Catching up with alumni — Sam Spiegel and Phalkun Mam

Tonight I was sitting at my computer when I noticed Sam Spiegel (2004) was online. Wasn’t too long before Phalkun Mam (2007) as showed up online and I invited him to join in our chat. Sam was a senior when Phalkun was a freshman so they had a lot to catch-up on!

Both are in great spirits and both pursuing very interesting career options.

Phalkun had just finished playing in the finals of a men’s open tournament and was bit beat after the long weekend and drive home. In mid-August Phalkun leaves for Cambodia where he will become the Assistant to the Director of the Cambodian Tennis Federation. Phalkun will be identifying and working with young  Cambodian tennis talent.  Phalkun was also happy to report that he is on the Cambodian Davis Cup team that will be playing in Dubai in September. Congratulations to Whitman’s current all-time win holder on his new position and opportunity!

Sam is currently a Lecturer in International Development at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. After leaving Whitman, Sam received a Trudeau Foundation Scholarship to continuing his academic pursuits at Cambridge University. Sam mentioned he hopes to have his PhD wrapped up in the coming weeks! We were speaking/chatting about his experience at Whitman and Sam had the following to say

“Whitman prepared me in a huge number of ways for PhD work at Cambridge and the United Nations projects that I got involved in after I graduated from Whitman. I gained so much from the Whitman politics department and the great times with the tennis team and debate team and all the amazing times there. I’m currently lecturing at the University of Edinburgh and teaching courses in a new international development programme, […]

By |July 7th, 2013|Alumni|0 Comments
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Adventures of Phalkun

Phalkun is currently in Cambodia playing on the futures circuit. P currently holds the all-time win record for Whitman men’s tennis and is assistant coach at Lewis & Clark College. Check out his blog at:

ptennisadventure

Good luck in the coming weeks! Below is one of my favorite pictures of Phalkun — we (Steven Ly, Brad Changstrom, and myself) backpacked into the Wenaha wilderness.

 

By |November 24th, 2012|Alumni|0 Comments
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Update Career Stats

Here are the most recent updated career match records. This data can also be found on the top left menu under “Team Stats”. After all these years of updating tables I finally learned the query and importrange functions to automatically update all the sheets. Very exciting Tuesday evening!

Some career milestones – Tolman broke 100 wins, Holton-Burke finished his career with 13 tiebreak losses — one short of tying Matt Solomon for most all time, and La Cava is on pace (92 wins) to shatter Phalkun Mam’s all-time win record (157).

By |August 21st, 2012|Alumni|3 Comments
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More Pictures from the past

I found some more pictures that I hadn’t put up on flickr. These photos were from my first trip to the NCAA’s as a Whitman Coach. At the time this was probably one of the best freshman classes in the nation — 5 freshman all playing in the top 5. I believe that year we reached a high ranking of #12.
Click the photo below for the slide show.

By |November 27th, 2011|2004 season, Pictures|0 Comments
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The Nordstrom Fall Open

Disclaimer: Coach has decided to switch his blog to an independent host, and allow players to post from time to time, so this is Conor writing (with Andrew and Steven co-piloting).

Hello Whitman tennis fans, and greetings from the Nordstrom Tennis Center in Seattle, Washington. This facility is absolutely gorgeous. There are six, purple, indoor courts with scoreboards, umpire chairs, and three rows of stadium seating each. The surfaces are beautiful. The seating is beautiful. The electric heaters in the viewing area are really, really beautiful. But enough gushing; let’s get to the tennis.

Friday was a hectic day, as Steven and I scrambled to get from Walla Walla to Seattle in time for our first round matches. We both had matches scheduled for 2:50, but I couldn’t leave until 10 because of a meeting with a professor, and Stevie couldn’t leave until 11 because of class. I was worried about making it in time, and, frankly, I didn’t think Stevie had any chance. Thanks to some creative interpretations of the speed limit, a clear pass, and a lenient tournament desk, however, Steven made it. Unfortunately, I drew a tough first round match in a player from Seattle University. I had a tough time shaking the rust off from the 4 1/2 hour drive in my first set, and then an even tougher time shaking the rust off from a month and a half without competitive tennis, and lost 6-2, 7-5. I didn’t get to see Steven’s match, but he must’ve played well because he won 6-1, 6-4. (more…)

By |November 22nd, 2011|2011-2012 season|0 Comments
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2003 Halloween Pictures

Been going through photos on my computer and ran across these gems. I think these photos were from a Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) varsity athletic event on Ankey field. Question for the day — should I tag and put on facebook?
Click the picture below to open a slideshow.

By |November 21st, 2011|2003 season, Alumni|0 Comments
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Split squad yields two victories

One of the benefits of a deep roster is the ability to split the squad into two parts. Yesterday half of the guys traveled with me to take on Willamette while the other half went with Coach Ann to play Lewis and Clark College.
Fortunately for my group the weather was great and we were able to play Willamette on their outdoor courts (often we run into rain and have to travel to indoor courts). Against Willamette we knew we were in for a good match — we defeated them 7-2 on our home courts just seven days ago. In that match the top three singles all went three sets.
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By |March 15th, 2010|2009 season, Alumni, Lewis & Clark, Willamette|0 Comments
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One of the greats!

A few weeks ago I was surprised by a visit from Chris Gregersen. Chris is one of the best (if not very best) player to ever grace the Whitman tennis courts. After being ranked #1 in DIII, Chris transfered to Northwestern where he was Todd Martin’s doubles partner. He and Todd achieved a high ranking of #13 in NCAA I doubles.
For perspective on Chris’s accomplishments, consider that it is a big milestone to win 100 matches during a 4-year career. Since Whitman’s moved to NCAA III (from NAIA) only a handful players have broke the century mark. Since the move to DIII, Phalkun Mam holds the all-time win record of 157. Chris’s freshman year he was 44-4 in singles and 38-7 in doubles and his sophomore year he won over 60 matches. Amazing to think that Chris won nearly 150 matches in just two years of play!
I was lucky enough to be Chris’s teammate for his two years at Whitman. One of our team highlights during 1986 was defeating the University of Washington 6-3. Not a bad effort for our non-scholarship program to take down the mighty Huskies!
Chris currently resides outside of Florence Italy with his wife and two young children.

By |February 27th, 2010|Alumni|1 Comment
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