The cries, of course, will get louder now.
Evan King has heard them for the last year or so. He has heard from many a corner of the tennis world that he should give up this cockeyed notion of being a high school student, of playing high school tennis, and just get on with the business of being great.
It’s almost as if he’s being punished for his own success, and that success reached new heights Jan. 1 when he upset second-seeded Kyle McMorrow 6-4, 6-2 to win the Boys 16 singles title at the United States Tennis Association Winter Nationals in Phoenix.
The victory established King, the No. 16 seed, as one of the country’s top Boys 16 players, even though he is still 14 years old and a Payton sophomore.
That just makes it more clear to others he should ditch Payton and go the more conventional home-school or tennis-academy route, just grab that laptop and hit the junior circuit full-time instead of when he can make it.
But King and his parents, Van and Evelyn, cling to this notion of a balanced life, which seems almost quaint at a time when standard equipment for a sports phenom seems to include an obsessed mom or dad or both.
Van, for instance, is a tennis pro but also a creative director for an advertising agency. Like his wife, who works for Chicago Public Schools, he has a master’s degree.
“There’s something to say for having a good foundation and sense of who you are,” he says.
By the time he could walk, Evan was tagging along when his dad gave tennis lessons. He would watch impatiently, crying, “My turn, my turn,” and soon it was.
By age 2 he was hitting the ball over the net. Within a few years he was beating older players, and by age 11 he had emerged on the national tennis radar screen as one of the sport’s top young prospects.
In 2005 he traveled the road less taken by outstanding junior players by enrolling at Payton, one of the most academically demanding schools in the Chicago system.
“Education is real big with us,” Van says. “Even when kids are successful, you have much better odds of being a doctor or lawyer that being a professional athlete.
“With Evan we never step on any dreams, but you have to have options. And you don’t want to rob kids of the high school experience.”
King finished seventh in the state tournament as a freshman and has performed well in the classroom, even though he has missed time during the school year to attend a few tournaments. Both achievements are all the more impressive considering he skipped kindergarten.
King has enjoyed the camaraderie of being on a high school team, a departure from the more individual orientation of age-group competition.
“It’s fun to cheer on your teammates,” he says.
High school competition, on the other hand, hasn’t always been a challenge.
King, a left-hander, didn’t lose a set–and barely lost a game–in Public League matches, which was more fuel for anyone who believes he shouldn’t be playing high school tennis at all.
“It’s a tough call because you see a lot of kids as good as he is at one of those academies where they live and breathe tennis,” Payton coach Walt Kinderman acknowledges. “If it were me and I was as good as he is, I don’t know how I would look at it.
“But he’s playing against those top kids in national tournaments and beating them.”
Evan looks at his Winter Nationals title–which boosted his USTA Boys 16 ranking to No. 7–and his Boys 14 title in the prestigious Easter Bowl tournament in April in Palm Springs, Calif., as proof his way can work.
“It lets me know I’m improving, which is nice,” he says.
He has at times wondered how life would be if he had chosen, say, the home-school route. He thought about it a bit more last week when he was preparing for finals and finishing up major projects in history and American literature, while believing his home-school counterparts face lighter loads.
“At times school is stressful, and they’re not doing jack,” he says, “but at the same time school is fun.”
It all comes down to that balance, which includes such hobbies as piano and chess and in turn leads to a mental balance that helps him on the court.
“I would say I’ve never seen a junior with the ability and more importantly the mental maturity at his age,” Kinderman says. “He goes on the court and is under control at all times.
“He’s a genuinely nice kid. One of the things that everyone he plays with remarks on is his sportsmanship.”
None of this means King doesn’t want to be great. Ask him about goals, and he mentions Grand Slam titles.
“I want to be the best player in the world,” he says.
First, however, there is the matter of winning the state title and then a NCAA championship, for King plans to attend college even if he could turn pro.
He realizes that if he falters along the way, he will hear plenty of “told you so.” King, though, seems well equipped to handle all of that.
“I really don’t put much pressure at all on myself,” he says. “It’s nice to know I’m good at something. It’s nice, I guess, to be a little famous at something.”
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btemkin@tribune.com
