DeLone, College And the Pro Tour

"I would be missing a once in a lifetime opportunity if I didn't go pro," freshman Erika deLone said Tuesday, as she announced her imminent departure from Harvard to pursue a professional tennis career.

Her coach, Gordon Graham, used almost the same words to argue why deLone should stay at Harvard.

"I think it would be in her best interest to cultivate a once in a lifetime experience of college and tennis," Graham said.

In effect deLone was in the position of choosing between two "once in a lifetime opportunities": school or pro tennis.

DeLone knows better than anyone else at Harvard what she misses by staying in school.

She knows that waiting until graduation to turn pro would have put her at a serious disadvantage on the professional circuit.

The intense practice schedule and experience of the pro tour could never be matched by the afternoon practices of a college team.

To stay at Harvard for four years would have effectively prevented deLone from fulfilling what she says was her childhood dream: to be a successful pro player.

Graham, on the other hand, knows that there is more to life than tennis.

He knows that even if deLone returns to Harvard after her professional career has run its course in several years--as she intends to do--she'll never have the "college experience" unique to people between the ages of 18 and 22.

She will have the Harvard classes when she returns, but that's about it.

Even if deLone had stayed just one more year, she could have had a real, albeit abbreviated, college experience. She would have at least gotten a taste of college life, because, as her coach said, "it takes a year of school just to get your bearings."

But she decided to leave now, reasoning that the tennis world is passing her by.

Both choices--to stay or to go--involve seizing a once in lifetime opportunity.

Both also involve sacrificing one.

DeLone was given a decision that most of us are usually never unlucky enough to make.

Yes, unlucky.

She'll always be able to say that she followed her dream and played on the professional tennis tour.

But she'll always have to wonder if maybe she should have just stayed in school a little bit longer, and wonder if she passed up a once in a lifetime opportunity.