Press

"Guru Guiding Area Athletes: Southie Co. Does Prep"

By Herald Staff

Boston Herald: 6/13/2005 Page: 27 Section: Finanace

For a flat $1,565, Tim Donovan will take your high school athlete from the agony of the college application essay to the thrill of the acceptance letter.

He will make calls to coaches in high places, give you the lowdown on the competition, goad your son or daughter to write a resume, tell you when to call the coaches and when not to call, and essentially navigate the entire college application process.

That may be a small price to pay for parents who have spent thousands of hours, if not dollars, on their child's athletic career and now face the grueling game of getting a student-athlete into college.

Donovan, 38, a one-time high school tennis star, nationally ranked player at Brown University and professional tennis player for four years, is the brains behind Donovan Sports Strategies in South Boston.

The small Hub firm helps tennis players, and now hockey, golf and lacrosse high school athletes boost their chances of getting into the college of their choice.

It's a niche that bypasses the bigtime athletes in blockbuster sports, says Donovan. "We don't aspire to go after the football, baseball and basketball players. There's a lot of stuff going on in those areas."

Now in its eighth year, the company has grown to $200,000 in revenue mainly through word of mouth. It has a client roster of 42 kids this year from 15 states.

The firm gets more mileage from an annual tennis tournament it puts on in June at the Yale Tennis Center in New Haven, Conn. Now in its fifth year, this year's tournament will showcase 48 girls and 40 boys at a two-day event June 23-24 that is expected to attract coaches from 80 colleges.

The youngest of 11 kids, Donovan learned to play tennis on the concrete courts at the public park near his Pittsburgh neighborhood. Come winter, he buddied up to the tennis pro at an indoor club, working odd jobs in exchange for lessons.

Resourceful, yes, but it was "almost luck," says Donovan, that he ended up at Brown University, where he was a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year and ranked sixth in the NCAA.

"There wasn't a whole lot of help for families back then," says Donovan.

Nor were busy families like Donovan's inclined to make it their life's work to get their kids into college.

Flash forward 20 years and not only is there an army of consultants for the college bound, but a ready supply of parents looking for any edge to get their kids into their college of choice.

For the $1565 fee, Donovan and a handful of consultants handle the entire college application process, from assessing a kid's level of play to behind-the-scenes intelligence gathering, usinga wide network of college coaches.

A lot of the counseling work comes in convincing parents that Division I schools are not the only game in town. Donovan's clients come with a broad range of athletic and academic prowess. The typical profile: SAT scores of about 1200 and a grade point average of 3.0.

";Coaches get so many letters from students. It's very easy for somebody to fall through the cracks if they are not a hotshot recruit," Donovan said. "We make sure our clients are taking the steps they need to be recruited."

A critical element is preparing kids to take the steps themselves, from making contact with college coaches to developing the right questions to ask when they go on the all-important college visits.

"We're not sitting down and writing the letters or their profiles, but we review all that," he said. "We have samples for them to use."

For example, Donovan will remind students to remember to mention the extra conditioning they did four times a week, or the month they spent at a training academy in Florida.

Parent Nancy Romita, a college dance instructor at Towson University in Maryland, knows her way around the college admission process, often dispensing advice to high school dancers. Still, when it came to guiding her daughter Krista, a tennis player ranked 25th in the mid-Atlantic region and 400th nationally, through the gauntlet of the application process, "there were big empty gaps."

The family hired Donovan, who put Krista on a regimen that winnowed a list of 20 schools and culminated with an acceptance letter from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

"I didn't have to nag," said Romita. "That was worth the price of admission."

Scott Robbin, from Providence, was one of Donovan's first clients. A top level national player at 16, Robbin is now the captain of the Columbia University men's tennis team. An A- student, Robbin didn't have the SATs that would get him instant access to the top Ivy League school. But he did have plenty of coaches chasing him.

"It was overwhelming," Robbin said.

He said Donovan's help, including off the court, made all the difference. Donovan's relationships with college coaches are his greatest asset, Robbin said.

"He knows exactly what they want, and who can deliver," Robbin said.

"Students Well Served at Tennis Showcase"

By Susan Bickelhaupt, Globe Staff

Boston Globe: 06/26/2005 Page: C3 Section: Sports

NEW HAVEN - About 90 high school tennis players were swarming around the Yale Tennis Center for two days last week. Some munched on pizza as they killed time between matches; some gathered to read the pairings and results posted outside the brick buildings at the athletic complex; but most were on the 22 courts, showing off their skills for the 70 college coaches sitting in the bleachers.

Sure, the 48 girls and 40 boys swatting the balls are at the top of their game in high school, but the Tennis Strategies College Prospects Showcase now in its fifth year is another way for them to get the attention of college coaches.

Otherwise, most contact is limited to e-mails or videotapes that the kids send. Some coaches look at the top players in tournaments, too.

But, as Tim Donovan said, only three players from New England are sent to the junior national championships in Kalamazoo, Mich., every year, so that leaves a lot of unseen talent.

Donovan, who founded Donovan Strategies eight years ago to help high school students navigate the college recruiting waters, knows firsthand how daunting the process can be. Donovan, who went to Brown and then played professional tennis for four years, acknowledges that he was in a good position, being a ranked junior national player and having the benefit of older siblings advising him. But that was 20 years ago, and Donovan said that using tennis to get into college is even more competitive.

Donovan started the Showcase as a way to have coaches get another look at high school players. It's not a camp or a clinic, but a purely competitive two days in which the kids all going into their senior year of high school play singles and doubles matches.

The Showcase started at MIT, then was at Harvard for a year, and is now at Yale, which has plenty of court space. Donovan also felt that moving the location a bit south made it more accessible to players from outside New England.

While the Showcase predominantly features New England players, students from around the country attend, and this year players from Japan, China, and South Africa attended.

The 70 coaches representing 90 college tennis programs men's and women's come from Ivy league schools and all three NCAA divisions.

"This helps players find schools appropriate to their level of play, and gives them an opportunity to be seen by coaches," Donovan said. "There are a lot of good players out there that coaches don't get to see."

Before the Showcase, Donovan sends out packets to coaches that include the players' photographs, their GPAs, their SAT results, and their ranking information. So the coaches have a pretty good idea about whom they were zeroing in on.

"If somebody catches a coach's eye, that's great, but they're pretty focused on certain ones," Donovan said.

Wellesley coach Christine Franek said it gave her a chance to see players of all different levels.

"Sometimes at the nationals, you just see really elite players," she said. "Here, you may see more kids who are really interested in a Division 3 program. Certainly we have some idea who we want to look at, and some have contacted us. Also, often in high school, they only play singles, so it's good to see them play doubles."

James Neeley, who will be a senior at Thayer Academy, won both his matches Thursday morning.

"I was nervous at first," he said. "But you can see how you match up against the best players, so even if you don't win, you can look good."

Mike Quitko, the coach at Quinnipiac, said the Showcase gave them a chance to see more than just the tennis skills of the players. Since virtually all of them have top-level serves and backhands, Quitko said he was looking beyond that.

"I've been writing all day, and have worn out two pads," he said of his extensive note-taking. "I look at how they act, what they do without he ball. Like when the match gets tough, do they get tougher or do they fold? Those are things you want to know. If that whole team's going to rely on that player, they have to be strong."