Episode 2_ A Personal Testimony from Michael Chamizo and his struggle with Club Tennis

Sophia Negese and her guest, Michael Chimizo, discuss the lack of a club tennis team at BC. Michael shares his background in tennis and his efforts to start a club team. Despite facing obstacles and rejections, he and his friends organize casual tennis meet-ups, which attract a large number of participants. The group continues to play regularly, providing a way for students to connect and enjoy the sport. Hi, my name is Sophia Negese and I'm your host and today I'm here with a special guest and we're going to be discussing the lack of a club tennis team here at BC. So please introduce yourself, your year, your major, and where you're from. Hi, my name is Michael Chimizo, I'm a senior here at BC, I'm originally from Miami, Florida, and my major is accounting and finance. Thank you, thanks for joining me today, Michael. Can you just give me a brief description of like your relation with tennis, like if you grew up playing, and like just how it's been incorporated into your life? I was first introduced to tennis by my mom, she would take us to tennis clinics when I was younger and I would do that with my twin sister, and we would play a lot growing up. That wasn't my main sport, but I mean going into middle school year, my mom wanted me to play more, she wanted me to also be more focused on school, and tennis was the perfect outlet. Tennis, I would play about three hours a day for five times a week with a coach that was a friend of my dad's, and we would play a lot, and over that time I kind of developed more of a love for the sport. It was something that I could easily do with friends, it was a great way to meet people, and it was just something you could do outside and just enjoy being present in the moment. So I did that from middle school all the way up to high school. I played varsity tennis. I was in the top five lineup for the majority of the year, maybe playing spots three or four. Wow, impressive. So I did that, and then I ended up getting into BC, I got into BC off the wait list. This wasn't the school I was originally going to go to, I was originally going to go to the University of Miami, but I ended up coming here off the wait list, and I've enjoyed every moment of it. The only thing is, there wasn't a club tennis team when I got here, and especially coming in with COVID, I didn't know anybody being from Miami, I knew nobody else here, and I had to make friends all over again. It was kind of, it was very anxiety-inducing, you just, it's a new place, new world, and you're trying to make friends, especially navigating COVID, it's kind of a hard, hard thing to do, and so with all the COVID restrictions and regulations that were going on and put on by BC, it was just, I felt very limited, I felt, I didn't feel like at home here. And so I felt like tennis would be a way away from home, if I could find it here. And so we talked to some people, and we ended up finding some people, and I was able to hit a little bit throughout the year. Sadly though, there was no club tennis to join. I ended up trying to apply with it for a club tennis here at BC with some friends. Oh wow, you're getting ahead of yourself here, I was going to ask you, wait, hold on. Thank you for describing your relation with tennis, I was going to ask you if you proposed a club tennis team, but you got ahead of yourself there. So yes, so you proposed a club tennis team. Can, what was the reaction? Did it pass? Oh, the react, like from BC? Yeah, what was the reaction? What was the response? The response, I mean, there was a very lackluster of a response. Wait, so how many times have you applied for a club tennis team, first of all? 23 times already. I mean, I was going to apply my senior year, but it just wasn't worth it. So tell me about each, tell me about each time you've applied and what the reaction is from BC and BC club sports. Okay, so coming in with COVID freshman year, this is 2020. I applied with a friend of mine, and we ended up getting rejected. We got rejected on the basis of COVID. And so they're saying this is COVID time, we're not accepting any new clubs at this point, you can apply next year. And so I mean, that's what I ended up doing. But I mean, it's just time goes on, you kind of forget about things. And in my class, actually career accelerator, we had to do a some type of interview. And we and for one of the questions that we're doing the interview for, as we had to propose like something that we would want to get out of or something we had hopes for in the future. And one of the hopes I had was playing tennis at BC, maybe club related, I didn't think I was good enough for the actual team, but I figured I'd be good enough for the club team. And so I talked about this in my interview. And one of my friends in the class, and they actually ended up seeing it. His name was Christos. And he really liked the idea that I was proposing there. And so he came up to me after class and stuff. And he had a talk with me and he was like, we should so try to get tennis going. I'm a freshman here. I've always wanted to play tennis, but there was no club tennis here, and stuff. So why don't we try to get that going together. So this was now my second attempt. And so me and Christos got together, we started planning things out of what we wanted to do, who we were going to talk to. We figured it would be hard to go through