Lessons from Multi-Sport Experience Guide Person in Leading New Team

By Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com

August 1, 2024

PARCHMENT — When Amanda Person was in sixth grade, her family hosted an international student from Japan.

Made In Michigan and Michigan Army National Guard logosUntil then, soccer was the main sport for her family – but that soon changed.

“Naoki wanted to play tennis,” Person said. “He started playing and then my sister (Marissa) started playing, and then I started playing.”

That passion for both sports only increased during her four years at Parchment High School.

“Soccer was really fun, but when I look back on my high school career, tennis was the most prominent thing I remember,” the 2008 grad said. “I think it’s because I played year-round: our regular tennis season and then our summer tennis program and winter tennis program.”

Although it has been 16 years since her glory days at Parchment ended, Person has no trouble recalling the best parts of her Panthers sports career.

In fact, coming up with memories from those days is no problem — she has a folder full of photos called “I Miss Team Sports” on her Facebook page.

Playing intramural soccer at Michigan State University, she graduated with a degree in social work, then stayed in the Big Ten. She is the campus tours and ambassador coordinator at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., where she supervises 80 to 100 student tour guides who provide information for families considering the school.

Her ties to the Spartans sometime makes for interesting conversations with her colleagues.

“They give me a hard time,” she said with a quick laugh. “I say Michigan State will always be my No. 1. That’s my alma mater I spent four years of time, tears and money at Michigan State. But I really love Purdue, so I’ll root for the Boilermakers second.”

She is also working on her master’s degree in higher education at Purdue.

Her office in the welcome center shares space with the alumni association, leading to an unforgettable experience.

During a lunch break, she went home to let out her dog, Tessa. When she returned, a trophy and a bucket were sitting on her desk.

A pair of beloved trophies sit temporarily on Person’s desk at Purdue.Confused, she asked what they were doing there.

“The tour guides I was working with said (during an event) they had to put them somewhere before putting them out (to the public), so they just put them on my desk,” she said.

Turns out, one trophy was the NCAA Final Four runner-up men’s basketball trophy the Boilermakers took home last year after losing to Connecticut in the championship game.

The other was the Old Oaken Bucket, the trophy that goes to the winner between Purdue and Indiana University’s annual football grudge match.

“I didn’t know anything about the Old Oaken Bucket,” she said. “They were like, what do you mean ‘what is this?’ Then they told me the story behind it.”

Creating core memories

Recalling her years at Parchment, Person becomes animated, smiling and laughing at all the memories.

“The first thing I remember is that my sister was really, really good at soccer,” she said. "I was always trying to keep up with her a bit.”

Her dad, Dave Person, noted that “all of our kids (Adam, Marissa, Amanda) had some success in sports during high school while realizing that it was secondary to their education.

“My only input was that I insisted they treat officials, coaches and opponents with respect, which they did. I always thought that while Marissa did very well in tennis, she was a natural at soccer. Amanda, on the other hand, was very good at soccer, but was a natural at tennis.” 

Amanda said her soccer memories come down to “we might not have won a lot, but it was still a lot of fun.”

She said while several on the team, including herself, had years of soccer experience, players also welcomed those who wanted to try the sport for the first time.

“Our team had a home for those people, too,” she said. “The games were always fun, but I feel like a lot of being on a team like that is the outside things you do together: the team dinners, the traveling on the bus, even practices.”

Her freshman year, the team advanced to the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Girls Tennis Finals, finishing 19th.

Her senior year was a transition when several sports seasons were switched, putting girls soccer and tennis at the same time during the spring.

Person also was a soccer standout at Parchment.Person and the other three two-sport seniors juggled both.

“All of a sudden we were playing soccer and tennis in the spring,” she said. “Thankfully they let us do both, and our coaches were very good in terms (of) making sure nothing important overlapped.”

Person played doubles all four years and was at No. 1 with Kelly Drummond her final two seasons.

“If my memory serves me correctly, I believe we only lost two matches the whole (senior) year, so it was a good year for us,” she said.

It was a very good year.

She and Drummond won their Regional Final, but that ended her prep career since the team did not qualify for championship weekend.

Preparing for life

The best thing about high school tennis, she said, was that it was a combination team and individual sport.

“You can do really well individually and maybe the team doesn’t do well, or maybe the team does well and you don’t do well personally,” she said. “It has the aspect of wanting the entire team to do good.”

Competing in both sports prepared her for the “real” world, she said.

“Playing soccer and tennis and being part of a team helped me cheer other people on,” she said. “The world is a competitive place, so having that foundation of team sports is really good to teach a plethora of things you can use in the real world.

