I don’t write about myself that much. But this year I’m making some exceptions. The AC “A” Board announced that I’ll be inducted into the Austin College Hall of Honor in the summer of 2025. My sport is tennis, and Legends Weekend 2025 is igniting a bunch of Marc tennis stories. Here’s the LAST one:
Roo Tales are all about AC ties to the larger world. My favorite Roo Tales about athletics tie D3 Roo athletes to the larger world of NCAA D1. You know, the big boys like Texas and Texas A&M. AC tennis will be center stage for me this weekend in Sherman. But it is really Texas A&M and my hometown of Bryan/College Station (B/CS) that defines my tennis past. This story is a tale of two tennis players who played on the courts of Texas A&M: (1) the best player in Marc’s B/CS community, and (2) the best player Marc ever beat.
Texas A&M Coach David Kent came to Aggieland in 1978, determined to take Aggie tennis to new heights. That would require beating elites like the University of Texas. Throughout the 1980s, Kent was a mainstay in Aggieland. He ran the tennis camps in which I participated, recruited elite players like future Wimbledon Doubles Finalist Grant Connell, and oversaw the growth of an increasingly competitive A&M tennis program. Still, year after year Kent failed to defeat the Longhorns.
By 1991, Kent had recruited enough top caliber players to make a serious run at the University of Texas. That 1991 team was led by Mark Weaver, current coach of the 2024 NCAA Champion Aggie women’s squad. That 1991 team also included an elite player who was a good friend of mine: Scott Phillips, a regular at former Aggie Tommy Connell’s Royal Oaks Racquet Club in B/CS. Former Aggie Assistant Coach Tim Drain knows; Scott Phillips, who Tim and I both battled, was the best of our Brazos Valley group.
The Aggies hosted the Southwest Conference (SWC) Tournament in April of 1991, winning their quarterfinal matchup on day one. Waiting for them in the semifinals were the Texas Longhorns, owners of a 13-year winning streak against David Kent’s Aggies. But the streak finally came to an end. A&M dominated Texas, giving Coach Kent his long-awaited victory over their biggest rival. From a B/CS Eagle article headlined “Aggie netters shock Longhorns:”
“Saturday was the most spectacular day in Kent’s 13-year career at Aggieland. Texas A&M, in stunning fashion, handed Kent his first victory over the University of Texas. The Aggies smashed the Longhorns 5-0, winning the first five singles matches in straight sets. Just over three hours after the match had started, A&M’s Scott Phillips shouted “YES!” [after winning match #5] and the large pro-Aggie crowd joined in the celebration. ‘It was a long time coming,’ Kent said. ‘I didn’t know if it would happen in my lifetime.”
Back in 1991 when Scott Phillips helped Texas A&M defeat Texas, I was just another NCAA D3-level player at little Austin College. But even small school players can have very big days in the sport of tennis. That was the case at the 1987 Serenada Open in Georgetown, TX. After winning my first two matches, I prepared for my quarterfinal opponent: Emeka Igbenebor from Lagos, Nigeria.
Igbenebor had moved from Nigeria to Texas to give competitive tennis a go. Like Scott Phillips, Igbenebor was a Top 20 ranked player in Texas…..too much for a Top 100 ranked guy like me to handle on a typical day. But not that day in Georgetown. As Kurt Russell might have said in the movie Miracle, “if Igbenebor played Marc 10 times he might win 9. But not this match. Not. Tonight.” My “miracle” three-set victory was my best win on a tennis court.
Emeka Igbenebor later enrolled at UT-El Paso (UTEP) to play for the Miners in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). He eventually reached Line #1, earned All-WAC honors, and even gave professional tennis a run after graduation. In April of 1991, the El Paso Times ran a feature on Igbenebor just before the WAC Championships.
And in March of 1991, just weeks before A&M beat UT for the first time, Emeka Igbenebor and UTEP traveled to College Station to face Scott Phillips and the Aggies. A&M defeated UTEP easily, winning 5 of 6 singles matches. Scott Phillips was one of the five. But the Aggies stumbled in one match. Line #3 was a win for UTEP’s Emeka Igbenebor.
We kiddos in the Brazos Valley who learned the game from A&M’s Tommy Connell dreamed of playing for David Kent’s Aggies and competing against the University of Texas. For most of us NCAA D3-level players who left for small schools like Austin College, Texas A&M tennis was just too big and just too good. Playing for the Aggies was a bridge too far.
But that bridge is not so far that we don’t have D1-level ties, ties which make for some good Roo Tales about AC Hall of Honor athletes. Including Marc, your humble Roo Tale author with ties to the 1991 Aggies. A team that defeated the Longhorns by pitching a shutout clinched by my B/CS friend Scott Phillips. And a team that failed to pitch a shutout against UTEP because of Emeka Igbenebor………the best player I ever beat.
That’s a wrap for a year of Marc tennis stories leading up to AC Legends weekend. See y’all Friday at Claude Webb Jr.’s Gar Hole and Saturday in Sherman. After this weekend, I’ll be back to AC stories about all y’all. Go Roos.
