Sept. 26, 2001
Tucked away in a small corner office of the Atkins Tennis Center sits possibly the most important person in the entire building. She's not a head coach, or tennis director, or even an athletic director. This person is far more important than any of them. Without that small office our leaders would be walking aimlessly around the courts unable to function.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Jan Winters, the men's and women's tennis team secretary. Although calling her a secretary is like calling Michael Jordan an average basketball player. When was the last time that your secretary made chili for 500 fans (30 pounds of hamburger and an entire case of chili beans), or emailed your parents just to say "hi"? Odds are, it has never happened, because secretaries aren't supposed to do that. They are supposed to take care of paperwork and administrative details and go home right at 5 p.m. They aren't supposed to cry when you lose a big match or call when you've been injured. They aren't supposed to care that much. But fortunately, ours does. And that's what sets her apart from the average secretary, a title the university gave her, but we all would say it's a title that grossly undermines her actual position and responsibilities.
Jan Winters came to the Illinois tennis program in October of 1995, but it has seems that she has been here from day one. (And she's just one of the special people that team has picked up along the way). Her office used to be an old storage room in the back of the first floor. She shared her time and space with all the office supplies and equipment.
One day, both came crashing down on her and the copy machine. The copy machine bent. Jan didn't.
In fact, she didn't complain and she didn't even go home early. No wonder both Jennifer Roberts, the women's coach at the time, and Craig Tiley hired her. "She's tough," Head Coach Tiley says. "You have to be, if you can deal with my crap all day." As time went on, Jan's office was moved. Now she has a window in the center of the action next to the coaches' office.
One thing, however, has remained the same throughout the years. "Players have always felt at home here," Jan says, referring to her office. And I can attest that she is right. There is not a day that goes by where we all won't stop in and say "hello" to Jan. She's always smiling, always asks how your day is and is always the first to listen to our gripes (and possibly add a few of her own). Basically she's our mom away from home.
Walking in Jan's office is like walking into your own family room, an experience that never gets old, especially here in college where home for some is far, far away. Senior Nathan Zeder agrees "Jan is our mom away from home, always checking in on us, making sure everything is OK".
I asked Jan if she knew anything about tennis before she was hired. "I knew the ball was yellow, that's it," she said. I found that interesting, because only six years later, Jan is the first to recognize if an opponent has a weak forehand, the first to acknowledge the difference between a player that serves and volleys or a player that stays at the baseline.
"I learned from reading. Craig would give me so many different things to type, all about tennis, that I had to learn." Although it came at the expense of having to ask a lot of questions. Fortunately Jerry Turek and Corbin Archer, who were students then, would explain to her what words like "groundstroke," "crosscourt," and "overheads" were. "They helped me a lot, and I'm still learning," she says.
Possibly the greatest asset that Jan Winters brings to the Illini tennis program is her undivided, truly passionate concern for our success. I was not surprised when she said that losing last year's Big Ten tournament championship match to Ohio State as the most disappointing moment of her six-year career (we won the overall Big Ten title by placing first in the regular season standings). Imagine that, a university-hired secretary driving to Madison last year with her significant other, Steve Glosser, to watch us lose in the finals. She didn't get overtime pay or even expense money. But she was the first one there during warm-up and the last one to leave afterward, with tears of disappointment filling her eyes.
Jan lists many things among her most exciting or rewarding times spent with the tennis team. The first would have to be our trip to England in the fall of 2000. It was both of our first times in the United Kingdom and it was an experience that we'll be unable to forget. She says her next best experience was when the Illini won their first Big Ten title in the spring of 1997. Jan was watching her son's baseball game in Winchester, Ill., when the tennis team played its semi-final match in East Lansing.
After the game she immediately drove home and called Brady Blain, then a senior on the team. "Brady told me that we had lost and I remember sadly saying, 'How could we lose, Brady?' Eventually he told me that he was kidding and that we were in the finals." She and Steve drove through the night and made it to East Lansing by match time. "That was so exciting, when we won that." Illinois defeated Northwestern for their first of many Big Ten titles that year.
Jan was drawn to the tennis environment and athletics in general because she has always been a fan of sports. Both her children, Scott and Kristi Winters, were varsity athletes in high school and both hold state records in track. "In the small town of Greenfield, Ill., high school athletics are all you can do," she states, "so I felt very comfortable when I was hired to work with tennis." In fact it could be argued that she felt too comfortable, as time progressed and Jan learned all the tennis lingo she would sometimes set herself up for ridicule. "I once told my friends I would 'meet them at the court' referring to meeting them at the football field. It's unbelievable how much this team and tennis can influence your life."
Fortunately for us, Jan is completely accurate. Our tennis team has daily interactions with two coaches, three trainers, a strength coach, and 11 other teammates. Jan might not fit into the standard equation for molding the perfect athlete, however she definitely fills the gap for helping mold boys into men. Whether she is helping us learn to tie our tie or giving us girlfriend advice (maybe a little too much of that!) she is always there, with her door always open. And we thank her for that.
What Mike's teammates say about Jan...
Nathan Zeder: "Jan is our Mom away from home, always checking in on us, making sure everything is OK."
Philip Stolt: "Jan treats us all like family, as her kids away from home."
Brian Wilson: "Jan's office is like a black hole--if she's in there and catches you coming in, you will be consumed by conversation and will never be seen again."
Alex Hobson: "One time Jan had me walk in a circle around her and eat popcorn. She thought that would help my dehydration."
