Tennis program signs top notch women player

OldTimer · May 27, 2004

Mean Green Tennis Signs Aba Butain

DENTON (5/26/04) – North Texas head women’s tennis coach Dawna Prevette has announced that Aziza Aba Butain signed a National Letter of Intent to play with the Mean Green next season.

Originally from Geneva , Switzerland , Aba Butain attended The Meadows School in Las Vegas , Nevada , where she was a four-year letterwinner with the tennis team. She has picked up a number of accomplishments and honors during her tennis career, including runner-up at state in doubles and singles as a sophomore and junior, respectively.

“Aziza is very dedicated and she is a hard worker,” said Prevette. “‘I can’t’ is not in her vocabulary. She has been able to implement variety into her game and I’m excited to work with her next year.”

The team captain her senior campaign, Aba Butain finished second in zone singles after having to retire the championship match with an injury. She attempted to compete at state, but was hampered by the injury and received fourth after having to withdraw from the competition. As a freshman, Aba Butain took 4th in zone singles play.

Among her tennis awards are the Poncho Gonzales Most Promising Player, Muterspaw National Sportsmanship Award and Pepsi Circus Athlete of the Month. Aba Butain has participated in many tournaments all over the country, including the Easter Bowl and the Supernational Clay Court Championships. In addition, she participated in sectionals, circuits, nationals, zonals and various other team events such as the Billie Jean King Junior World Team Tennis competition.

Aba Butain participated in the Tennis: Europe program that was made up of nine juniors of varying ages from across the United States and sent them to England , France , Holland and Germany to play in international tournaments against some of the top juniors in the world. A victory over the No. 1 player in India in an ITF match highlighted Aba Butain’s participation in the program.

Her experience also includes competition with Team Nevada , which plays in several national tournaments.

In addition to her accomplishments on the tennis courts, Aba Butain has been involved in a number of community services and extracurricular activities at her school. Some of her academic awards include the Cultural Anthropology Honors Student of the Year and the Precalculus Honors Student of the Year. She is the Crafts for Kids Student Ambassador, received the Community Enrichment Award for Southern Nevada in the youth category, a member of the Make-A-Wish Club at her high school, competed on the debate team and participated in band.

untbowler · May 27, 2004

I hope she turns out well but being only ranked 15th in the Intermountain Region is not all that strong. Dawna has done a great job with a relatively weak team compared to other conference schools and turned in some good records but more still needs to be done. The Top 7 returns so this recruit only adds depth, but a Top 5 finish in Conference is needed, no more 8th place and lower.

At least the recruit seems to be of outstanding character.

Green albert · May 27, 2004

I hope she turns out well but being only ranked 15th in the Intermountain Region is not all that strong. Dawna has done a great job with a relatively weak team compared to other conference schools and turned in some good records but more still needs to be done. The Top 7 returns so this recruit only adds depth, but a Top 5 finish in Conference is needed, no more 8th place and lower.
At least the recruit seems to be of outstanding character.

North Texas is one of the few teams and the only one in the Belt that is not almost entirely composed of foreign players. It is amazing just look at the rosters of other Belt tennis teams, it is unusal to even have one American on the team. There are proposed reforms that would at least restrict the flow of older foreign players from dominating US college tennis.

untbowler · May 27, 2004

UNT should be very proud of this fact and that is a direct philosophy of Rick V to recruit only Americans in hope that the NCAA eventually limits the number of Foreign players on scholarships. The only non-American on the Team is a transfer from Campbell Univ. Then again Denver won the Sun Belt this year with 3 Foreign Players (sorry thought it was only one) and the rest were American (2/3 American) so UNT can not say to much (UNT had 2 last year). Denver leapt out of no-where, 3 years ago we lost to Denver 4-3 at Conferece, this year we lost 7-0 and 4-0 and the matches were not close, the gap will need to be closed and quickly. USA, UALR, NMSU, UNO, and Arky St. can waste their money on Foreign Players b/c their team reltionships suck. UNT has a great bunch of girls and better is that they are all friends off the court.

Best of luck to the ladies and look forward to seeing them next year.

Edited May 27, 2004 by untbowler

GrandGreen · May 27, 2004

UNT should be very proud of this fact and that is a direct philosophy of Rick V to recruit only Americans in hope that the NCAA eventually limits the number of Foreign players on scholarships. The only non-American on the Team is a transfer from Campbell Univ. Then again Denver won the Sun Belt this year with 3 Foreign Players (sorry thought it was only one) and the rest were American (2/3 American) so UNT can not say to much (UNT had 2 last year). Denver leapt out of no-where, 3 years ago we lost to Denver 4-3 at Conferece, this year we lost 7-0 and 4-0 and the matches were not close, the gap will need to be closed and quickly. USA, UALR, NMSU, UNO, and Arky St. can waste their money on Foreign Players b/c their team reltionships suck. UNT has a great bunch of girls and better is that they are all friends off the court.
Best of luck to the ladies and look forward to seeing them next year.

