Interview With A Bracket Challenge Winner: Jonny Baker (and friend)

Welcome, boys and girls, to the second installment of our Bracket Challenge Winner Interviews. Today you’re in for a real treat, as our winner has asked for (and has been graciously granted) a favor. Your champion, Jonny Baker, being the consummate teammate that he is, made a special request to bring one of his teammates into the interview. So today, instead of just Jonny, you will also hear from Ben Shapiro, a regular Blog presence and frequent tweeter. Both gentlemen play for Rochester, and they, much like myself and D3AS, go way back. As is our way, we have mixed some fun questions in with the truly important stuff (and just a few pics).

Let’s start off by having you two gents introduce each other. First, Ben would you take a stab at introducing our bracket challenge winner?

Ben: Wow, where to start!  Jonny and I grew up in the same town, so I’ve known him for quite a

while at this point, and I think anyone that’s ever met him would agree when I say that he is quite the character.  The guy is very outgoing and loves talking to people about whatever is on his mind.  He’s also very opinionated and never shies away from getting into a spirited discussion, regardless of the topic.  Jonny definitely has no problem ruffling some feathers (mine, in particular) with some of his antics, but there’s no question that at his core he’s a good dude and we are glad to have him around with us on the team.

Ok Jonny, your turn. Why don’t you introduce the world to the teammate/Blog Stalker you brought along with you?

Jonny: On the right side of the rink, standing at 6’2, we have the English Major, Ben Shapiro.

According to Ben’s father, Michael, Ben and I played a match in the 12’s and I hooked him. The event is far from my memory, however.

We both attended Scarsdale High School, though I left junior year to go to a boarding school. Our high school tennis team was pretty stacked with D3 heavyweights: Preston Poon, Justin Reindel, Ben Fife and Andreas Langrebe. (Also Austin Kaplan, who plays for Penn.) While I don’t remember what I played that year, it was definitely the only time in my career I’ve ever played ahead of Ben. I’ve lost to Ben two straight years in challenge matches, 10-8 in the super tiebreak, forever putting me behind him in the lineup.

Ben is an ardent healthy eater and I feel really guilty when I eat bad foods around him. Our coach constantly asks about his food eating habits, which he loves to share. He wears a brace for every bone in his body and the team calls him gramps.

Well that’s just adorable, Jonny. Let’s get back to your winning bracket. How did you choose your winning bracket/bracket name of “Not Brian Bowman”? 

Jonny: I picked the final four and randomly chose before that. I knew that the Woods-guy and the Butts-guy were good, so those were easy picks. I also read some comment that Buxbaum was good,

so I put him in there as well. I also watched Krimbill double bagel Shapiro, so I knew he was good. I really don’t know much about D3 tennis so I’m kind of lucky to have created such a bracket.

I saw our assistant coach enter the bracket. I always love to troll him, so I felt like this was the perfect opportunity. Shout outs to Coach Bowman as I know he’s reading this.

This was his text to me after I won the bracket challenge:

Ok Mr. Shapiro, your turn. What happened to your bracket? 

Ben: I think I came into this bracket a bit cocky after my strong showing in the Ojai challenge,

finishing second to D3West.  Even though I got the winner correct with Warren Wood (not exactly a bold pick), I was kind of doomed from the start with two of my semifinalists losing in the first round.  Even though I follow D3Tennis pretty closely, with all 32 players being great competitors, it’s more about luck than D3Tennis knowledge.  I don’t want to take any credit away from Jonny though, gotta give it up to him for coming up with the goods.  He told me he just kind of picked randomly, which turned out to be key.  Next year I’ll probably try the Baker method of not overthinking things.

In our last interview, Matt DeMichiel gave us an impassioned speech about the UAA. Without ranting, how do you both like playing in a conference where you fly to your conference championship? 

Ben: Playing in the UAA has it’s pros and cons, but overall I am happy to be a part of it.  It’s a bit unique in that we don’t have to play every team in the regular season due to the travel that would require, but that makes the UAA tournament even more exciting, as we get to face teams that we would otherwise probably not get to play.  You could say that being in a conference so loaded with talent is not ideal for us, as we are pretty far off from the top, but I think of it as a great opportunity to compete against some of the top teams.  Our matches against UAA teams are usually our toughest, but they’re also the ones I enjoy the most.  And as Matt DeMichiel said, the banquet down in Florida never disappoints.

Jonny: It’s so much fun because all the UAA teams are staying in the same hotel and the intensity/competition level is off the hook. I become slightly upset when the graduating seniors say they’re going to work for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, while I’m still trying to figure out when the dining hall closes on Mondays.