campus recreation, so we tried to go through OSI. And we ended up going through OSI, and we met with Claire Ostrander, she was the director at the time. And we also brought some more friends on to show that there was an interest for club tennis here at BC. And we talked to her for roughly three to four months, trying to organize the whole process, what we're going to do, what we needed, and what our plan was. She loved all our ideas. She thought this was great, and stuff, and that this would be easily implementable into BC. However, sometime during the summer, going into my junior year, she ended up saying that she was no longer going to be able to accommodate club tennis, due to construction going on at Conte Forum, and volleyball players being on the courts. Oh, that's right. Because they did replace the volleyball courts. Oh no, they did replace the tennis courts with volleyball courts. So that was her reason, temporary. But they only did that for the fall semester. That wasn't going on during the spring semester. And tennis is a spring sport. So I mean, I didn't really see her reasoning, but she already said no. She rejected us completely. So I was just... I was really sad. I was like, this sucks. This is going to be my junior year, my third year here at BC, and I can't play tennis. There's no community for tennis, there's nobody to talk to for tennis. Like I can't even organize matches to play with friends, either casually or anything like that. And so I was really bummed out, and I was like, crap, let me just do this myself. They say it can't be done, let me just do it myself, I mean... In fact, I was there with Michael talking to Claire Ostrander, and that was a really sad time. We were so dedicated and excited about potentially going a different route to like, what, Student Affairs? Oh, sorry. Office of Student Involvement. Office of Student Involvement. This is going to be more of a casual thing. So instead of being more like a club sport, this would just be a tennis club. So this would just be something casual, where people can meet up and play tennis as a group versus playing competitively and stuff against other schools and whatnot. Sorry for interrupting. Now we'll go back, fast track into junior year. Me and Michael were pals, and we had what, a group of how many of us? It was a group of five of us. A group of five of us. I was calling ourselves a little bit the five founding fathers. We were the five founding fathers of this fake club, you guys. So I mean, I just, I really like the idea, and I thought this is like, screw it, I mean, you only live once. I came here to BC, I had leadership experience prior to this, and I was like, BC accepted me based off all my qualifications. I'm just doing what they would expect me to do here. Taking a leadership position and kind of trying to make the most of my experience here. So that's what I did. We ended up making some flyers, some word of mouth spread, we talked to different people, and we set a day where everybody was going to come and we were all going to play tennis on the courts. Guys, we made a huge group meet, and it exploded, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that year, the first time around, we had 50 people come. Yeah. And these are 50 people on three outdoor courts. There's not enough courts for people that are here. And so it was kind of a bit of a mess, but I mean, people wanted to play either way, and they just loved the idea of getting together in a big group. This was just a new way to meet people from all different grades and majors and stuff. And it was so nice, because I feel like, like you said, we were able to meet new people, and it was just so nice to talk to people who shared a love for tennis, even if we weren't playing on the court, because we physically couldn't fit on the court. It was just so nice to know we were all there for the same reason, and we all wanted the same thing. So yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. So we had the 50 people there. We made do. We played some little mini-games here and there, and we were off to a good start. And then we started getting to rhythm for this, fast-forwarding a little bit. We started having days dedicated to when we would play. And so I would get there early, because the tennis courts would be full from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., taken up by the tennis team. So I would get there maybe around like 6.15, 6.30, and I would wait for the tennis team to get off there, and then I would go play the courts for myself, as I would wait for other people to arrive, which they would arrive around 7 p.m. And so that would go on. We ended up playing, I think, three times a week, two hours a day. We were doing Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It would vary sometimes. It was either two to three times a week. And who would be showing up to these practices? The majority of the people that were showing up, surprising, was a lot of freshmen and sophomores. This was a great outlet for them to meet new people and stuff and connect with others. Besides that, we also had some graduate students show up. And then on top of that, we also had people from the clinics. People would pay for clinics here at BC, and sometimes they would have the courts, sometimes they wouldn't. And they would see this huge group of people playing tennis. And they were like, I want to be a part of that. I think that's