One great campaign was almost compensation for time lost to the pandemic

On April 11, graduate student Nathan Perrone set a St. Joe’s men’s tennis record with 24 singles wins in a season, breaking a mark that has stood since the 2002-03 season.

The achievement encapsulates Perrone’s athletic career: He transitioned from competing in tournaments from an early age to attending community college and not picking up the sport competitively again until he landed on Hawk Hill. He persevered through challenges along the way.

One of Perrone’s earliest memories is that of holding a tennis racket at age three and competing in tournaments at eight years old. His older brothers both played tennis and his father was a former professional player along with being the director of Cherry Hill Health & Racquet Club in New Jersey.

It is no surprise that his father’s connection to tennis was a huge driving force in Perrone’s journey.

 “He actually told me at 12 years old that he didn’t want to coach me anymore,” Perrone explained. “He wanted to be there for me. I think that was probably one of the best things he ever did because you expect somebody like your dad to do it for you sometimes.”

Perrone continued to excel in tennis as a youth, being ranked as high as 120th in the world in the ITF junior circuit and reaching No. 3 in the national rankings for boys 18s singles.

However, after years of competing in matches all across the country and internationally, the Moorestown native began to feel burned out from the sport. Despite his initial dream of wanting to become a professional tennis player, Perrone felt it was crucial for him to redirect his focus toward school and graduating from college.

“I felt that I had taken so much time away from school previously in high school and such that I needed to go to school and get to a Division I program somehow,” Perrone said. “I think coming to St. Joe’s and having my coach and teammates, it made me fall in love with the sport again. To this day, I’ve never enjoyed playing tennis more in my life than when I go out and play for St. Joe’s.”

After transferring to St. Joe’s, Perrone began picking up where he left off on the tennis courts, making the 2019 Atlantic 10 (A-10) All-Conference first team in his first year at the university. The success wasn’t immediate, however. Perrone lost his first singles match against Navy. What separates Perrone from other competitors, though, is his mentality, specifically in dealing with losses and how to grow and learn from them.

“I am a big believer that losses can make you better and that losses happen at certain moments so that wins come in bigger moments later in the season,” Perrone said. “It opened my eyes, that I was going to have to battle every single match every single time no matter who I am playing against.”

Perrone ended the season with 15 wins and was preparing for his next year when two challenges arrived. The covid-19 pandemic cut the season short and then he suffered a hamstring injury while on vacation. Despite the two setbacks, Perrone was unperturbed and set his sights on targeting the record, one he had his eyes on since first arriving on campus.

“A previous number one player here, his name was Tim Stierle and was a very, very good player,” Perrone remembered. “He got to 22 the year before I came in and was the grad assistant the year I came in. He looked at me and said, ‘When you play a full fall season and spring season back-to-back, I think you can really set this record. I think it would be huge for the program.’ That kind of stuck in my head for three years that he had said that to me because knowing how good he was, him thinking that I could do it was a big driving force.”

Perrone recalls waking up April 11 feeling nervous, but after conversing with his coaches and teammates, the nerves settled down.

“I think that helped big time,” Perrone said. “Coach Marc [Pibernat] was looking at me and he said, ‘Yeah, today is the day. You have been thinking about this all year. Do not think negative, only positive thoughts.’”

Perrone won his singles match in celebratory fashion, winning at love in the top flight before being joined by his teammates on the court.

Pibernat noted that the achievement was certainly special, especially after the setbacks that hindered Perrone earlier.

“The energy around him was amazing,” Pibernat said. “The teammates realized the achievement that [Perrone] had done and celebrated it as if it was something big because it was something big.”

The Hawks fell to the University of Dayton, 4-0, Saturday in the semifinals of the A-10 Tournament. Now at 25 wins after his most recent victory against the University of Sciences, Perrone plans on competing in tournaments over the summer but has aspirations of becoming a coach in some capacity.

“Hopefully, come August, whether it’s around here or wherever, I would like to be an assistant coach somewhere for men’s or women’s tennis,” Perrone said. “Maybe work my way up to a head coach position one day and lead a team. I think I have grown into the college tennis mindset and structure [and] I enjoy it.”

This article was first published by the Philadelphia Inquirer on May 2, 2022 as part of the Inquirer’s college correspondent program.