Service Academy Tennis

TennisRecruiting.net goes back to the high school graduating class of 2004. I grabbed the top 10 in each class from 2004-2007 and pasted them below. The class of 2004 has been out of college for six years. The class of 2005 has been out for five years.  Those players would have finished their five-years of guaranteed military employment if they'd chosen a service academy. Perhaps they would now be in the civilian work force. The classes of 2006 and 2007 would be serving in active duty.

Treat Huey makes a living playing doubles. Any other players on that list that have covered their expenses playing tennis?

Most of them probably went to college. Some won NCAA titles and a lot competed for conference and national titles. I'm not saying they all made a mistake not going to Navy, Army, or Air Force. But even for the highest rated recruits, playing tennis at a service academy while setting themselves up for the next five (and possible 20-40) years of their lives looks like a pretty good option relative to pursuing a career playing tennis.

If it's true that the top 10 should reasonably consider playing at a service academy, is it any less true of the rest of the top 50 or 100?

In the current environment where a) college tuitions are outrageously high and scholarship money for men in tennis is limited (the academies pay 100% of the cost of attendance for every student), b) prize money in the minor leagues of tennis is not sufficient to cover the costs of playing (service academy graduates have among -- and specifically Navy the -- highest average salaries five years after graduation), and c) the job prospects for college graduates are not great across the board (all academy graduates are guaranteed a minimum five years of full time employment in a field for which they are trained), I think EVERY male junior tennis player should take a look at what the service academies offer and see how that matches up to your life prospects outside of a military career. 

A military career, even one as brief as five years, isn't for everyone. But it is a great option for many of the top 100 players every year.  At the three NCAA DI academies, there are at most nine slots realistically available each year. Those slots should be very coveted by players inside the top 50 every year.

2004

1		Phillip Simmonds	VA
2		Daniel Yoo	FL
3		Brendan Evans	FL
4		Scott Oudsema	MI
5		Treat Huey	VA
6		Robert Cameron	TN
7		Yevgeny Supeko	MT
8		Gregory Ouellette	FL
9		Travis Helgeson	KS
10		Monte Tucker	AL

2005

1		Michael Venus	FL
2		Matt Bruch	IL
3		Clancy Shields	CO
4		Andrew Orban	NC
5		Sasha Ermakov	TX
6		Marek Czerwinski	MI
7		Bryan Koniecko	NY
8		Brett Helgeson	KS
9		Conor Pollock	TX
10		Kevin Fleck	NC

2006

1		Marcus Fugate	NY
2		Kallim Stewart	CA
3		Dylan Arnould	MA
3		Attila Bucko	FL
4		Holden Seguso	FL
5		Jamie Hunt	TX
6		Mike Gurman	CA
7		Nathaniel Schnugg	OR
8		Alexander Kharkevitch	TX
9		Christopher Racz	PA
10		Justin Kronauge	OH

2007

1		Danila Arsenov	FL
2		Kellen Damico	CO
3		Clint Bowles	FL
4		Jeff Dadamo	FL
5		Adam El Mihdawy	NY
6		Jason Jung	CA
7		Reid Carleton	FL
8		Jordan Rux	TX
9		Dennis Lajola	HI
10		Gonzalo Escobar	FL