July 8, 2002
University of Missouri women's tennis coach Blake Starkey recently returned from a recruiting trip to Russia. Here he gives a first-hand account of his travels.
Since we just got the Green Tennis Center at Mizzou up and running this year, we had fans at our home matches for the first time I can remember. Our new facility is the best tennis environment in Mid-Missouri, and people really get excited when they see great tennis up close. It is very intimate, and a completely different experience than going to a football or basketball game.
Our players are from as close as Kansas City, and as far away as the Czech Republic. People are fascinated with our international players, and the question I get the most is "How do you get these kids from other countries?" Well, the easy way is to blindly recruit by mail. It's dangerous because you never know what you are going to get. The other way is to literally go to another country to see them play. I do this because I'm not comfortable bringing anyone to Mizzou if I haven't seen them.
I recently got back from Balashiha, which is on the outskirts of Moscow. Russia was the most interesting and challenging trip I've taken. NCAA rules preclude me from commenting publicly about players before they are officially Tigers. What follows are observations from my off time.
Once I arrived, I managed to get my rental car, leave Sheremetevo Airport and get to a hotel. I won't share how long this took. If you don't speak Russian, which I don't, you won't understand a thing being said around you, and it's hard to ask for help. When I had a question, I learned to ask the kids. Since Vladimir Putin became president of Russia, English has become a language being pushed heavily in Russia's schools. Most children understand English better than the adults do.
Their phonetic alphabet has 33 letters to our 26. The letters our alphabets share have different sounds. Example: "B" is "ve," and so on. In a nutshell, reading is impossible, and only reading Japanese could be harder.
I spent my days recruiting at the tournament and spent nights in Moscow. My hotel was located near Arbat Street, which is a beautiful shopping district near Red Square. Red Square is close to the Kremlin, and holds Vladimir Lenin's Mausoleum, the Armory, St. Basil's Cathedral and other famous landmarks. Arbat Street goes on and on and is made up of cobblestone streets, peddlers selling art (great woodwork, and bartering was a blast), wonderful restaurants, one-of-a-kind shops and various musical troupes in the streets.
Everything on Arbat Street is pricey. As a kid, I remember thinking rubles were smooth pebbles Russians used for money. Of course this was wrong - the ruble is currency just like ours. There are 31 rubles to the dollar. An English-speaking waiter tells me most Russian people eat out less than 1 percent of the time, so all restaurants and hotels in Moscow are priced toward foreigners like me.
As wave after wave of beautiful people pass, I take notice of the overall look of these beautiful people. There are lots of angular jaw lines, deep-set eyes and generally chiseled features. I cannot describe this, but I understand what Kristina Olshanskaya - one of my players who is a Russian-born American - means when she says she can tell a Russian. There must be something in the water. After thousands of years, I cannot complain about its effects on Russia's gene pool.
Men's and women's fashions are bold, no-holds barred and sharp- looking. I passed a few people and thought, "If they were walking down Ninth Street in Columbia, everyone would gawk." But here, everyone fits in and is completely normal.
I spent some time watching street performers and listening to a string troupe playing Verdi, Mozart and Tchaikovsky. Later, I saw an 8-year-old girl playing classical violin with such skill and beauty that it took my breath away. As I walked around, I wondered if I was the only person in Russia wearing a Mizzou Tiger polo.
The beauty of the Metro stations astounded me. The dirt and graffiti associated with New York and Washington, D.C., simply does not exist. You understand why because an army-green clad (and very stern-looking) police presence is significant. On literally every corner, police, various guards and Russian army personnel are visible. I wouldn't spit without thinking twice.
Back at the tournament, I am told current Russia is nothing like it was just a few years ago. It is explained to me that I am dealing with people who come from two or three generations of never having opportunity or having opportunity taken from them. It is apparent the kids haven't had the opportunities our children have. One father of a very talented player doesn't even want to hear about Mizzou. There is no hard-sell. He simply says, "If there is an opportunity, there is no decision - she must go if she can." This makes me think of my own kids. By the end of this trip, I have identified more great prospects than I have space for. I will make a few phone calls to friends/coaches - outside the Big 12 Conference, of course - to help these kids when I get back.
McDonald's has had a presence in Russia for about 12 years now. It is always packed. I had to stand in line about 20 minutes to get lunch. McDonald's french fries are just as good there as they are here, but you have to pay for ketchup.
Driving was survival of the fittest and was similar to being in a PlayStation game. The Ring - Moscow's version of a loop - is a 12-lane highway with six lanes going in each direction. When traffic was blocked, several cars created their own lane - right into oncoming traffic! This is normal. I felt obligated to pay attention at all times. If I wanted, I could occasionally reach my hand out and touch the car next to me while traveling 60 mph or faster. From some of the looks I got, the drivers aren't used to someone waving and gesturing to let them in. The exhaust was intense, and I don't think the majority of the cars would pass our emission laws.
Because of its location on the equatorial plane, Moscow nights are very different than ours. You can get a tan outside at 9 p.m. It finally gets dark around 10:30 p.m., and the sun starts coming back up at 3:30 a.m. This played tricks on my sleep. In Siberia, I heard, they are having "white nights," which means it rarely gets dark.
I had many more observations, but there's only so much space in an article. As with all trips, I was happy to get back to Columbia, see my family and sleep in my own bed. Some recruiting trips are great, and some are awful. This one was great, and I know Mizzou tennis made some inroads in the country of Russia. The only thing remaining is to see if we have a Russian on our team in the future. If and when we do, someone will surely ask me, "How did you get a player from Russia all the way here to Columbia?"