“Even at work, you have your individual job but you’re also part of a team. If one person isn’t doing well, then your whole team isn’t doing well. If someone else is having a hard time, helping them out is helping the team.”

She added that losing also teaches important lessons.

“You’re going to lose at things your entire life,” she said. “Being able to handle losing, handle rejection, is a good skill to have for anything in life. I’ve learned it’s not what happens to you but how you respond to it. That’s a huge lesson. There are a lot of life lessons you can get from playing team sports in high school.”

Her advice to high school athletes today: “Enjoy it, first of all. Don’t take it too seriously in wins and losses.

“When I look back, most of my core memories are being part of a team, having fun with the team, having fun playing the sport. Enjoy your time,” she said.

“Now I miss it.”

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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Parchment’s Amanda Person plays a 2008 tennis match with doubles partner Kelly Drummond; at right, Person and her dog Tessa. (Middle) A pair of beloved trophies sit temporarily on Person’s desk at Purdue. (Below) Person also was a soccer standout at Parchment. (Photos courtesy of Amanda Person.)

'All Joy, No Fear' Greenhills Celebrates 3rd Girls Tennis Finals Victory

By Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com

June 4, 2022

ANN ARBOR — Ann Arbor Greenhills girls tennis coach Mark Randolph had an interesting comparison after the Gryphons won their third Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals title Saturday.

“The way I put it, I’ve been gestating this team for four years,” he said. “I’ve not slept a lot the past couple of months, because I knew what we could do, but we had a couple kids come down with COVID, we had a broken foot, a rolled ankle. We had a kid who had a upset tummy. There’s always something, and every team has the same thing. So the job of a coach is to turn variables into constants.”

That he did. Greenhills had six flights reach Saturday’s finals at University of Michigan, four of them finishing as champions, on a team that had a near-total turnover in its singles lineup in 2022. Among the changes: Last year’s top singles players, seniors Georgie Branch and Rukmini Nallamothu, moved to No. 1 doubles.

They were champions in their flight this weekend, as were Shangyang Xia (No. 2 singles), Sophie Chen (No. 3 singles) and the No. 4 doubles team of Sabeen Malick and Meera Tewari.

Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart tennisThe Gryphons, whose previous titles came in 2009 and 2017, ended the reign of Bloomfield Hills Academy of Sacred Heart, which had won three Division 4 crowns in a row and seven of the previous nine. Greenhills finished with 35 points, compared to 26 for Sacred Heart and 18 for third-place Grand Rapids Catholic Central.

One key for the Gryphons was a simple slogan Randolph used as a mantra: “All joy, no fear.”

“We kept saying it out loud,” Branch said. “It kept running through my brain while I was playing my final match. “All joy, no fear,” and I played like that.

But the Gryphons displayed no small amount of mental toughness.

Randolph said the team of Branch and Nallamothu epitomized the Gryphons’ grit in the final, defeating the Sacred Heart team of Marisa Nafso and Kayla Nafso in their third meeting of the season.

"We had a couple of matches where we were way down, or a two-point match and we fought back against good teams, and we got a lot of character points,“ Randolph said. "So we’re really, really proud of the way the kids fought.”

But the camaraderie the Gryphons enjoyed as a team also played a role.

"I felt like I reconnected with tennis in a different way,” said freshman Maddie Morgan, who reached the semifinals at No. 1 singles. "In USTA, it’s very competitive. The vibe isn’t as welcoming as high school season is. So I regained the ability to love playing tennis, and I really looked forward to the matches.”

Ann Arbor Greenhills tennisBranch and Nallamothu, who last season played No. 2 and No. 1 singles, respectively, embraced both their new roles on the court and as team captains guiding a group with six freshmen.

"I did not enjoy playing singles,” Branch said. "It was so lonely, and this year to come out and play with my best friend and play 1 doubles together was like more than I ever could have wanted.

"All these freshmen who came in didn’t know that to expect,” Branch continued, "and we got to shape the team how we wanted it. We got to create the vibe we wanted and got to decide how we wanted it to go and how they can take it forward for next year."

The duo will be able to watch from a good vantage point: Both will attend nearby U-M next year.

Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett’s Maddy Zampardo, a junior, defeated two-time champion Moorea McNalley of Clarkston Everest Collegiate 6-0, 6-4 to win No. 1 singles.

Zampardo enjoyed her first year of high school tennis.

"It was really cool because typically I don’t have a team when I play tennis,” she said, "so it was really nice to have a team supporting me and me supporting them. It was just a lot a fun and a cool experience to represent my high school.”

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PHOTOS (Top) Ann Arbor Greenhills celebrates its third Finals team championship Saturday at U-M. (Middle) An Academy of the Sacred Heart doubles team receives a volley. (Below) Greenhills serves during a doubles match. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)