Not a lot of people know this but the biggest rivalry in college sports is actually between NYU and Rochester in tennis. Thousands of fans come out to watch this match. Sometimes ESPN puts it up on ESPN 6 but for some reason I can never find the channel.

However, I really want to get out of eighth place…

Ben: The lowlight for me might have been the evening after a tough loss to a solid TCNJ team, as we had a six hour bus ride on a Sunday night to stew over the loss, arriving back in Rochester on Monday morning at 2:30am. I remember most people had lots of work to do on that ride, and after a long, disappointing day, the last thing anyone wanted to do was write a

paper or study for a test in the middle of the night on a bus. There was nothing particularly uncommon about all of it, and I’m sure most teams have had similar experiences, but for all the great parts about being a D3 tennis player, times like this really serve as a reality check and remind you that there’s a lot more that goes into playing college tennis than just forehands and backhands. Also, everything was made worse by the fact that the Chipotle we stopped at was out of guac.

“Out of guac”…devastating. Jonny tell us a little something about you that we might not have guessed?

Jonny: When I was 15, I was at a college tennis showcase down in Florida and in the middle of a tough match I threw my racquet over the fence and to my luck, no one noticed except the Stevens Coach Gachko, who then proceeded to give me a game penalty. I am probably the only person to have received a game penalty at a College tennis showcase to this day.

That’s outstanding. I would love to get Coach Gachko’s take on that. Let’s turn our attention back to tennis. What can we expect from the Yellow Jackets in 2016?

Ben: With another year of experience under our belts, I think next year we’ll have a good chance to turn some of our 5-4 and 6-3 losses into wins.  This year, Ian Baranowski moved up from playing 5 and 6 his first two seasons to the top of lineup, mainly by just bringing it in practice every day, doing everything he could to get the most out of his time on court.  I believe that hard work like this is contagious, and there are a lot of things that if we can do a little better next year, I am confident we’ll be able to turn around some of our results.

Jonny: You can expect that we will show up to the UAA tournament. Seriously though, we are so up and down I can’t even predict it myself. We have a good recruit coming in from China, which should make things interesting.

As is custom, we like to have our current bracket champion take a guess at predicting next year’s Final Four as well. Considering the picking method, this could be interesting…

Jonny: I really don’t know enough as to whose graduating, that Chicago guy is good.

Fair enough, I guess. How about you, Benjamin? 

Ben: I might as well just pick names out of a hat.  I’d love to say Jonny, me, and two other Rochester players to be determined, but for now I’ll go with semifinalists of Butts, Buxbaum, Alla, and just to mix it up, Hull.  For the final, I’ll take Butts over Shek in a senior vs senior battle.

The usual final question here. Give us your thoughts on The Blog. We’re big people (some bigger than others), we can take it.

Jonny: I know this may sound ridiculous; I actually don’t read the blog that often. However, I really think you guys do a really good job with it. You could tell us who you are, as the world wants to know. Halpern knows who you are but won’t tell me (D3NE NOTE: I highly doubt that). One day I will get it out of him. I think maybe a little bit more coverage for the lower

ranked teams might be better as those match ups are always interesting. I always get shafted in your previews of the Rochester team, though I don’t mind. (D3NE NOTE: It’s true, either D3AS or D3Regional has actually mentioned all the spots in the lineup, save for Jonny, in a preview. Example A)

I really like what you guys do and truly appreciate it.

Ben: Overall I love the blog and appreciate the time you all put into it.  It’s a lot of fun to read pretty legitimate coverage about the sport we are competing in.  I’m a particularly big fan of the comment section.  I’ve learned some interesting stuff in there, and some of the things people say, especially through the veil of internet anonymity, are pretty amusing.  All five men’s bloggers really bring their own strengths to the table, and I think everyone compliments each other well.  I like D3Central for his willingness to give the smaller schools a shoutout (and his trivia questions during nationals), D3West for his writing style (the senior farewell article from last week was great), D3ASouth for his lively twitter presence during the season, D3Regional for the perpetual upbeat tone he brings to his articles, and you, D3Northeast, for the interviews and bracket challenges.  I’ll miss the blog over the summer, but I’m already looking forward to next season!

Congrats again to Jonny, and our thanks to both Jackets for taking the time to answer a few questions. If you ever think of somebody who might like to be interviewed for The Blog, feel free to send me an email at D3Northeast@gmail.com. We will have a few more region specific season recaps coming out this week. Stay tuned!