another reason that BC got mad at us, because a lot of the people from the clinics, instead of going to the clinics, were coming with us. Even the people who were hosting the clinics, the staff members that were hosting the clinics and teaching the people how to play tennis, were even playing with us and giving us the go-ahead and helping us get the courts and stuff. Well, that's so nice. Look at everyone but BC helping us. Yeah, we had the coach of the tennis team give us some balls. Really? Yeah, he gave us balls and stuff that we could use and stuff, because balls are expensive. When we first started, I had to buy baskets, and I had to buy a huge hundred balls. That's right. I can attest to that. Michael was putting his own money on the line in order to get kids to play together. I think that just really just shows and portrays the true dedication Michael had to creating this and making this happen. It's kind of sad that BC can't help. But anyways. Yes, I mean, even with all the stuff that we couldn't do and things like that, we were able to get it done. We were able to meet. We were able to play. And soon enough, people were kind of... They loved what we were doing, but they also wanted to play more people. I wanted to have actually a competition between us. Just a little tournament with people all at BC. And so I actually emailed BC for the idea. I was like, oh, we should host a tournament and stuff. BC did not like that idea. They shot me down completely and said, do not host a tournament. Do not do anything competitive. I was like, what? This doesn't make sense. Even if it's just for fun, right? Even if it's just for fun. I mean, like, how can you play a sport and not be competitive? Yeah. That doesn't make sense to me. Any sport somebody wants to play, everybody wants to win. It's not like there's winners and losers. There are. I mean, it's all... Yeah, it'd be like recreational. It's fun. Yeah. So I may have gone ahead with the tournament anyway. BC does not know about this one, though. BC never knew about that one. So you get the secret intel from listening to this podcast. So we had a whole tournament. This was on the weekend. I think the tournament ended up taking place over two days just because we had so many people sign up and we had to manage so many different things. So we would have people play... I think it was best of a pro set. So it was up to eights. So it was basically one out of eight games. So we did that. That took a long time. We had actually two different brackets. We had singles and we had doubles. So we had to encompass both... It was mixed doubles and regular doubles and then singles with anybody else. And so we had the brackets together. We weren't able to do different genders just because it was too hard to manage. So we had everybody mixed together, but it was still a blast. So many people enjoyed it. We had a whole day there. We had music. We had food and stuff. We were all just hanging out, cheering each other on, watching the different games go on. And we also had a lot of time. So people would come whenever their matches were scheduled. And so that was a lot of fun. But afterwards, a lot of people got a drive for more. They wanted more. They didn't want to play people at BC. They wanted to play people out of the schools. So we had friends that were out of the schools. We were also on the club teams there. And so we got into contact with our friends and we decided it would be a good idea to organize a little meet-up and hang out and go play tennis against them. And so that's what we ended up doing. We ended up playing Babson. We ended up playing Bentley. And we ended up playing Northeastern. Did you guys win? Yes. We beat Babson. We beat Bentley. Wow. Incredible work. Northeastern was the one with the official club tennis team. And you still tied with them. Impressive. We still tied with them, with an unofficial team. Wow. Yeah. So now, so you got this whole thing kind of up and running. What ever happened? Because, fun fact, I went abroad to Amsterdam. So I wasn't here for any of the falling out. But, give us the rundown. Okay. So, I mean, people liked the tennis idea. They loved playing the other schools. And people were really excited and very passionate about it. They decided to make an Instagram to kind of, forever like, keep track of just what we did. So it was just like the memories we made along the way. It was more about the memories than just like the tennis. And what was the Instagram called, Michael? Um, they decided to call it, um, uh, BC Tennis, or whatever. I think it was like... It was called BC Tennis? Not even like... Yeah, it was like BC Club Tennis or whatever. BC Club Tennis. We claimed a name for us. You guys claimed a name for yourselves. We had t-shirts in the works. They had a logo that was there, an unofficial BC logo. Wow. You were full-fledged. Yeah. So, I mean, everything was good. Um, but during the spring semester it was too cold. We had to move into the indoor courts. Um, because of this, we got, we got more noticed. We were noticed a lot more. People were noticing all the people on the courts. We were playing music. And, uh, BC decided to be very sly. They found out about the Instagram just because their word of mouth was spreading and stuff. There was a lot of followers. I think there was up to like a million followers and stuff that were just keeping track of like what we were doing, our victories over those