Every great team has a player who can motivate his teammates; a player who can pick his teammates up when they are down; a player who fights with emotion and heart and gives it his all, leaving everything he has out on the court.
For the men’s tennis team, that player is sophomore Clay Thompson, who has helped lead the No. 4 Bruins to a 11-2 start in the 2012 season.
Thompson is this team’s energy spark, a role he has embraced and is thriving in this year.
With his dominating 6-foot-6-inch frame and loud, deep voice, Thompson is the ringleader of the team’s pregame introduction routine.
The ceremony starts with Thompson in the middle of a circle formed by his bellowing teammates. Thompson then shouts, “Who are we? Who are we? Are we ready? Are we ready? UC! LA! UC! LA! Bruins on three! One, two, three!” His teammates then join him by yelling “Bruins!”
When Thompson arrived as a freshman last year, redshirt junior Evan Lee was the one leading this cheer. But one day, someone asked Thompson to do it and when he did, it left his fellow teammates in awe.
“(They were saying) “˜that’s crazy, you put so much energy into it,'” Thompson said. “I think that combined with just the fact that I’m probably the most outspoken and loud on the court with the cheers and just the way I play (led to that).”
His teammates definitely enjoy the routine and it gets them fired up for their matches, especially in hostile environments on the road.
“It gets me really psyched up, and I think he does the best job at it,” redshirt senior and team captain Nick Meister said. “(It is) really fun just to be a part of that and to see him go crazy.”
His energy production does not stop at the pregame routine. It continues throughout the match as he can often be heard shouting encouragements to his teammates in between points.
“My friend calls him “˜The Transformer’ when he gets into those emotional modes,” Meister said.
“Usually it’s later on in the match … when it gets down to crunch time and then he blows up. When you see him blow up in the third (set), it’s encouraging, that’s for sure.”
Thompson believes that the energy he brings to every match rubs off on his teammates and helps make them championship contenders.
“I just think that any type of energy helps, especially when guys are struggling,” Thompson said. “To see someone on the team really fighting and really showing that he is giving it his all and he wants everyone else to give it their all, and I think it just helps boost everyone’s spirits.”
“I think that the one thing that is going to lead us to a championship is everyone fighting with everything that they’ve got and really showing heart. That’s what I try to do and just try to leave everything on the court.”
The part he plays on this team can be compared to the role that professional basketball player Lamar Odom held when he was a part of back-to-back championship teams with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009 and 2010.
Thompson brings the levels of passion, emotion and intensity Odom brought to the Lakers. Odom was even the leader of the pregame cheer that is similar to the one Thompson leads.
“Lamar is awesome. I would love to be compared to someone like him,” Thompson said. “He’s a great player and a great guy. I’ve actually had the fortune of meeting him a couple times.”
Yet, it was only a short time ago that Thompson had lost his focus on tennis and got distracted by off-the-court activities.
After having a breakout performance during his sophomore year of high school, Clay put tennis on the back burner in his junior and senior years, as he got involved in other things.
“(Tennis) just really kind of took a back role to everything. I wasn’t really doing anything at that time. I was just enjoying life and enjoying the privileges of being a West Side kid with my friends. It was the most fun I could have possibly had in that time, but also, at the same time, it didn’t really actively promote any well-being in my life.”
He credits tennis, UCLA and coach Billy Martin for helping him bounce back on track to where he needed to be.
“Tennis (was) really … the only thing that kept me out of (having the same troubles that my friends did). Just knowing that this is such a huge part of my life and something that I need to pursue and just a gift that I have been given and really need to take full advantage of it,” Thompson said.
“I think coming here and choosing UCLA and being in a really established environment as the UCLA tennis program really helped me change those things around, and I think if I had gone somewhere else and had a little bit less guidance, I could have just really fallen off and who knows what would have happened at that point.”
The guidance Thompson needed to overcome his struggles came from Martin.
“Coach Martin has really helped,” Thompson said. “I’ve expressed really everything in my past with him and he’s been so helpful to me and really getting me back on track.”
Thompson also says that by committing himself to be an energy spark for this team, it has helped him to stay focused on what he needs to do.
His coach likes the heart and emotion that Thompson brings to the court by being in that role, but it does not mean he is the biggest fan of the pregame introduction.
“He seems to enjoy that,” Martin said. “I can’t say it’s a thing I like the most because it’s a lot of energy right before the match, but he absolutely wants to do it and thinks it gets the rest of the guys up, so … he’s going to be doing it.”
However, the coach does say, “He adds a spark to us.”