Commitment Profile
Bucknell Is In His Blood
by Lisa Stone, 18 November 2015
| Share: |  |
|  | |
|
|
Even though senior Max Palmer moved to Houston right before he started high school, he always knew he would come back to his native Northeast for college.
While Texas certainly has some top-ranked tennis programs, Palmer prefers training and playing on indoor courts, a necessary mainstay for northeastern schools. He feels that training indoors for 90% of the year during his developmental years helped him learn to use his height and strength to a big advantage and that continuing a similar training regimen during college best suits his game. Playing on the fast courts allows him to maximize his talents at closing the net, playing quicker points, and utilizing his big serve and forehand to his advantage. It also forces him to work on staying a bit more patient, waiting for the right opportunities to finish points.
So, after considering Georgetown, Boston College, and Richmond, Palmer decided to call Bucknell University home starting Fall 2016.
For those unfamiliar with Bucknell, it is a small private school situated in Lewisburg, Penn., with an enrollment of around 3500 students, not much bigger than Palmer's high school in Houston.
After visiting his older brother at the University of Texas, Palmer realized he was better-suited to a smaller college environment and started looking into D-I schools that fit that profile. He felt he wanted and needed the personal attention available to him at these schools.
Palmer took a very calculated approach to his recruiting process. He worked with Ross Greenstein at Scholarship For Athletes and also tapped into the experience and knowledge of some of his older tennis friends who gave him very helpful advice. They told him to reach out to the existing team members and to base his decision on how well he meshed with them as well as on the location of the school. He took their advice and made his choice after an unofficial visit to Bucknell in the Spring of his junior year.
Palmer really clicked with Bucknell Head Coach Craig Schwartz as well as the guys on the team. He noticed that the team seemed to be very close and that most of them improved significantly as tennis players under Coach Schwartz's leadership, among Palmer's goals during his college career. He watched the team practice and felt that he could also get better as a player while there in addition to making an impact in the lineup right away.
