Coach Newman,

I hope that both you and the rest of the ATA community are doing well. I am emailing you just to give a brief update on how my third semester at St. Edward’s University has gone thus far.

It has been a busy semester, to say the least. I have been taking 18 credit hours but it has been very manageable; I have still hung on to the 4.0. In fact, I’m upset that I still have a 4.0. As busy as I have been the past year, I am growing frustrated and concerned that I am wasting my time as a student-athlete if I do not allow myself to fail. I have become more committed to growing as a person, which I think is only possible if I challenge myself to fall beyond what I am capable of. With that being said, I have decided to attempt to double major in Theology and English and I have picked up a German minor as well. In hopes of completing this, I am planning to study abroad in German this coming summer.

As far as tennis is concerned, I have also seen some improvement. My time at ATA this summer helped me improve a lot. To speak in tennis language, I think my UTR went up at least half a point in the three tournaments that I played. Unfortunately, I had two absolutely heartbreaking losses in Regionals—I worked extremely hard to prepare myself to win that tournament and I ended up losing close matches in the quarterfinals of both singles and doubles. It served as a reminder for me that it is all about the process and not the result; as a player, I prepared the best I could and even did the best job controlling the things that I could control at regionals itself, it just wasn’t enough. It was out of my control. I think I am currently ranked in singles and no. 3 in doubles in the region.

Outside of tennis and school, I have gotten involved in the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), and am one of the two representatives of the tennis team. While I first joined for the intent of having it on my résumé, I am now considering getting more involved in it and trying to make a difference in how the teams at St. Edward’s University interact with each other and how we can impact our community.

As I write, I am in Washington D.C. at the National Student-Athlete Leadership Forum. Out of all three divisions, there are about 460,000 student-athletes in NCAA competition, and only 300 get invited. I am the only athlete from St. Edward’s to attend this year (and I believe that there is only one other baseball player who came from my conference). I have gotten to meet some of the best leaders from the biggest conferences like PAC 12 and Big Ten, as well as many of the leaders from lesser known schools in the country. Let me just say—being a good leader has absolutely nothing to do with your athletic ability. There is nothing that differentiates these students in any way.

I am here until Sunday evening, but if there is anything I have learned thus far it’s that good leaders do NOT have to be good at everything. They do, however, need to be great at doing what they do well. Each of the students I have met this weekend has values that are different than mine and they are proficient in different areas; biologically, their minds work differently and their personalities give them different strengths. However, that is unimportant because they are all exceptional leaders in their own ways. Each and every one of them maximizes what they are good at, and it’s never about them—it’s always about their team and their community. I’m sure I’ll be taught many more lessons over the next few days and I hope to bring them back to my team and the other teams at St. Eds in some way or another.

Regards

Chase Bartlett