Catching up with Mike Sherman
Mike Sherman is one of the Huntington tennis program’s immortals after having teamed with partner Mike Fehrs to win the 2004 New York State doubles championship. Now, nearly four years removed from that feat, Sherman is a junior at Bates College and just as competitive as ever with an international educational experience also under his belt.
At Huntington, Sherman was a member of the National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society and was also on the Blue Devil swim team for three years in addition to playing tennis for coach Jamie Fishlow.
“I loved my Huntington years, and have tons of great memories with coach Fishlow during the county championship freshman year and Mike Fehrs during our run through the states,” said Sherman who was in ninth grade when the Blue Devils won the Suffolk crown in 2002 and who won the state title as a junior. “Playing in the National Tennis Center is also a great memory. Coach Fishlow, with his passion towards Ironman triathlons and fitness, really introduced me to my love of exercise to this day, and was a very influential person in my life.”
Back in the United States after spending the fall semester studying abroad in Alicante, Spain, Sherman returns ready to tackle both school and tennis with renewed vigor. At Bates, he carries an economics major with a minor in Spanish.
As is the case with most young people who have an opportunity to spend a semester studying abroad, Sherman’s time spent in Europe made for many memories. “Alicante was an amazing experience,” he said about his overseas experience. “Alicante is a small city, located in Southeastern Spain, right on the Mediterranean Sea. I lived with a host family who spoke no English, which improved my Spanish tremendously.”
For sure, the experience in Spain could not have been duplicated on the Bates campus. “I was taking classes taught all in Spanish, four days a week with American students,” Sherman said. “It was nice to take classes not offered at Bates, such as a course on Spanish gastronomy and food, and a class about "Camino De Santiago,” a religious pilgrimage in Spain. We did a 100 kilometer hike over five days, something I would never have been able to do if it was during tennis season back in the states.”
The Blue Devil alum was voted a tri-captain of this year’s Bates tennis squad. “Our team looks to be one of the strongest in [NCAA] Division III this year, and hopes to make it to the nationals, which will be held at Bates,” said Sherman, a member of Huntington High School’s Class of 2005.
The whole college athletic experience agrees with Sherman, who has been an integral part of the Bates tennis team. “It's been great being a student-athlete in college,” he said. “Being on such a small team, the whole team becomes like a family with the coaches. A group of us (student-athletes) were also involved in the selection of our new athletic director, and it was nice to see that the college really cared about our thoughts.”
It wasn’t all coursework and hiking during Sherman’s semester abroad. “Many students traveled all over Europe during the long weekends, and I was lucky enough to visit Italy, France and Morocco,” he said. “In Italy and France, I played tennis with locals, and although we couldn’t communicate verbally due to language barriers, it was nice to see we could still train and have a fun time playing tennis together.”
While in Europe, Sherman’s tennis didn’t suffer at all. “I trained and played tennis on the red clay of Spain at Club Montemar Alicante, a location where many ATP players train including Guillermo Garcia Lopez,” he explained. “It is going to be a tough transition from swimming in the Mediterranean every afternoon, to going back to snowy Maine, but I am looking forward to competing with my team again, something I missed while abroad.”
Sherman is back on the Bates campus now and looking forward to his most competitive college tennis yet. But, who could blame him if, from time-to-time, his mind drifts back Spain and those fun days in Alicante?
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