We, the student-athletes of Mount Holyoke Tennis, are petitioning Mount Holyoke College to provide our team with a standard phased approach to the termination of the Mount Holyoke Tennis program. We demand an extension of the Mount Holyoke Tennis Program for two more years, and within those two years, we demand the opportunity to search for new avenues for future funding. 

The decision to end the College’s sponsorship of a tennis program comes at an unexpected juncture in the program’s history: with an academically and athletically decorated team. And yet, the morning of Monday, May 13th, it was announced that the Mount Holyoke College tennis program is discontinued immediately. Detailed information can be found here. Notably absent from the beginning of the announcement are the recent accomplishments of the tennis team. These include winning both the Team GPA Award and Coach of the Year Award at the annual Athletics Awards Ceremony in April. The team achieved an average GPA of 3.88, and Head Coach Aldo Santiago just finished his 31st season at Mount Holyoke, while Assistant Coach Eric Cestero finished his 27th. Additionally during the season, the tennis team qualified for NEWMAC Championships for the 18th consecutive year, won 11 matches for the first time since 2018, had a player qualify for the All-NEWMAC Second Team for Singles, and finished 5th in the NEWMAC after the pre-season poll predicted that the team would only finish 7th. 

At 3:00 pm on May 13th, hours after the announcement, President Danielle Holley, Dean of Students Marcella Runell, and Athletic Director Andrea Ricketts-Preston met with the members of the tennis team, families of the tennis team, and the team’s committed recruits and their families. During the meeting, it was explained that due to years of unsuccessfulness of many of Mount Holyoke’s sports teams within the NEWMAC, the conference has been pushing the College to make changes to the athletics department to increase overall performance. The announcement on May 13th was a response to this pressure. However, out of all of Mount Holyoke’s athletic teams, tennis is the highest ranked within the NEWMAC. Additionally, the overall cost of the tennis program is not among the most expensive at the College. The logic behind the College’s decision of cutting tennis to save finances and increase overall performance of the department is inconsistent. 

Additionally during the meeting, we were told that the reason the administration decided to cut tennis over any other sport is purely because tennis is the team with the least number of athletes. In the meeting, President Holley admitted that the tennis team is one of the strongest and most successful teams at Mount Holyoke and that she has struggled in coming to a final decision. While we appreciate the aim of the Administration to minimize the number of affected student-athletes, this decision causes an outsized and immediate detriment to our current and committed student-athletes. The College may applaud their BeWell Program in the May 13th announcement, but when it comes to the genuine mental health of some of their most successful student athletes, they look the other way. 

With the financial and human impacts in mind, we, the student-athletes of Mount Holyoke Tennis, are petitioning to extend our competition for two more years, and within those two years, we demand the opportunity to find new avenues for funding. Our reasoning is as follows:

• We have seven players. One is a current senior, five are current juniors, and the other is a current sophomore but will be reclassifying as a junior in the fall. Playing for two more years will allow our entire team to finish their collegiate career. 
• Our coaches have dedicated decades of their lives building the Mount Holyoke Tennis program. They deserve to be given ample time to be able to find other job opportunities, as well as the ability to explore if staying at Mount Holyoke is an option. 
• Our players chose Mount Holyoke over schools that would have provided them with scholarships for their athletic performance because we wanted to benefit from a welcoming community and rigorous academics while being able to compete in our sport. By committing to Mount Holyoke, we committed to playing four years of tennis, and it is the College’s responsibility to ensure that we are able to do so. Not only does playing our sport aid in our physical and mental well-being, but some of us aim to enter athletic-related careers where four years of collegiate athletic experience is expected, and many of us aim to go to graduate school where an incomplete commitment to a varsity collegiate sport is seen as undesirable in the admissions process. 
• Mount Holyoke Tennis is very involved within the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). Cal Smith serves as Vice Chair, Kate Vavra serves as Community Service Chair, and Rachel Allen serves as a tennis representative. By immediately removing tennis representation from SAAC, the Committee loses some of its most dedicated members in the middle of their term. 
• Tennis has been, and will continue to be, a small sport. In almost every athletic department, the team with the smallest roster is tennis. Intercollegiate Tennis Association rules state that DIII tennis teams only need 4 players to compete. It is also not uncommon for athletic departments, regardless of division, to have financial struggles, and this can definitely be seen more prominently since the introduction of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, if every time an athletic department had a financial struggle and decided to cut their smallest team “to minimize pain”, tennis would hardly exist within the NCAA. 
• Our facilities are the best in New England within DIII. No other school in the NEWMAC or the NESCAC has 6 indoor tennis courts, and only some have 12 outdoor courts. The College has already made the expensive capital investment of creating amazing facilities. The College gains financially from these facilities by hosting the annual NEWITTS tournament for the top tennis teams in New England, a summer Nike Tennis Camp, and most recently, the Men’s Tennis NEWMAC Quarterfinals. 
• We have two committed recruits arriving in the fall. If they decide to transfer, it is crucial that they gain collegiate experience during their time at Mount Holyoke so they can be recruited by another institution’s coach and properly prepared for the rest of their collegiate career. 
• Our coaches and players were given no opportunity to defend our program or come up with alternative methods to get funding. Our coaches were notified of the program’s elimination an hour before it was announced to the school. Our program’s legacy is beloved by many alums, and there are corporations who may be interested in supporting women’s tennis due to the recent widespread increase of interest in women's college sports. We should have time to explore these options. 

We feel that our demands are not unreasonable, as it is typical for colleges to phase out athletic programs when they are cut. Additionally, a school that prides itself on giving a voice to the next generation of intellectuals must listen when its students demand to be heard, especially when those students have devoted years of their lives representing the school in a positive light.

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