Grose nabs another award before leaving Cowley

Larry Grose, the long-time men’s tennis coach who recently announced his retirement, can add one more award to his long list of accomplishments at the school as his 2005 Tiger tennis team was named the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Academic Team of the Year.

Grose led the Tigers to back-to-back National Academic Team of the Year awards in 2003 and 2004. His squads also captured the KJCCC Academic Team of the Year award several times during his 18 years as coach of the Tigers.

The 2005 squad finished with a grade-point average of 3.17 despite having just one sophomore on its roster. “This team was basically all new players, but the message was loud and clear that they needed to do well in the classroom as well as on the tennis court,” Grose said. “Not very many of these kids are going to make it to the pros, but they are all going to have to find a job someday.

Tennis is fun and enjoyable, but what they are really here for is to get their degree and be academically strong enough to get a job.” Grose believes bringing in the right kind of student-athlete has been the key to the team’s success in the classroom.

Members of this year’s team, which finished 10th at the national tournament in Plano, Texas, were Tin Hinst, Julian Rios, Brent Mettling, Nathan Mai, Kevin Harper, Naman Galvan, Marijn Bal, and Ilyar Khammadov.