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Last spring, tennis bloggers welcomed a new website and a new voice in college tennis world. During its first year of existence, the Texas College Tennis blog had neither a name nor face attached to it. But at the NCAAs in College Station, I met its creator, Granger Huntress, and he agreed to answer the many questions I had about his connection with college tennis in Texas and his decision to start a blog dedicated to it.

Huntress is currently the Communications/Information Technology manager for the USTA Texas section, a position he's held for six years. His ties to college tennis go back to his childhood, when he lived a block from San Antonio's Trinity University, an NCAA Division I powerhouse now competing in Division III. Huntress, who lives in Austin with his wife and two young sons, has an economics degree from the University of Texas and has managed mutual funds, taught middle school math, worked in sports marketing and as a collegiate SID prior to joining the Texas section. He played tennis at the Colorado School of Mines for one year prior to transferring to Texas.

Questions and Answers

Q. What prompted you to start a blog?

A. Well, I am a big fan of all college sports in general, but tennis is very close to me. I am also fairly opinionated. I have a very good friend who is involved with college tennis and we had been talking a lot.

I have this habit every afternoon of taking a break from work and walking down the street to get a sugar free Red Bull and clearing my head. One Friday back in 2008, while on this walk, I got the idea to do the blog. When I got back to the office, I bought the domain name. I have my own virtual server space and plenty of photos, so by Saturday evening I had the site running and had started dropping e-mails to every SID in the state.

Q. What is your connection with tennis in Texas?

A. Well, first off, I played as a junior then as an adult and most recently as a senior (over 35). I was a ranked junior back in the late '70s, early '80s in Texas. Later in life I started playing competitively in age groups. Five years ago, at the age of 39, I was the top-ranked player in men's 35s in the section. That doesn't mean I was the best, but the top-ranked.

Q. Why did you decide to reveal your identity?

A. Too many people were starting to find out, and I just wanted to come clean. I hated keeping it a secret, but thought it might be best while I got started.

Q. Who takes your photographs?

A. I do. That is another creative outlet. I used to have my own darkroom and learned to develop film when I was in the fifth grade. I am such the amateur, but I am not afraid to talk to the 'real' photographers at any event to get pointers and learn how to do the job better.

Q. Why did you decide to focus on college tennis in the state?

You stick with what you know. I know tennis and I know college sports. I could have expanded to juniors and pro circuits, but felt I needed to keep focused on one thing and do it well and expand to the other areas when there was time, like in the summer.

Texas just makes such a nice natural boundary. I mean come on, we used to be our own country.

Q. What is your goal for the site?

A. You know, I really have never had a goal for the site. Maybe that's the problem. I just want to be able to promote all of the great tennis being played here. I also want to write more about the state of tennis as well as rant when I feel the need. This is just a great creative outlet for me.

People suggest ideas all the time and I start doing them. Take the (alternative Division I) rankings for instance. That started on a whim. I run the website sixmanfootball.com and have been ranking small town high school football teams in Texas since 1993.

One weekend I decided to apply my ranking program to tennis and see what would happen. It really has nothing to do with just Texas tennis, but it was fun and I thought a great exercise. I am not sure I will continue to do it, but if I do, I will make a few changes to the formulas.

I just think the ITA rankings benefit the 'haves'. It really leaves out a large chunk of teams that are out there competing. As evidenced by the drafts [men, women] for the Indoor Championships, people are trapped by their budgets. I think the teams with some money are playing the system real well.

Q. What is your view on the state of college tennis today?

A. Where do you want me to start? I think in many ways it is great, but there is always room for improvement. I think there are some dark and dirty secrets that are a product of the ridiculous scholarship limits on the men's side. I think having only 4.5 scholarships lends itself to some pretty shady practices.

Let me put it this way. Let's say you are a private university that costs about $30k a year to attend. You have 7-8 players on your team and they are all foreign. You are telling me that the other 2.5-3.5 players are paying their own way or have legitimate academic scholarships? Heck, I don't see how it would work at a public school.

We can argue all day and night about whether there should be a limit on foreign players on a roster. I get both sides of the argument, but until that is resolved a little better, I think it is a mark against the sport.

Q. What is your view on the state of U.S. tennis today?

A. I am so sick of the naysayers. Does American tennis dominate the way it did in the 20th century? No, but the world is a different place and the sport is much more global.

Tennis is a way out for so many players from foreign countries and they take advantage of that. Whether it is college tennis, academies or other American coaches, they all contribute to the success of many of these foreign players.

And don't get me started on whether this is the fault of the USTA. The USTA's mission statement isn't about developing champions. It is about developing and growing the game. Of course you can get the argument from some on the Pro Circuit side who feel the best way to do that is to grow champions, but that's just one way to see it.

Truthfully, the USTA is between a rock and a hard place on this issue. When they are trying to roll out the regional training centers, they need the buy-in from the coaches to come along. There are a ton of great coaches in the U.S., but some of them have too big of egos and are always afraid someone else will try to 'steal' or take credit for their kid.

I think the way P-Mac is organizing the development side is a step forward and over time I think he will get more and more buy-in from everyone involved.

Tennis can be its own worst enemy at times. I think we are in a much better place today and heading the right direction to build a better future.

Q. What other online ventures are you planning?

I plan on owning ZooTennis.com by 2011. No, really, I am not sure exactly, but I do want to expand into creating more blogs for players still trying to make it. ConorPollock.net started out great when he and Austin Krajicek went out and won their first tournament. I hope to help out other players and potentially get a network of college and USTA Pro Circuit players writing on their experiences.

I love the Pro Circuit. I went to something like 11 events in 2003 for at least a day for the section. Then in 2004, I played the wild card event when Lubbock was a 10k (lost to Josh Zavala 7-5, 6-4) and the qualies in Arlington where I got my rear end handed to me by Ryan Newport (6-0, 6-0), who I had written some articles on earlier that year. He was ranked 514 in the world that week.

People thought I was crazy to be playing these at 39, but when do you ever get to play some guy who is ranked 500 in the world in anything? The tennis is amazing and you never know where these guys are heading.

About Colette Lewis

Colette Lewis has covered topflight U.S. and international junior events as a freelance journalist for the better part of a decade. Her work has earned her contracts with such organizations as the Tennis Channel, USTA Florida and the Junior Orange Bowl, as well as TENNIS, SMASH, USTA and Racquet Sports Industry magazines. Lewis is currently contributing to the the New York Times' tennis blog Straight Sets, and she writes a weekly column right here at TennisRecruiting.net.

Lewis, based out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, has seen every National Championship final played there since 1977, and her work on the tournament's ustaboys.com website led her to establish ZooTennis, where she comments on junior and college tennis daily.