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Tennis—Love Generous gift brings courts back to campus


ence (MAC) women’s tennis tournament, hosted by Eastern Michigan, in 2003. Though the Eagles performed well—fin- ishing second to top-seeded Marshall—she became uneasy as she watched the matches at Chippewa Country Club in Ypsilanti.


C 12 Eastern | SPRING 2013


laudia Wasik attended the Mid-American Confer-


“I just felt that couldn’t


go on,” Wasik says. “It was a travesty that Eastern Michigan didn’t have any tennis courts on campus.” So Wasik contributed a leadership gift that, with Lucy Parker’s supporting gift, went toward building new tennis courts on Eastern Michigan’s campus. The six courts, called


the Claudia Wasik Tennis Complex, sit north of the EMU Indoor Practice Facility and opened in fall 2012. “I just felt this was something


I had to do,” Wasik says. Wasik (BS62, MS66) and Parker (BS59, MS66), both Eastern Michigan graduates and former tennis coaches at the school, fondly remember the days when courts existed on campus. “People, between classes,


after classes, they would stop, watch matches, go on,” says Wasik, an E-Club Hall of Famer and two-time MAC Coach of


the Year. “It just generated an awful lot of enthusiasm when you had some student body cheering for you. It really gave the players a lift.” If all goes according to plan,


that environment will return with the new courts and their spectator seating. “I was very grateful,” East-


ern Michigan women’s tennis coach Ryan Ray says. “Claudia and Lucy, they’re the pioneers of the program.” Not only are Wasik and


Parker proud to help the varsity tennis team, they hope the new


Photographs by Randall Mascharka


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