SPECIAL REPORT : Influx of Foreigners in JC Tennis Is Debated

Paul Xanthos, the septuagenarian coach of the Pierce College tennis team, struggled to remember the player’s first name.

Then it clicked.

“Jorge, that’s it,� he exclaimed. “Jorge Herrera. That was in 1966. He was from Lima, Peru. He did very well. We won a conference championship with him.�

The arrival of Herrera to the Woodland Hills campus and his role on the school’s tennis team was hardly commonplace in those days. Few foreign or out-of-state athletes ventured to California junior colleges to play sports, and not many gave it a second thought when they did.

Herrera led the Brahmas to their second consecutive Western State Conference championship and helped sustain the team’s unbeaten conference streak that lasted until 1968, a span of 50 matches. He also helped set the foundation that established Xanthos, who directed the Pierce program from 1965 until his retirement last week, as one of the leading junior college tennis coaches in the country.

But what seemed innocuous then has become a volatile issue today. Increasing numbers of junior college tennis coaches and administrators are questioning the continuous influx of foreign tennis players in schools throughout the United States, particularly California.

They ask how some of those players repeatedly find their way to colleges in California, where recruiting out-of-district athletes is illegal--with some exceptions. Furthermore, they wonder how those players can afford the stiff out-of-state tuition and living expenses. Because of those concerns, critics fear that foreign athletes have taken over sports such as tennis at the community college level.

Those apprehensions have been fueled by the latest trends.

This season, 18 of the 20 top-rated men’s junior college players in the United States--and 39 of the top 50--hail from other countries. The list includes 11 Swedes and three players each from Canada, Mexico and Brazil. In California, rankings released in April showed that 12 foreign players were among the 15 top-rated men, including No. 4 Al Martinez from Pierce.

Prompted by those numbers, the California Community College Commission on Athletics conducted a study on the impact foreign athletes have had on junior college sports in the state.

Figures from the recently released report based on a questionnaire sent to the commissioners of the 12 athletic conferences in the state show that only 82 (53 men and 29 women) of the 1,143 tennis players who played this season are from foreign countries. But critics point not to the quantity but the quality.

California junior colleges aren’t drawing run-of-the-mill foreign players. Instead, talented and ambitious players seek out the schools for their facilities, top-notch coaching and favorable weather, all fostering a year-round training program.

Martinez, who was born in Chile, is the latest in a long line of foreign tennis players who followed Herrera to Pierce. Since the mid-1970s, Xanthos said, he has had numerous foreign players on his perennially powerful teams and the recently concluded season was no different.

In addition to Martinez, Vanja Nadali from Croatia and Germans Philip Leonhardt and Hartmut Hesse were on the squad that swept through the WSC with a 12-0 record before losing to Cerritos, 5-4, in a Southern California regional semifinal earlier this month. Pierce finished 18-1.

Of those players, Xanthos said, only Leonhardt paid out-of-state tuition because he has not established residency. Hesse quit the team in midseason because of differences with Xanthos.

The others, although fairly new to the United States, played high school tennis in the Southland. Martinez, for example, attended Calabasas, and Nadali attended Burbank Burroughs.

But, Xanthos said, regardless of their birthplaces and Pierce’s success in attracting foreign players, he never violated state recruiting regulations.

“Some schools have a way of getting around (recruiting guidelines) but we are strictly above-board,� said Xanthos, 72. “I don’t have to recruit. I’m the only game in town. I’m fortunate being in the Valley where there are no other schools that play tennis. The closest things to us are Glendale, Santa Monica, Ventura and Pasadena.

“The players I get are either referred to me or are already enrolled at Pierce.

“I don’t go looking for players. What am I going to offer them? I can’t subsidize them. . . . I say, ‘Hey, in all those years I’ve been coaching, I pride myself in doing everything by the book.’ If I had cheated, my players would have known and I would have known, so it would have been a hollow victory.�

Leonhardt, for example, said he first heard of Pierce from his German club coach, not surprising since Xanthos has traveled extensively in Europe and has established many contacts.

After arriving in Los Angeles in January, Leonhardt said, he drove to Woodland Hills and introduced himself to Xanthos on the Pierce courts.

State junior college athletic commissioner Walt Rilliet said that neither Xanthos nor any other tennis coaches have been cited for recruiting violations during his 12-year tenure. Rilliet also acknowledged that successful programs are like magnets and don’t really need to recruit.

