May 4, 2004
EVANSTON, Ill. -- For the average collegiate student-athlete -- actually, the average American, collegiate student-athlete -- success in high school sports can lead to a career in Division I athletics.
For foreign athletes, however, their journey to the collegiate level is often times quite different. Most kids have to join clubs and/or find private instruction in order to play organized sports, since high school athletics usually do not exist.
As a result, the kids abroad who do make it to the United States end up being more determined and perhaps more gifted than kids domestically. Such is the case with Northwestern's Ruth Barnes (Cambridge, England) and Cristelle Grier (Epsom, England), members of the oft-successful women's tennis team. Their lives share many common factors--but then again, the two vary quite a bit.
Barnes grew up in Cambridge, where her mom is a nurse practitioner and her dad is a professor of physiology in natural sciences and medicine at the university. For Barnes, academics were a greater part of her life than sports were, although her parents never pressured her to focus solely on her studies.
Tennis entered her life when her older brother, Adrian, took it up as an after-school activity, and subsequently Barnes and her younger sister Alice became interested in the sport after they tagged along to so many of his matches.
"A lot of people from home do not understand the dedication to any sport other than soccer or rugby," says Barnes. "In fact, I sort of was considered 'dorky' for playing sports in general, which is not what athletes in America are considered (when they play)."
Grier's background is a bit different. Her father is the director of championships at Wimbledon, while her mom is an office manager at a disabled and elderly home. Because of the former, Grier grew up surrounded by tennis.
A natural athlete, Grier was gifted in all sports she played; for example, she was once the London champion in javelin. But in the end, she chose to further her career in tennis.
"I think I still would have chosen to play tennis even if I did not grow up with it," says Grier. "It is a fun sport to watch and play."
Interestingly enough, Barnes and Grier did not practice daily as most of their U.S. counterparts do. Barnes practiced with fellow players from her county once a week and other tennis players from her region once a month. Beyond that, she had some private coaching, but not to the extent that some American kids have.
Grier went through much of the same. She also practiced once a week with other county players, as well as with a private coach once every two to three weeks. Thus, the level at which the two Wildcats play says a lot considering how infrequently they were able to train.
While playing in a tournament in London, an assistant coach from Penn talked to Grier about playing in the States. Unfortunately, Penn is a nonscholarship school, but the assistant coach set her up with other teams, and eventually NU head coach Claire Pollard made Grier an offer.
As an aside, Pollard is from the same county as Grier -- Surrey -- and had some passing familiarity with her top singles player, but the coach did not recruit her until the recommendation from Penn.
Meanwhile, Barnes followed a different path to America. She joined a company called College Prospects of America that got her name out to U.S. coaches. The company eventually wrote a letter to Pollard, and the rest is history.
"My parents were thrilled that I chose Northwestern because of its outstanding academics," says Barnes. "Plus, with its commitment to athletics, I think I got the best of both worlds."
Both Grier and Barnes had to adjust to life here; only Grier had been to the United States before, and it was for a family vacation to Disney World.
Barnes recalls being very jet-lagged at first and intimidated by big-city life. In addition, she found other cultural differences (food, tipping, driving distances) took some getting used to. Fortunately, she found the people of Evanston "instantly approachable and incredibly friendly," and she had former NU basketball forward Michelle Zylstra as a roommate to help with her transition.
Grier, on the other hand, had Barnes to aid her freshman year. The younger of the two thought the atmosphere in the area to be extremely charged (vs. pessimistic at home), and the cars, buildings and food portions to be bigger than what she grew up with in Epsom.
As for conversing with Americans, Grier thought "it was actually harder for people to understand me than the other way around. For instance, words like 'trousers' [pants] or 'pavement' [sidewalk] were not part of regular American speech."
The two have since grown accustomed to life in the Chicago area. Barnes will remain in the United States for a few years, going to either NYU or Michigan for law school. Afterward, she would like to work for an American law firm in London.
Grier would like to continue playing tennis after college, but after that, she has not thought that far in advance (give her a break, she's just a sophomore!).
The two have definitely enjoyed their time at Northwestern, and for now, they have given the team a more diverse flavour.