Now, in the class of 2019, I am in the deep into four-star range, but the last rating period for the current senior class was this past Spring, so I will not get the chance to become a four-star in ‘19. and do not have the choice to stay in Class of 2020. As a mere 16 year old who will graduate Carnegie Mellon at age 20, I’m one of the youngest members of TennisRecruiting’s Class of 2019, and even younger than some of my friends in the High School Freshman Class of 2022.
During the early stages of the process, Layne and I prioritized my development over specific results. I played in many tournaments and searched for the best competition we could find. As our focus shifted towards recruiting, during my sophomore year, we focused more on the rating system that best reflects a player’s current level. UTR uses a player’s most recent 30 matches, including those from Women’s Open and Pro Circuit events, to derive a player’s level, while TennisRecruiting uses an entire rolling year’s data. UTR is a better fit for players like me who are attempting to rise in the ranks with utmost celerity because of the smaller number of matches.
To compare TennisRecruiting and UTR (and to practice my skills in Excel and R), I used both means of statistical analysis to delve deeper into how the systems reflect changes. Findings that piqued my interest included that a single variant linear regression between TennisRecruiting ranking and the number of tournaments played had a negative slope (indicating that an increase in tournaments played often was correlated with a decrease in rank) while there was a positive relationship between UTR and number of tournaments played (thus showing that an increase in the number of tournaments played often is paired with a higher UTR rating). Also, it was surprising that the R-squared measure of correlation between TennisRecruiting ranks and UTR rating was so low; the systems clearly diverge from each other drastically with a value of a mere 0.77.
PA: Describe your tennis recruiting process. When did you start? Did the coaches pursue you or did you have to reach out to them? Did you use a recruiting consultant to help? Any other details you care to share?
LJ: Knowing that I wanted to study the intersection of finance, economics, math, statistics, and functional programming with the utmost rigor, my college search was a shortlist from the start.
Instead of paying excessively for edited recruiting videos, I merely used recorded full match videos from tournaments. Most of my recruiting letters emphasized my work ethic exuded through my climb. I sent the letters to the top Ivy and Division III programs I was considering.
PA: How important is your high school educational experience in terms of your tennis recruiting efforts?
LJ: Enrollment in the toughest classes available at Pine Crest School have led me to discover my passion for applications of mathematics to finance — effectively the intersection of my Advanced Placement, college-level Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Statistics and Calculus classes. Also, because of the strong foundations I acquired at Pine Crest, studying for the ACT and SAT subject tests was relatively easy. This strong background buttresses my preparation for the years ahead and played a pivotal role in my acceptance into Carnegie Mellon as a mere junior.
PA: Do you think you were at a disadvantage tennis-wise because you stayed in traditional school instead of doing virtual school?
LJ: Spending less time on court is a disadvantage — at the surface level. However, with deeper thought, it is not as conspicuous as fallaciously assumed at first glance.
By spending less time on court, I’m coerced into making the most of my finite time within limitations by my academic endeavors. Also, I’ve suffered through Osgood Schlatters (fancy nomenclature for a specific growing pains in knees) through the whole development process. Sadly, I’ve had to withdraw from many matches and training sessions, which interrupted my development. The world will never know if my knees could have physically handled increased pounding from more training.
It’s also incredibly important to note the time management skills I’ve garnered balancing tennis and academic pursuits. These will be able to help me in college and, more importantly, beyond.
PA: Do you aspire to pursue a professional tennis career after college?
LJ: As much as I love the sport, I will only play recreationally following Carnegie Mellon graduation in 2023. On top of training with the aforementioned schedule, I’m extremely interested in the capital markets.
The versatility rooted in the nonlinearity of options has really enthralled me, so I’ve independently read Hull’s classic (Options, Futures and Other Derivatives), Murphy’s Technical Analysis and Natenberg’s “Options Bible,” among other exhilarating finance reads. I’ve taken it upon myself to discover the world of finance — my parents have no involvement in the industry. The intriguing books have led me to teach myself how to trade spreads, in which I usually act as a net seller through strangles, iron condors and iron butterflies, thus collecting the theta premium. Also, after growing up in Asia, spending three years in Singapore, I’ve learned to speak Chinese, so I’d love to end up working in finance in the Far East.
Over the summer, in addition to training five grueling hours a day, I’m a technical analyst intern for a cryptocurrency analytics company where I build new technical indicators. The principles behind popular indicators for equity and commodity markets (RSI, CCI, Ichis, BBands, Ketlers, MACD, etc.) can be applied to the Bitcoin and Altcoin markets through better, more specific means. I’m writing much of the fundamental analysis of cryptocurrencies on my company’s behalf on Seeking Alpha, and I’m covering the technical charting movements with public TradingView analysis. This exploration is setting the groundwork for my future career.
PA: What advice do you have for those players who aspire to play college tennis?
LJ: Do the work, keep a clear goal and be the fighter.
Make the most of whatever time you have — very time you step on court, it’s paramount to try your hardest. My coach has watched junior tournaments since 2005; he has told me a plethora of stories about how “you just knew” Danielle Collins and Sofia Kenin were going to make it to the tour because neither player gave anything away. Regardless of if they were winning or losing, both players strove to constantly outwork their opponents.
Now, with less points being played than the era prior to the introduction of short scoring (Class of ‘10 and earlier), all American players have less opportunities. Players need to make every point count and do the work.
Additionally, it is imperative to discover a truly passionate coach that places the results of your tennis as a player over the coach’s bank account. No matter what stage you are in the process, even if you are extremely far behind like I was, with enough ardor to conquer the task at hand, your goals can still be realized. Just do the work.
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