Denver has 3 foreign players but they are the number 1,2, and 3.

untbowler · May 27, 2004

Good point on Denver I should have looked closer. I am against recruiting all foreign players but it would be nice if the school would let us go out and bring in one or two top level foreign players to help out. I do not want an all South American Team cough **UALR** cough or all German 22-23 yr old Freshmen cough**Baylor**cough, but one or two would be nice, but they need to players who can play lines 1-3 or else it is a waste of tax payer money. When we got Sandhya Kanury from TCU that was great b/c she came in and played Line 1, also Catherine Alain who transferred in from Baylor. I would just like for the Team to be stronger.

The team next year should be better as long as everyone returns.

UNTLifer · May 27, 2004

UNT should be very proud of this fact and that is a direct philosophy of Rick V to recruit only Americans in hope that the NCAA eventually limits the number of Foreign players on scholarships. The only non-American on the Team is a transfer from Campbell Univ. Then again Denver won the Sun Belt this year with 3 Foreign Players (sorry thought it was only one) and the rest were American (2/3 American) so UNT can not say to much (UNT had 2 last year). Denver leapt out of no-where, 3 years ago we lost to Denver 4-3 at Conferece, this year we lost 7-0 and 4-0 and the matches were not close, the gap will need to be closed and quickly. USA, UALR, NMSU, UNO, and Arky St. can waste their money on Foreign Players b/c their team reltionships suck. UNT has a great bunch of girls and better is that they are all friends off the court.
Best of luck to the ladies and look forward to seeing them next year.

Agree with your post. This rule needs to be addressed. The DMN had an article on the Baylor men's team that just won the national championship showing how they only have one American player. Their top players were all European and 24 and 25 year old juniors and seniors.

centex eagle · May 27, 2004

The DMN also had an article about the age of players from other countries having to go down in the future for DI. This will help some. You are so right about the 1-3 spots and everything else needs to be USA. Americans can handle the next spots as evidenced by my daughter being involved in sun belt and wac tennis the last 5 years. Hope some coaches will start to give other Americans a chance or be forced to with this next age change. I have tried to find out if the new courts are to be a split - 4 on one side of a road and 2 on the other situation. If this is true , we need to just save the money and wait for a better situation. I saw a drawing over a year ago and that is what it looked like. Any info on that?

untbowler · May 27, 2004

that 4-2 split of courts would be stupid and not make sense.

They also need at least 8-10 courts, in case they want to host a tourney, the best configuration is 4 by 4.

Centex,

I assume your daughter probably played for LTU or did she transfer out?

Edited May 27, 2004 by untbowler

centex eagle · May 27, 2004

Played at LaTech and is the assist. coach at SMU.

untbowler · May 27, 2004

Awesome, ok I have coached against her a few times when I was at Sam Houston and then my one year at UNT. I have actual met you a few times. I coached with Vicki Markowsky down at Sam Houston. Glad to see she is doing well and that is a great Asst. Position.

Best of luck.

UNTLifer · May 27, 2004

Played at LaTech and is the assist. coach at SMU.

Man, that's a double whammy!

centex eagle · May 27, 2004

She had a great spring from a coaching standpoint as they went from unranked to the NCAA Regional finals before losing to A&M. Along the way were big wins over LSU, TCU and Alabama who were ranked much higher. Final rankings come out June 6. If the double whammy was derogatory, my wife and I are UNT grads with two other daughters that attended and still attend(soph) UNT. I have a pretty good perspective of the good points and negatives of NT and Tech. I watched the USA conference battle play out hoping one or both got chosen. I'm still shocked at the stupidy of UTEP. Had a great time in New Orleans and look forward to what type of tailgate situation exists at the Baylor game.

untbowler · May 27, 2004

Yeah SMU was an enigma this year they either won Big or lost big, although I had hoped UNT could have pulled off the upset but blew to leads in 2 of the matches and lost 4-3.

Felt bad for Lauren since up until the last 2 years they did not do much for the tennis team which was bad b/c I felt Lacey was a good coach.

Again congrats and good to see your daughter is doing well. Hopefully a Head Coaching job awaits her in the future.

centex eagle · May 27, 2004

Look at the configuration of A&M and Baylor's courts. Put all 6 courts in a line with a way to watch from the ends. That way you get the best support from fans and they can watch and cheer for several courts at a time. You do not have to have as many seats as either of those and could even use a mounding effect to create the height needed simular to TCU or Houston. Today Texas' courts are a coaching and fan nightmare with their 3-3 and the distance of seperation for their stadium courts. You do not have to spend a lot of money to create a fan and coaching friendly site, you do have to have someone with creativity and tennis thoughts-not some architect charged with filling what space is left over after all the other fields, etc. are planned. This is what worrys me. This type of thing affects recruiting and once money is spent to build something, you are stuck.