'That made my whole week': Trishna Patel to be inducted into Brown University Hall of Fame
Brown University kept trying to reach Trishna Patel with some exciting news, but the emails were bouncing back.
Her online address from the Seabreeze High School website was one letter off. So the Brown officials turned to Seabreeze Athletic Director Brad Montgomery to pass along a message.
“He forwarded me the email saying, ‘This is a great honor. Congratulations!’ ” Patel said.
And that’s how she found out she was being inducted into her college alma mater’s athletics hall of fame.
Patel, a 1998 graduate of Brown and a four-year tennis player there, will officially enter with 17 others in a ceremony Oct. 29. She was voted in by the school’s hall of fame board.
“That made my whole week,” Patel said of when she found out last month. “I had no idea I’d even be up for an honor like that. It is very special.”
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Patel, 44, has lived in Ormond Beach since 2015 after relocating from New York City. She works as the head pro at The Trails Racquet Club and the head tennis coach at Seabreeze.
But Patel’s tennis credentials date way back. She grew up in Mumbai, India, and first moved to the United States to play competitively in high school.
She wanted to go to an Ivy League college and got into two — Brown and Penn. She chose Brown — in Providence, Rhode Island — because of its smaller campus and student population.
While earning an economics degree there, Patel starred on the tennis court. She posted 54 singles wins, 64 doubles victories and earned five all-conference awards.
Her best year was 1997, when she claimed the Ivy League Player of the Year honor and led the Bears to the NCAA Tournament with a 19-3 record. They won the Ivy League title that season with a 7-0 mark.
“My freshman and sophomore years, we could tell that we were building momentum,” Patel said. “We also got a few good recruits my sophomore year.
“So my junior year, which was 1997, everybody showed up to school having practiced all summer. I think we were just ready to give it our best. Everybody believed we could have a really great year.”
After graduating, Patel stayed in touch with her teammates as they spread around the world. She worked in finance in New York for nearly 15 years, and for four or five of those, she didn’t play a bit of tennis. She dove back into the sport when she moved to Florida.
“Tennis is kind of everywhere here,” she said. “It’s a really, really great state for my sport.”
The tennis court is her full-time office now. She teaches for five-to-eight hours a day.
After working only with adult clients at The Trails for a little while, she launched the Trailblazers junior program for kids. In four years, she has grown it from five students to 45. Her clients are now split 50/50 between adults and kids.
“(The junior program) is something special because I am very community-focused,” said Patel, who also took over as Seabreeze’s head coach last year. “The fact that I’ve been able to do this is huge. It’s almost as big as getting into the hall of fame.”
She doesn’t play much competitively anymore. She has two sons under the age of 10, but as they get older, she has a five-year plan.
“I really do enjoy competing,” Patel said. “It’s something I’ve not completely shut the door on. There are definitely possibilities for me doing some more traveling and doing some more competing.”
Her next trip? Up to Brown for the induction festivities next month.
It will be her first time on campus since she left in 1998.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Trishna Patel to be inducted into Brown University Hall of Fame
