UM tennis player Brienne Minor made school, NCAA history
Searched, didn't see this anywhere else.
Brienne Minor won the NCAA womens single title last month playing for the Maize n Blue. Already damn impressive work.
But this one's special--she's the very first Wolverine to win a women's NCAA tennis singles title.
But wait, there's even more:
The 19-year-old is the first African American woman to win the NCAA singles championship. She is the first black player to win the singles title for either men or women since Arthur Ashe in 1965.
The whole piece is a nice glimpse of the kind of student (and family) we love to have in our Michigan family. Hats off to you, Brienne.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tennis/i-didnt-even-realize-it-brienne-minor-on-her-history-making-tennis-title/2017/06/13/835dde8c-4b93-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html?utm_term=.4f333aa0bb76
[EDIT: I can't tell if the WashPo story is incorrect or just poorly worded: "Minor captured the NCAA singles title and became Michigan’s first national champion in the sport." First commenter pointed out we've had a few men's singles champs. Regardless, corrected my post.]
"She's the very first Wolverine (male or female) to win an NCAA tennis singles title."
Not to detract from Minor's accomplishments, but Michigan men have twice won NCAA tennis singles titles: Barry MacKay in 1957 and Mike Leach in 1982.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Men%27s_Tennis_Championship#Individu…
Great catch, thanks!
Can't tell if WashPo is wrong or I just misinterpreted their writing. Regardless it's been noted/fixed.
The original tweets and press releases coming from the SID's office called her "Michigan's first singles champion." This is ambiguous enough that we can give them the benefit of the doubt that they meant women's tennis only, but was obviously easy to be misinterpreted as well.
Here, for example, the SID calls her "the first Wolverine in school history to advance to the national championship match of the NCAA Singles Championship."
http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/w-tennis/recaps/052817aaa.html
The reference to "first Wolverine" and "school history" and leaving the word "women's" out of the press release absolutely leaves a huge opening for misinterpretation, and you almost can't fault the Washington Post writer for making that exact misinterpretation (although you can fault the editor for not fact-checking or clarifying that).
I took it as in the sport of WOMEN'S tennis rather than the sport of tennis.
But I don't mind being reminded of awesome things. Also, this has new info I hadn't seen before.
lol. What weird/indie piece is this from?
I'm fairly shocked no black man or woman had won the singles title in over 50 years. Wow.
It's statistical. Of course the Williams sisters (and a few others) exist, but tennis is historically a country-club sport that's very WASPy. Aptitude is beside the point.
Couldn't believe that myself.
Not a bad feather in the cap for Michigan either!
GO BLUE!!
Fantastic accomplishment; and hats off to Michigan for somehow being able to recruit Brienne over the established women's tennis powerhouse schools in the South and West Coast (Stanford and Florida have won 18 and 7 national championships, respectively, since 1982).
You need to up your search game:
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/bri-minor-w-tennis-national-champion
Do you really thing something this significant was not covered here?
Well, that just highlighted the fact she won. This post goes into some of the historical elements of the accomplishment. So no, it isn't redundant.
but it disappeared so quickly that lots of people missed it. Bravo for the new post which adds the newer info, and more readers have found it here.
You've got the reading comprehension of a Buckeye and the churlishness of a Spartan.
It's certainly no minor achievement by Minor to make history as a minor and minority. What's she minoring in?
It's really awesome she won, and the cultural implications add another great layer.
Hail to the Victors!
Thanks for sharing this. Great story.