In addition, the state’s first-contact rule, which demands that athletes outside a school’s district must initiate contact with coaches rather than the other way around, is often misunderstood and virtually impossible to enforce.

The case of former Pierce player Jonas Wallgard underscores the problem.

Wallgard, who also played at USC and is now the assistant men’s coach at Drake, sent a videotape from Sweden of himself playing tennis to family friends in Westlake Village. The tape found its way to Xanthos, who then sent Wallgard a recruiting letter.

The key to determining whether that scenario comprised a rules violation is not the videotape itself, but how it was delivered. According to Rilliet, the player himself must deliver or mail the tape directly to the coach to establish that first contact was made by the player.

Xanthos said he can’t remember how he received the tape, but Wallgard said a third party contacted by his friends delivered it to Xanthos. Had the friends sent the tape back to Sweden and told Wallgard to mail it to the coach, Wallgard would have been establishing first contact and no violation would have occurred when Xanthos followed with a recruiting letter.

That procedural difference caused critics to conclude that the first-contact rule is ineffective. Besides, a handful of California conferences that include colleges with small enrollments are allowed to recruit in other specified areas regardless of the first-contact rule. Antelope Valley in the Foothill Conference is an example.

College of the Desert, a Foothill Conference member in Palm Desert, had several outstanding foreign tennis players who lifted the team to its second consecutive state championship. The Roadrunners (25-0), under Coach Guy Fritz, were led by Manuel Ramirez of Mexico, the state’s No. 1 player; Freddie Hanser of Austria, Jason Helms of New Zealand and Sergio Molina of Mexico.

“It’s not like I recruit these guys,� said Fritz, a teaching professional and a walk-on coach. “They come to Palm Springs and they get a chance to go to school, play in great facilities and play with some of the touring pros who live here. It’s a great deal for them.�

Usually, the Mexican players who wind up at College of the Desert are from Mexicali, a city on the U.S.-Mexico border about 80 miles from Palm Desert. To Fritz, they are practically local guys.

“We have two players from Mexico, but I don’t consider them foreigners. . . . Mexicali is kind of a hotbed for tennis and there’s nothing there for the players. There’s no junior college in Mexicali. . . . It’s word of mouth or my connections. I met the Austrian kid here in Southern California. He was playing in tournaments one summer.�

Some coaches have trouble accepting that explanation. The preponderance of foreign players at some schools raises questions about competitive balance and ethical standards.

“When some programs have a lot of foreign athletes, some of the other coaches are beginning to wonder, ‘Wait a minute. How did they all happen to land in your district?’ � said Janice Maran, women’s tennis coach at Orange Coast College. “If you get too many athletes from outside of your area it’s doing a disservice to the players from within your district. Nobody respects the (coach) who is winning by doing (illegal) things most of us are not.�

Rilliet said that his office doesn’t have the manpower to police every sports program in the state. He said violators are caught only when someone blows the whistle.

Glendale College, whose recruiting district contains only Hoover, Glendale and Crescenta Valley high schools, fielded a men’s team this season comprised entirely of local players. And although Coach Bob Donaghy said he finds it more difficult to produce a winner without foreign players, he can live without them.

“That doesn’t bother me very much because I don’t believe in recruiting,� said Donaghy, in his 16th season at Glendale. “I believe more in player development. I have nothing against foreign players, but it does get a little tough to compete.�

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Outside California, recruiting is legal, encouraged and, some coaches say, necessary to stay competitive. In fact, community colleges in Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Alabama and elsewhere even hand out athletic scholarships.

But when it comes to pulling tennis players into their programs, those schools must observe the rule set last year by the National Junior College Athletic Assn. that allows teams to give no more than three of their 12 yearly athletic scholarships to foreign athletes. Although the rule limits the amount of money a school can grant, there are no restrictions on the number of foreign athletes on a team.

The NCAA, by contrast, has no such regulation, allowing its members to award as many scholarships to foreign athletes as a school desires.

Among those who have benefited from the opportunity to attract foreign players is Carmack Berryman, coach at McLennan Junior College in Waco, Tex. The Highlanders, ranked No. 4 in the country, had five foreign players on their eight-man roster. But despite all its success and national prominence, the school is dropping men’s tennis next season to achieve gender equity under NCAA rules.

“We do recruit, no question about it,� said Berryman, in his 17th season with the Highlanders. “We can, in some cases, give scholarships to foreign athletes, which we do. . . . We can give them tuition and book loans (students must return them in good condition) and some of them get the rent in an apartment. The kids pay for their own meals, although some (Texas) schools pay for those also.