schools, what our plans were and anything else that was going on. We also had a group name which has, I think, or had up to a hundred and, 350 members. And so we had about 50 active members and about 350 members that were like interested in playing but maybe it didn't go all the time. And so during one of our practice inside on the courts, um, two staff members, uh, approached our group and asked who was playing the music or whose speaker that was. It being my speaker, they got my information and my Eagle ID. And I also had friends that worked in, uh, campus rec and stuff. And they just had to flex. And they started telling me what was going on and stuff and like how they might be trying to get somebody in trouble for it and how they might be wanting to shut it down. So I, realizing this, had to cancel practice and stuff and put like everything kind of on a hiatus to try to figure out what was going on because I didn't want to get them more in trouble just in case they were coming after me or anybody. That must have been kind of scary. And then I got like an email. It was like confidential or whatever, this or that. And it says, um, you have been like found like guilty of like failure to comply and like something with like BC paraphernalia and stuff like that. Like misuse of that. It kind of sounds really intense for just playing tennis with a group of people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to like, they gave me a thing. I had like a hearing date and stuff. I had to also go have a meeting with the dean. And so I had a meeting with the dean and I had to go over 30 documents of evidence that they're trying to get me with. I hope everyone listening or just you, Professor, has your mouth dropped right now because of how crazy that punishment is just for a group of kids, you know, coming together and playing tennis and having a good time. I think that's absolutely insane. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I got lucky that I was able to get my hands on those documents and stuff. So I was able to, honestly, I didn't trust the dean. The dean was like, oh, I'm on your side or whatever. I mean, I don't know. Anything I tell the dean can be used against me. Yeah. So I was like, man, I can't talk to the dean. I got to talk to other people. So I went and I talked to my professors. I talked to my marketing professors. I talked to my business professors. And then I even talked to some law professors. About what? Just some advice? About just what to do because this is a whole situation because I mean, there was nothing in the code of conduct from just like probation to suspension to expulsion. Oh, no. That would have been horrible. Yeah, yeah. They were dangling everything in front of me. You must have been really scared. I would have been. Yeah, I was like, crap, I really got to figure this out. I mean, what's the best way to go here and stuff? So I got information about what the hearing process was like from other professors and other administrators that I knew. I talked to my counselor and stuff. And I got a lot of different advice from different people. Like the DL and stuff. And they just gave me some advice like how to handle the situation and what to do. And they told me that my best bet was to have an opening statement to kind of confront the evidence firsthand and to apologize. So what did you do? An opening statement? And how long was it, Michael? Oh, the opening statement. So I mean, with the 30 pages of documents, I mean, I had to get ahead of each one. He had a lot to defend himself for, you guys. He was held at gunpoint, basically. Yeah, basically. They were holding 30 different documents and stuff that I had sent and stuff. And conversations with Claire and stuff. Saying that I went back on my word or whatever. They told me not to do this. He didn't tell me not to do this. And things like that. Guys, I read this and he was extremely, extremely passionate about trying to defend himself. And it was really good. I mean, you really, you really did the job of like, kind of like, pre, what's the word? Like pre-defending yourself? Pre-emptive action. Pre-emptive action. There you go. Yeah, I mean, I had to get ahead of it first because I wanted them to understand my point of view and my thoughts on this whole entire thing before they even made up their mind about me. So I decided to give them the whole rundown like I've just done here, kind of. Yeah. But more on a detailed basis and I talked about different things. Because they were trying to give me liability issues because sometimes we took Ubers over there to go to the meetings. Oh my goodness. They were mad at you for taking Ubers? Yeah, they said it wasn't safe. There was a car accident and stuff. They were getting mad at BC. BC would get sued. Let's say somebody had... Well, they're not making a club team, too. If they allowed us to make a club team, they could provide us buses. But since they're not, we're going to have to do alternatives like Uber. So I just think that's so hypocritical. But the other thing, too, is this is something we're doing on our own free time. This is extracurricular. This doesn't really have anything to do with BC. We're BC students, but we're not really representing BC in terms of what they're thinking and what we're doing. So we're just hanging out all the time. It's like me going into Boston. Yeah, we Uber all the time as students. They can't control that. So I was