Casting Lines for Future Tournaments
August 12, 2016
By Jack Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director
The MHSAA is best known to the public for the tournaments it conducts to conclude the fall, winter and spring seasons each school year.
These tournaments, the first and largest program of the MHSAA, have survived the Vietnam War, the Korean conflict and two World Wars. They have survived the technology bubble, the housing collapse, the energy crisis and the Great Depression.
MHSAA tournaments existed at the dawn of aviation and at the time of our nation’s lunar landing. Popes, presidents and governors have changed and changed again and again, and MHSAA tournaments roll on year after year.
But the sense of tradition and permanence and inevitability of MHSAA tournaments doesn’t dissuade us from asking questions about our tournaments, even some of the most basic questions. Here are two.
Question #1
I have long been and will always be an advocate for a Ryder Cup format for the MHSAA Golf Finals, and a team tennis approach to the MHSAA Tennis Finals; but 90 years of tradition is hard to overcome. Might this be a more exciting format? Could it be co-ed? Could it reverse the decline in boys tennis participation, and increase girls golf participation? Wouldn’t it be fun to try?
Periodically, the International Olympic Committee requires each of the designated Olympic sports to defend its status, to state its case why the sport should remain a part of the Olympic program. Then, after a series or votes that retain one sport at a time, the IOC drops the sport that makes the weakest case. It does so to make room for one of the previously unlisted sports that makes the best case for inclusion.
This would appear to keep the existing Olympic sports on their toes, and to keep the Olympic movement fresh and reflective of modern trends in sports.
While I would not enjoy the controversy, I can see the potential for some positive results if the MHSAA were to invoke the same policy for determining the 14 tournaments it will provide for girls and the 14 for boys.
This might cause us to consider more deeply what a high school sport should look like, or at least what an MHSAA tournament sport should stand for.
On the one hand, we might be inclined to drop tournaments for those sports that involve mostly non-faculty coaches and non-school venues, or require cooperative programs to generate enough participants to support a team, or resort almost entirely to non-school funding, or cater to individuals more than teams.
Or perhaps this process would cause policymakers to forget traditional thinking and ask: “In this day and age, should we shake off traditional notions of sport and consider more where modern kids are coming from?” That might mean fewer team sports and more individual sports, more “extreme” sports like snowboarding and skateboarding, and more lifetime sports, meaning not just golf and tennis and running sports, but also fishing and even shooting sports.
Currently, MHSAA policy states that the MHSAA will consider sponsorship of a tournament series for any sport which 64 member schools conduct on an interscholastic basis as a result of action by the governing boards of those schools.
Should the only question be how many schools sponsor a sport, or must an activity also have certain qualities and/or avoid certain “defects?” What should an MHSAA tournament sport look like and stand for?
Question #2
Bristling from criticism that his association is a money-grabbing exploiter of children, my counterpart in another state said, “If we were running our programs just to make money, we would do very many things very differently.” I knew exactly what he meant.
Because we care about the health and welfare of students, because we mean what we say that the athletic program needs to maximize the ways it enhances the school experience while minimizing academic conflicts, and because we try to model our claim that no sport is a minor sport when it comes to its potential to teach young people life lessons, we operate our programs in ways that make promoters, marketers and business entrepreneurs laugh, cry or cringe.
If money were the only object, we would seed and select sites to assure the teams that attracted the most spectators had the best chance to advance in our tournaments, regardless of the travel for any team or its fan base. If money were the only object, we would never schedule two tournaments to overlap and compete for public attention, much less tolerate three or four overlapping events. If money were the only object, we would allow signage like NASCAR events and promotions like minor league baseball games.
Those approaches to event sponsorship may not be all wrong; they’re just not all right for us. And we will live with the consequences of our belief system.
During a typical school year, more than 20 percent of the MHSAA’s 2,097 District, Regional and Final tournaments lose money. Not a single site in golf, skiing or tennis makes a single penny. In no sport did every District, Regional and Final site have revenue in excess of direct expenses.
In fact, in only three sports – boys and girls basketball and football – is revenue so much greater than direct expenses overall that it helps to pay for all the other tournaments in which the MHSAA invests.
That’s right: invests. When we present our budget to our board, we talk about the MHSAA’s investment in providing tournament opportunities in all those sports and all those places that cannot sustain the cost of those events on their own. How much is this investment worth to students, schools and society?
These two are core questions that require our focus far in advance of talk about scheduling, site selection, seeding and the myriad matters that too often hijack our time and attention.
Championship Memories, High School Tennis' Impact Stick with Hackett Pair
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
July 12, 2023
KALAMAZOO — As a senior at Hackett Catholic Central, Luke Samra knew that season was his last chance to win a state title.
Enter freshman Alex Dombos.
“When I saw Alex for the first time at Hackett, I said, ‘If you play tennis, we’ll win state,’” Samra said.
The senior nailed it.
Coach Matt Boven paired the two, and they not only won the No. 1 doubles title, but helped lead the Irish to the 2005 MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 team co-championship with Grosse Ile.
The pair defeated T.J. Busscher and Paul Dekorte, from Grandville Calvin Christian, 7-6(2), 6-2 to clinch their flight.
Eighteen years later, Dombos remembers it well.
“I’m pretty sure we were down a set point in the first set, and we saved at least one set point and won the set. The second was a little bit easier,” Dombos recalled.
