FARMVILLE, Va. -- You would think that
Edward Becker, a member of the men's tennis team at Longwood, would get his fill of international travel just getting to and from Farmville each academic year.
Becker grew up in Australia and his parents still live there. But he added stamps to his passport this past summer on an eight-country trip to Europe that satisfied his travel bug and helped him as a tennis player as well.
The 5-foot-10 Becker went to England, Wales, France, Spain, German, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. He played in one open (non-professional) tournament in Wales, Germany and Denmark, two in France and three in Sweden to end his trip. Along the way he was able to meet up with four former or current Longwood athletes.
“It was always a big goal of mine to travel around,” said Becker, who enrolled at Longwood in January of 2011 and is now an exercise science major. “That was something I always wanted to do. Some of my high school friends had done that, so I decided I wanted to go to Europe.”
He was able to visit the Eiffel Tower, Louvre and Notre Dame in Paris and other tourist sites in London, Spain and other countries.
Becker estimated that he played in about two or three matches per tournament, mostly against European players about his age who are also playing college tennis in the United States or hope to do so.
“It was really good to play against a lot of different players that I had never seen and to play on red clay,” Becker said. “It was a fun experience to do that. All of my matches were relatively close. That gave me a lot of confidence when I came back here.”
Jakob Gustafsson, the head coach for the Lancers, can identify with Becker as an international player. Gustafsson is from Sweden and played in college at Louisville.
“He is a second-semester sophomore,” Gustafsson said of Becker. “He is still new to the team, but he is the oldest player here. It is an interesting combination. He is a highly-motivated player and that is really important. I believe in hard-working players. I don't care if they are from China or Farmville. He put this trip together himself.”
The current men's tennis roster includes another player from Australia and students from England, Germany and the country of Georgia.
“It is an international sport. You make friends from everywhere, you make those connections. He got to play on red clay over there, which is very different,” Gustafsson said.
Is it harder to recruit international tennis players these days? “The past few years it has become harder with course requirements from high school and test scores. But each school has their own requirements,” the coach said. “It has always been an international field in college athletics compared to other sports. Since it is an individual sport you can play your style. That is a big part of it.”
Becker was born in England to British parents and moved with his family to Australia when he was 3 months old. He began playing tennis for fun when he was 5 and started to play at a competitive level when he was 14. The son of David and Caroline Becker, he was introduced to the sport by his mother, who plays the game on a social level.
Becker, who considers himself an Australian, had been to England many times in his youth to visit extended family members. He had also been to France while in high school and can speak some French.
So how did he end up with the Lancers?
The resident of Australia and some of his friends from his home country made a trip to Florida in 2010 to check out American colleges. One of the people that they stayed with on the trip happened to be a former college teammate of Pat Breen, the previous head coach for the Lancers. And that is partly how he ended up in Farmville.
Becker was 6-9 in singles and 5-13 in doubles play during the 2010-11 academic year for the Lancers. He took part in tennis at Manly Selective Campus in Sydney from 2007-08 and earned High Distinction in the National Geography Competition in 2008-09.
During his trip this summer while in Sweden, he met up with Malin Allgurin, a native of that country who plays for Longwood women's tennis. He stayed with former field hockey player Olga Knop in Germany and in Denmark met up with Marc Ferrigno, now a pro tennis player. Becker, while in The Netherlands, saw former Lancers' hoop player Jan van der Kooij, who is now playing pro basketball in his home country.
“We worked a schedule which would flow into one another. You want to do a nice little route,” Becker said. “Once we got to a country we would book a trip to the next country. We knew we would start with England, Wales and France but did not know the dates. The hardest thing was just getting the trip off the ground. Once I bought a ticket I made the commitment to go.” And he hopes the trip will go a long way in aiding his play on the court for the Lancers.
Editor's Note: Special consultant David Driver is a Virginia native and has covered college sports in the state for more than 20 years. He has been a staff writer for newspapers in Arlington, Springfield and Harrisonburg and has contributed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Washington Post, Stafford County Sun and The Potomac News in Woodbridge. He was also the first sports editor for the daily Baltimore Examiner. He will continue contributing special feature content to longwoodlancers.com throughout the upcoming 2012-13 academic year as well. A former Division III baseball player at Eastern Mennonite University, David can be reached at www.davidsdriver.com.
Previous Special Features