on my way and hanging out with people from other schools saying that this is misrepresenting BC and stuff like that. So I was like, what? I was very confused. Besides that, they're saying, oh, we weren't CPR certified or whatever, even though some of us might have been. Things like that. And besides that, it's like, oh, a fight broke out. Fights don't usually break out in tennis. Oh, somebody gets hurt. They're stretching here. They're stretching. What happens if somebody gets hurt? I'm like, the worst thing you can get playing tennis It was crazy to me to see the lengths that they were going. Everything was just stretched. It just didn't make sense to me. We're adults. We're over 18. Some of us are 20. Some of us are 21, 22, or whatever. Yeah. We're just living our life and then they're doing that. So it was just, it was... So what was the conclusion of this hearing? So for the hearing, I had to bring... So they gave me a hold of the sheet afterwards after I talked to the dean. The hearing was supposed to be from 9 a.m. all the way to about 12 p.m. Okay. So this was a three-hour meeting and the meeting ended up being about three and a half hours. Oh my goodness. I had an opening statement. The opening statement, I think, was maybe six pages or whatever. Oh. Six pages. I brought in witnesses to question that they questioned that I questioned. Then they had a conversation with me discussing all the different things there and stuff. But the overall result of the hearing was that I just kind of got a slap on the wrist. I was on probation. I was on... What was it? It was disciplinary probation So what comes with disciplinary probation? Like, what happened? I just said, I mean... So it's not academic probation. It was conduct probation. Okay. So it's like if you do one more thing wrong... They can kick me out. They can kick you out. Yeah. Guys, can you imagine getting kicked out of B.C. or potentially for trying to play tennis? This is crazy. And then afterwards, they wouldn't even let me play with more than four people. Wait, what do you mean? Like, in the rest of your B.C. experience? In the rest of my B.C. experience. Yeah. And then afterwards, they wouldn't even let me play with more than four people. In the rest of your B.C. experience? In the rest of my B.C. experience. Because they said if I was playing with more than four people, they would consider I was organizing something, coordinating an event, and having people play. So they would get me in trouble for doing the same thing. Because they would consider me playing with other people the same thing as what I did just now. Because they considered it a club tennis team. Oh, goodness. And so, I was kind of, I just, afterwards, I didn't really pick up a racket anymore. I was just like, this is just messed up. I'm so sorry. That's actually horrible I basically, I had, what was it called? I was, you know when they do for the, they're blacklisted. I was blacklisted. He was blacklisted from B.C. So I was not, I was, I was blacklisted. Unofficially blacklisted. I couldn't get any leadership roles in any types of clubs. Are you serious? In any types of, like, sports-related clubs, I was not allowed in leadership roles because of what I did here. Furthermore, if there ever was a club tennis team here, I was not allowed to be on it. Wow. So let's say they ever did create one, like for a senior year, you wouldn't be able to be on it. I wouldn't be able to be on it. I would maybe have to, I would have to go through some hoops, but I would be unofficially blacklisted from that. Really? I'm not allowed in any leadership positions for the clubs, any club sports and stuff like that just because of what I did prior. Anybody that was associated with me was also blacklisted unofficially. So technically me. Technically you. If they knew I was running it with you, if they knew I was running it for a senior year, if there was a club tennis team, I would not be able to play on the club team. It's almost a decade to where they haven't had a club tennis team here. Somehow, it seems as if it's going to continue based on their reactions here. I mean, this is crazy. Yeah, and the worst part is too, since this hasn't been going on since I wasn't at the forefront of this, nobody submitted a proposal for a club tennis team this year, so there won't be a club tennis team next year. Oh my goodness. Wait, sorry, I interrupted you. What were you going to say? What I was going to say too is, um, what was I going to say? Well, like, so no one proposed a club tennis team this year. Yeah, nobody proposed one, so there won't be one next year. Not a single person has proposed a tennis team this year. Nope, so there will not be one next year at all. How do you know that no one's proposed one? Like, what if a freshman did? Um, because I had friends who afterwards, they tried to submit a proposal and they were rejected because it wasn't on time. It wasn't on time. It was like two days later, whatever. It was like, well, you know, we can't afford club tennis here at BC. We gotta do something to change it. But we tried, but it's up to the new prospective students. So do you still play or like, how has senior year been treating you ever since all this commotion? Well, actually, since that commotion happened, um, they brought on intramural tennis. Oh, that's right. So, yes, yes, so after- Are you doing intramural tennis? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,