{"id":9547,"date":"2020-11-20T13:39:26","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T02:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/?p=9547"},"modified":"2020-11-20T14:26:07","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T03:26:07","slug":"sam-whitehead-signs-with-university-of-texas-rio-grande-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/news\/2020\/11\/20\/sam-whitehead-signs-with-university-of-texas-rio-grande-valley","title":{"rendered":"Sam Whitehead joins University of Texas Rio Grande Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tasmanian National Academy player Sam Whitehead<\/strong> will head to the United States in 2021 after accepting a scholarship to the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Launceston product will make the move in August next\nyear, with the news coming in his final week of Year 12 exams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Whitehead, the scholarship is the realisation of a long-term goal which stemmed from being involved in the sport from his formative years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been around tennis for most of my life, as my dad used to coach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI loved it when I was younger and have just kept playing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been wanting to go to US College for a while now,\nprobably since grade nine or ten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver the last few months I\u2019ve been contacting a lot of\nschools, and a coach from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley kept in\ncontact and it eventually led to an offer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A regular member of Tasmanian junior state teams and development squads, the 18 year old nominates competing in a number of Pizzey Cup events as personal highlights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the most recently-held instalment of the prestigious national\nschools team tennis championships in 2019, Whitehead capped off his final appearance\nby being named in the All Australian team alongside fellow Tasmanian Ruben\nMcCormack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe team atmosphere in the Pizzey Cups was great, and I\nlove those events where you work together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big reason why I wanted to pursue the college environment where the team is a focus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Launceston coach James Bolzonello with Sam Whitehead<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Long-term coach and mentor James Bolzonello<\/strong> has worked with Whitehead out of Tennis World Launceston for the best part of a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been coaching Sammy for nearly ten years, since he was\neight years old,\u201d Bolzonello said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe went to the National Talent Development Camp which was\nheld at the Australian Institute of Sport when he was just nine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSam\u2019s a very aggressive player, and has been ever since he\nwas young.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are pros and cons to that, but it\u2019s all coming\ntogether and he\u2019s becoming a well-rounded player.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolzonello was quick to highlight the work ethic of the\nrising star, noting Whitehead\u2019s regular training sessions with Launceston-based\nstrength and conditioning professional Jamie Dash to ensure no stone is left\nunturned in his preparation for the College tennis experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJamie runs his business, Competitive Edge Training and\nNutrition, in the gym beside us at Tennis World,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was a US college athlete, so he\u2019s has the experience of working with select college conditioning programs , and that was a great opportunity for us to approach him to provide Sammy with a tailored program to complement his on-court work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis has given Sammy a great base to work with before he goes away and will allow him to adapt to the demands of the college environment quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Whitehead competes in 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In recent years there has been a healthy number of Tasmanian players undertake US college scholarships, providing an alternative avenue to tennis development beyond a transition straight into aspiring towards a professional career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCollege has been a pathway that\u2019s been around for players\nfrom the state for a while now,\u201d Bolzonello said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBenny Barnett and Benny Cawston, to name a couple that I\u2019ve\nworked with in the North, they\u2019ve been there and for Sammy to hear about their\nexperiences, it\u2019s had a strong influence on him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCollege will give him a great pathway for his development beyond competing in Tassie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Whitehead, the coming months will be spent focusing on\npreparing and competing as he counts down the days ahead of his departure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll focuses on playing every match-sanctioned event, from\nlocal pennants and leagues to UTR tournaments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll also try to do some coaching and train a fair bit so that I\u2019m ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tasmanian National Academy player Sam Whitehead will head to the United States in August 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6260,"featured_media":9551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[244,73,200,102],"class_list":["post-9547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-james-bolzonello","tag-news","tag-sam-whitehead","tag-us-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}