Lehigh University Athletics
Smalley provides big leadership for Lehigh
4/27/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
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The Lehigh men’s tennis team is headed to the Patriot League tournament for the first time since 2001, largely thanks to the efforts of senior Randall Smalley. A co-captain and the Mountain Hawks top singles and doubles player has developed into one of the Patriot League’s top players, while helping lead his teammates to their first postseason experience.
“I really attribute a lot of this year’s success to leadership,” said 17th year head coach Dave Shook. “It all starts with Randall Smalley.”
Smalley has been a steady, successful performer for the Brown and White since coming to Lehigh, but he almost never made it. A native of
“I was all set to sign somewhere else,” explains Smalley, a finance major. “At the last minute, my sister suggested I take a look at Lehigh. I had a great visit, and saw that Lehigh had everything I wanted in a school.”
Smalley continues, “I really liked the idea of being a big fish in a small pond. After visiting Lehigh everything kind of just fell into place, and I knew that Lehigh was the best school for me.”
The decision to come east was also made easier by the fact that his three sisters attended, and played tennis at top notch institutions in the northeast. His oldest sister Courtney, who Smalley credits for getting him to come to Lehigh, played for four years at Dartmouth and went on to coach at Penn for several years. He also has an older sister Carrie who played briefly at Colgate, and a younger sister Rebecca who is a junior at Colgate, and a former member of the tennis team.
A two-time All-Patriot League selection on the court, Smalley plays a somewhat unorthodox two-handed style that was developed in his days as a baseball player.
“I played baseball my whole life – tennis was always secondary,” said Smalley. “My sisters played (tennis) and my mom played and after a while I got tired of being on losing baseball teams so I started playing more tennis.”
Smalley was an immediate contributor for the Mountain Hawks on the court. As a freshman he tied for the team lead with eight singles wins, playing mostly second and third flights. In his second season he cemented himself in the number two spot, where he earned his first All-League award and was named the team’s Athlete of the Year, honors he would capture again as a junior. Throughout that time, Smalley went through a lengthy maturation process.
“The first one or two years he was your typical unfocused, happy-go-lucky college student,” says Shook of his number one player. “Both athletically and academically I used to marvel about how he would get things done with minimal effort.”
Shook also noted the changes Smalley made throughout the years saying, “He made an incredible transition into one of the best players in the Patriot League, explains an outstanding student, and a tremendous leader with his work and work ethic.”
Entering the 2006 season, Smalley, in his second year as a co-captain ascended to the number one singles position, with the graduation of former Scholar-Athlete of the Year Ty Esler. Smalley and Esler served as co-captains in 2005, and this season Smalley shared the duties with junior Ryan Lloyd; but as the lone senior on the team, Smalley knew he would be depended upon to provide leadership to a program looking to turn the corner and get into the upper echelon of Patriot League tennis.
“Every year it had been the same teams qualifying for the tournament,” explains Smalley. “We had played some really close matches against all those teams, and we felt we were right there with them.”
On the court, Smalley is enjoying another fine season, with a 12-6 record playing number one singles, including a 4-2 mark in league matches. In doubles play, he and sophomore John Nespoli have held down the top spot, with an 11-7 record. His impact however, may be bigger off the court, where he’s helped mold the dynamic of this Mountain Hawk team, and has helped foster a winning attitude that had he and his teammates believing, that this could be the year Lehigh qualified for the Patriot League Tournament.
“A lot of players come and go, but few have left a legacy,” said Shook. “Randall has done a tremendous job motivating our kids and getting them focused on what we have been trying to accomplish.”
Smalley credits the improvement on the further development of solid team chemistry.
“Nothing against the guys from years past, but this year the team seems to have better chemistry,” Smalley explains. “We’ve had a lot more team dinners and stuff like that. I think the more we do things as a team, the closer we get and the better we play.”
Smalley continues, “Tennis has a reputation for being an individual sport, but with these dual matches, where every point means so much it really does become a team sport.”
Off the court, Smalley has been able to confide in Lehigh’s strong academic reputation when things were not going his way in tennis. A finance major with a 3.0 grade point average, Smalley has already lined up a job working in investment services in
“It’s a small start-up company called I-Deal,” said Smalley. “Kind of a spin-off company of four investors from four different firms, and we’ll be dealing with a lot of investment software.”
Smalley is looking forward to his transition to
“They are the ones told me that school was the most important thing,” Smalley said of his parents, Randall, who is CEO of a company called Cruise
All the hard work put in by Smalley and his Mountain Hawk teammates has paid off. With a record of 13-6 and a 3-3 in league matches, Lehigh qualified for its first Patriot League Tournament, since the four-team tournament was introduced in 2002. The Mountain Hawks are seeded fourth, and will face top seed and tournament host Army Saturday morning at
“In 17 years, I never coached a team that deserved it as much as this team,” said Shook of his 2006 squad. “They’re not the most talented team, but they’ve made up for it with their work and their work ethic.”
The Black Knights handed Lehigh a 4-3 loss earlier this season at West Point, and won a close match by the same score last season in
“Last year we lost a lot of close matches, but this year we have a lot more confidence,” contends Smalley. “This is one of the most wide open years in the Patriot League, and we’d like to go up to Army and stick around for a while.”
Lehigh and Army will play the first match on Saturday, which gets underway at 10:00 am from the
