EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Derrick Nguyen is
waiting paitiently for his chance to shine on UCLA’s tennis
courts.
By Greg Schain
Daily Bruin Contributor
Derrick Nguyen is sitting in the stands of the Los Angeles
Tennis Center, cheering on his teammates as they play Georgia Tech.
He knows that on this day he will not get to play, and his hopes
for starting anytime the rest of the season are slim. But this fact
still does not diminish his team spirit.
“Right now, I’m a cheerleader,” he says.
“I kind of like the role. I like getting my teammates pumped
up.”
As he says this, his external optimism doesn’t hide the
deeper frustration of knowing that he isn’t a starter.
Nguyen, like most athletes, wants to start and contribute to his
team. But what separates him from most athletes is his turbulent
past.
Nguyen, a junior transfer in his first year at UCLA, was a state
champion playing for his high school in Darnestown, Maryland. His
talent and athleticism led him to be Northwestern’s top
recruit in 1997.
“He was very athletic, and had a big forehand, which I
thought was a great weapon,” said Paul Torricelli,
Nguyen’s coach at Northwestern. “We were really excited
to have him come (to Northwestern).”
Nguyen was also excited about becoming a Wildcat.
“It was a great opportunity for me to go to a school that
has both a prestigious academic and athletic program,” he
said.
But Nguyen’s excitement quickly vaporized his freshman
year. From the beginning, he didn’t get along with his
roommate, hated that Chicago’s dreary weather forced him to
play indoors, and disagreed with the way Torricelli was running the
team.
“My first year, I really had a lot of problems
adjusting,” Nguyen recalled.
Unfortunately for his team and for himself, Nguyen let his
off-the-court problems affect his play. During his freshman
campaign, Nguyen finished a subpar 10-12 at No. 6 singles.
His struggles frustrated both himself and his coach.
“I wasn’t sharp,” Nguyen said. “My play
was so erratic. My coach was disappointed with my play.”
“I definitely would have liked him to have won
more,” Torricelli said. “But I guess every freshman
struggles.”
Torricelli’s dissatisfaction, combined with Nguyen’s
own personal problems, put him into a state of unhappiness.
“I felt very isolated,” he recalled. “Deep
down, I just wasn’t very happy.”
But things started to change in Nguyen’s sophomore year.
Because of teammates graduating, he moved up to No. 3 singles and
posted a decent 18-16 record, including several wins over ranked
players.
“My sophomore year, I decided to calm down and play my own
game,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen was finally able to quell his erratic play. During the
second half of his sophomore season, he played the best tennis of
his life. In fact, he never lost a match during the Big Ten
tournament.
“He really hit his stride at the end of his sophomore
season, with some really clutch wins,” Torricelli said.
“You could see the progress each week.”
It seemed to everyone, including Torricelli, that everything was
going just fine for Nguyen.
But it wasn’t.
He was struggling academically, was still bothered by the
darkness of indoor tennis, and was angry over some new recruits
that his coach brought to the team.
“He recruited a few players that I didn’t
necessarily agree with,” Nguyen said. “I thought he was
taking the team in the wrong direction.”
So after a lot of contemplation and analyzation, and many fights
with his parents, who didn’t want him to transfer, Nguyen
decided to leave Northwestern.
“It was a real shock,” Torricelli recalled.
“He had finished his sophomore year very sharply. We were
building the team around him. It was very unexpected, to say the
least.”
Nguyen defends his quitting as a personal move that was
necessary to end his continued dissatisfaction with
Northwestern.
“It was just something I had to do,” he said.
“I just wasn’t very happy.”
While trying to decide what to do next, Nguyen took a year off
from school and interned at Smith Barney.
“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play tennis, or even
if I wanted to go back to school,” he said.
But Nguyen quickly came to the realization that he needed a
college degree to be successful in the real world. He also realized
that there was something missing in his life without tennis. So he
went shopping to find the perfect school.
Soon he came in contact with UCLA Head Coach Billy Martin.
“UCLA was one of the schools he was interested in,”
Martin said.
Indeed, it was a dream for Nguyen to play in one of the top
programs in the nation.
“UCLA is always in the national spotlight for
tennis,” he said in regards to why he chose UCLA. “Plus
it is prestigious academically.”
After deciding on UCLA, Nguyen’s life seemed to finally be
in order. After all, he had a chance to become a starter for one of
the top programs in the country. Also, the warm climate and relaxed
Los Angeles atmosphere was more suitable to his personality.
Everything in his life was falling into place ““ until he
stepped onto the court for his first practice with the Bruins.
Taking a year off from college tennis really hurt his game.
“My footwork was so lazy, and my competitive edge was
off,” Nguyen said.
Martin was able to tell right away that Nguyen wasn’t in
top form.
“I didn’t think he was in great shape (when he first
came here),” Martin said. “You could tell in the
running drills we did.”
Nguyen’s hopes of making the top six died quickly, as he
was just 2-3 in the preseason. His game was not up to the form that
it was during the peak of his career.
“It was disappointing to see how I did (in the
preseason),” he said. “I wasn’t sharp.”
Nguyen thinks that with hard work and patience, he can regain
his form. He intends to devote this summer to tennis in hopes of
grabbing a spot in next season’s top six.
Martin places Nguyen’s odds of starting next year at
“fifty-fifty.”
Despite not playing, Nguyen is happy he transferred to UCLA.
“No regrets,” he said. “I love it here. I wake
up every morning and the sun is shining. It’s stuff like that
that I like.”
But Nguyen will not be completely satisfied until he is a
starter.
“I want to start, and I think I will get there,” he
said.
But for now, he is relegated to the role of cheerleader. He is
sitting in the stands, rallying on his teammates, hoping that they
beat Georgia Tech. And hoping that soon he will be able to
contribute to the team with his racket instead of his cheers.