Single Minded Success

Nugent wins prestigious National tennis award

By Bob Albright, Peabody & Lynnfield Weekly News


It was three years ago that Bentley College women’s tennis coach Alex Wong received a serious upgrade to his program.

No, the coach did not get a new ball machine or land a six-figure contract with Nike to have his team wear the same eye-popping outfits as Venus and Serena Williams.

Instead, Wong landed a somewhat rusty sophomore transfer from the University of New Hampshire who simply refused to give an inch either between the baselines or in the classroom.

“You could see that she was a little rusty and had not been playing a lot,” Wong recalled of his first impressions of former Lynnfield High standout Kelly Nugent.

Nugent showed Wong enough during that fall tryout to earn a spot on the team and thanks to her leadership on and off the court over the next three years, Nugent has been named the national recipient of the Division 2 Intercollegiate Tennis Association Arthur Ashe Jr. Award.

Nugent was selected out of eight regional winners for the award, which is given annually to the player who has exhibited outstanding sportsmanship and leadership, as well as scholastic and extracurricular achievements.

“I was shocked when I found out,” said Nugent who will receive the award during this summer’s U.S. Open. “It’s a great honor.

“I think leadership is very important,” Nugent, a two-year captain, added. “I’ve always been someone to lead more by my actions than by words. Hopefully by doing that everyone will follow suit.”

After starting out at No. 6 singles that sophomore season, Wong elevated Nugent to No. 3 singles midway through the year and for all intents and purposes has not had to worry about the spot since. In the past three years Nugent has had just two conference losses at that spot and earned three all-conference selections. This past season she went a perfect 12-0 to earn first team all-conference honors and posted a 19-3 mark overall. Along with her with her glittering success in singles, Nugent was named all-conference in doubles action twice over her highly productive career with the Falcons.

“I never could imagined back then that she would develop in the kind of winner she has,” said Wong reflecting back to that first fall tryout.

“The thing that coaches always say about Kelly is that she has a high tennis IQ. While all her strokes may not be the prettiest, she uses her smarts and her athleticism to get it done. She is just a winner. She knows how to win and is very gritty and competitive.”

That lofty tennis IQ is matched in the classroom where Nugent, a management major, compiled a 3.53 GPA and was a first-team NE-10 All-Academic selection all three years. Nugent said that her busy tennis schedule, which included both the fall and spring seasons, did not hinder her studies, but instead advanced them.

“I really think that if I didn’t have tennis I would have probably procrastinated about things and not have done as well,” said Nugent who has already landed a job with an interactive consulting company in downtown Boston.

“I think a lot of athletes at Bentley feel that way and that’s one of the things I really liked about the school.”

Wong pointed to Nugent’s junior season as a perfect example of her leadership skills. That year Nugent was elected co-captain along with a senior teammate, but when that senior elected not to play, Nugent was left to pick up the load all by herself for the next two seasons.

“The way that she stepped up in that situation is something I’ll always remember,” said Wong. “All of her teammates greatly respected her.”

Nugent admits that the captain’s role left her walking a precarious tight rope at times.

“It’s tough when you have a small group of girls who are all competing against each other for playing time and at the same time trying to be friends,” she said. “It was a hard adjustment, but I tried to be the middle man between the players and the coach.”

Wong says it will indeed be a rather harsh reality next fall when he will no longer be able to pencil in an almost automatic point at the No. 3 slot.

“You always have those spots where you have some more confidence and that was certainly the case with Kelly,” said Wong. “It is going to be tough to replace a role model like that. Let’s face it, when you lose someone who has just lost two times in three years that’s a pretty tough thing to replace.”