“You look at any team in any (college) division and there are more and more international players. The last couple of years, we just haven’t been able to get the quality American players that we used to get.�

Coaches in California cite the economic hardships their out-of-state players supposedly endure in trying to pay tuition. Those fees vary by district but generally run about $110 per unit compared to the $10 per unit paid by California residents.

On the surface, attracting out-of-state athletes might seem an ingenious way for colleges to fill their enrollment coffers. But Brent Carder, Antelope Valley College athletic director and football coach, says financial gain is mostly negated by the fact that no out-of-district students are counted as part of a school’s ADA (average daily attendance), a measuring stick used by the state to dispense funds to community colleges.

“It (tuition) helps but it’s usually very minimal,� Carder said. “It doesn’t justify in itself going out and recruiting.�

The money for out-of-state tuition cannot be paid by a team’s booster club or representative. Yet Rilliet and others say there are ways around that regulation, too.

A typical scenario, Rilliet said, would have the athletes establishing residency after one year and then ridding themselves of the high tuition fees while awaiting scholarship offers from four-year schools. The tuition fees thus become merely a small obstacle, he added, and foreign and out-of-state athletes keep heading west.

Fritz, the College of the Desert coach, said Ramirez, a sophomore being recruited by USC, UC Irvine, Nevada Las Vegas and San Diego State, among others, paid $3,000 in tuition the last school year. The coach said Ramirez, who shares a two-bedroom, $600-a-month apartment near campus with the other three foreign players on the team and works part-time maintaining the school’s tennis courts, apparently didn’t pay for the tuition single-handedly.

“I think the Baja Tennis Federation helped him a little bit,� Fritz said. “But he struggles.�

The manner in which a player receives money to pay junior college fees is inconsequential, unless it comes from someone officially connected to the school, including booster club members. Benny Crigger, Long Beach City College men’s tennis coach, said many players have personal connections or benefactors willing to lend a hand.

“Let’s say I know somebody who is a real tennis nut and has a big house,� Crigger said. “He or she can let the kid stay at his or her house. A lot of these foreign kids know somebody.�

Berryman, the Texas junior college coach, said that despite a recruiting ban in California he has lost foreign players to California colleges. He asserts that even though California schools are not allowed to offer inducements, that doesn’t stop members of the community from supplying blandishments.

“In the past, I was recruiting foreign players who got more (concessions) by going to California than I could give them,� he said. “Not from the schools, but from people in the community.�

Whether or not they arrive through orchestration, the presence of foreign players in California has caused an uproar, and the study made by the state exemplifies widespread concern. Some have called for quotas to promote a balance between foreign and local athletes, but Rilliet, the California athletic commissioner, says that approach would be ineffective and indefensible in court against charges of discrimination.

“I don’t think quotas would be workable because of the community colleges’ open-door concept,� Rilliet said. “We can’t come up with rules that a judge might think are capricious. . . . What we really need to do is almost to have two classes of tennis competition, one for international students and one for U.S.-born players. It’s a poor solution, but it’s an alternative.�

Other states also are looking for a balance. The NJCAA, to some degree, already has addressed the situation by imposing limitations on the number of scholarships community colleges can give to foreign athletes. California is not a member of the NJCAA.

“The basic philosophy is to serve your community and your area, and some of the membership thought that there were too many foreign athletes and that it was not in line with the philosophy of community colleges,� said Sarah Thompson, assistant to NJCAA executive director George E. Killian.

Said Crigger, the Long Beach tennis coach: “I think we should have restraints on the numbers. This is American tennis and I think it should be played predominantly by Americans. . . . I think that less than 50% of your squad should be foreign players.�

Until the controversy is resolved, however, more and more coaches undoubtedly will take the same stance as Xanthos--at least outwardly.

“I feel that I would rather work with the players from our district,� he said. “I’d rather serve the students from my community first. But in order to be competitive, we can’t turn (foreign) players away. They have as much right to be here as anybody else.�

SPECIAL REPORT

FRIDAY: Foreign Flavor

The increasing influx of foreign athletes at California junior colleges is a new phenomenon that has stirred a statewide controversy and raised questions about the nature of community college sports. What place, if any, do foreign athletes have in a system supposedly geared for community schools?

SUNDAY: Athletes Speak Out

Californian runners and tennis players arrive at their local junior colleges right out of high school and find themselves competing against world-class athletes from around the globe. While some find motivation in the competition, others say the system is out of whack.