“I remember match point. I hit a backhand down the line for a winner, and then Luke and I looked at each then and I’m pretty sure we jumped up and did a Bryan Brothers chest bump.”
After graduation, Samra headed to Kalamazoo Valley Community College and then Marian University in Indianapolis, playing tennis and earning a bachelor’s degree in business management.
Dombos remained at Hackett, adding a Finals title at No. 2 singles as a sophomore and earning D4 first-team all-state honors.
“The experience I gained from playing doubles as a freshman was really beneficial,” Dombos said. “Playing doubles helped my net game in singles, where there’s a translation of skills.”
Although Samra and Dombos took different paths, they have kept in touch through texting and social media.
Samra and his wife, Adrianna Story Samra, live in Indianapolis where he is a teaching pro at Carmel (Ind.) Racquet Club after a similar position at Western Michigan University’s West Hills Athletic Club.
Dombos works in a data science role at Stryker Corporation in Kalamazoo, “applying a lot of the data analysis skills that I learned from high school, college and graduate school at Stryker.”
After Hackett, Dombos continued his tennis career at Kalamazoo College, earning a degree in physics with a minor in mathematics. He was a four-year letter winner and helped lead the Hornets to four Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association tennis titles.
Dombos spent study-abroad time in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he and his girlfriend Kelsey Hassevoort found a way to keep their tennis skills from atrophying.
Hassevoort, who is now his wife, played for the Hornets women’s tennis team and “very quickly we found the lone tennis court in the center of campus,” he said.
“When it got too dark too early in the day, we found the Aberdeen Tennis Center but to get there was a 45-minute trip through a lot of bus rides.”
After K-College, Dombos continued studying at Michigan State.
“They’ve got a lab on campus called the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, so I got my Ph.D. there in a six-year long program,” he said.
Next came three years at Notre Dame for a post-doctoral research associate position in physics and astronomy.
“My particular area of physics, there’s a lot of fundamental research part of it, but also practical applications,” he said. “A lot of the physics work I did, it’s common for people to go to a national lab.
“They’re doing research that’s usually funded by the government. Postdoctoral research associate positions are similar to the residency portion of medical school.”
With such in-depth studies, tennis has currently faded to the background, although Dombos has tried his hand at pickleball.
Looking back
Boven, currently the boys and girls tennis coach at Mattawan High School, remembers Hackett’s team title well.
“It was really Kyle Bedford at No. 2 singles and the No. 1 doubles team that gave us the (2005) title,” he said. “Alex and Luke seemed to complement each other. I knew Alex was a very gifted ground-stroker, and Luke’s volleys were improving. Alex was dominant at the baseline and could set up Luke at the net.”
Since Dombos rarely played doubles while competing in USTA events, he did not have many expectations as part of a doubles duo.
“Having played singles for pretty much all of my tennis at that point, I didn’t see it as a setback, but had an open mind and open attitude: Let’s see where this goes,” he said.
“We ended up winning the state title, so that was exciting.”
Besides his high school tennis success — Dombos did not lose a set at the MHSAA Tournament his first two years — he said he continued learning from his experiences.
During USTA tournaments, Andrew Devlieger from Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian was his nemesis.
“I had lost to him consistently,” Dombos said. “I ended up playing him in a high school match (in 2006), and I won. I was like, I can beat him now.
“In the (2006) finals at the state tournament, I played him and won again with a better score (6-1, 6-2). It was that belief of having won in the regular season that gave me the belief going into the state tournament.”
Dombos’ streak of not losing a set at the MHSAA Tournament ended during the 2007 No. 1 singles semifinals, where he fell to eventual champ Michael Calderone from Jackson Lumen Christi. Calderone was named Michigan’s Mr. Tennis and played collegiately at Western Michigan University.
Dombos said much of what he learned in high school has helped him in his career, including how to balance things in everyday life.
“As a student-athlete, you’re playing tennis and studying,” he said. “That’s really important for anything in life, especially in graduate school, having your attention pulled in a lot of different directions.”
Another advantage was learning teamwork.
“Working as part of a team and working with new people,” he said. “You’ll be doing that in any type of professional setting; learning that you don’t succeed alone.
“In general, there is also the importance of staying active for your physical and mental health.”
Advice he would give to young athletes today includes: “Hard work will be important for anything in life, and a lot of the lessons you learn on the tennis court will be very helpful later in life. They can be just as important as some of the lessons you learn in the classroom.”
Samra said tennis has changed since his high school days.
“The game is a lot faster now,” he said. “I tried to model my game on Pete Sampras and Andy Roddick, but you can’t play like that anymore.
“Serve and volley is out of the question, too. The ball comes back too fast.”
Samra said he can’t believe that with all the good players on his Hackett team, he is the only one who ended up with tennis as a career.
“My parents invested a lot of money in me growing up,” he said. “I’m glad they know it wasn’t a waste.”
Boven is not surprised by Samra’s career pursuit.
“I remember how intense Luke was and how much he cared about the team,” he said. “I’m so excited he stuck with it because he cared for it so much.”
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PHOTOS (Top) Luke Samra, left, and Alex Dombos hold up their championship bracket after winning the No. 1 doubles flight at the 2005 LP Division 4 Finals. (Middle) Samra and Dombos celebrate their victory. (Photos from 2005 courtesy of Luke Samra; current photos courtesy of Samra and Dombos.)