By Pete Ruden
The 2015-16 tennis season was a long one for Iowa redshirt freshman Kareem Allaf.
Allaf was an academic redshirt for the season, so he could practice with the team but was not able to compete as a Hawkeye.
But the reason for the redshirt was not due to grades. It was because Allaf had quite the path to Iowa.
He is a native of Dubai, and he started high school in his hometown. However, that school was on the British track of schooling.
After his freshman year, Allaf went to what is now called the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Nice, France, a boarding school that offers a tennis program and an academic program. After that, he went to a school that was on the American track of schooling.
The reason Allaf ended up being ineligible was that the NCAA didn’t accept all of the classes he took. After going to three different high schools in four years, the NCAA didn’t give him credit for all of the classes.
Though he was a good student coming out of high school, Allaf ended up getting a tough break from the NCAA.
But that wasn’t all bad for him. In his year off from competing at Iowa, Allaf was able to improve as a player and see what the game is like here. And even though the team missed him on the court, the Hawkeyes were able to see who could step up and play well in his absence.
“Not having a guy like him being able to compete is going to hurt you, just because he’s a good player and he definitely would’ve contributed to the lineup,” head coach Ross Wilson said. “But at the same time, that also gave other guys the chance to step up and see what they could do and get some experience, which I thought was good last year.”
However, by not being able to play last year, Allaf missed the competition and the process the team goes through. Throughout last season, he played in pro events that helped him to stay in shape and to keep his competitiveness up.
But now that he’s finally back on the court, he is excited to play again and to see what the season has in store.
“It feels amazing [to be able to play again,]” Allaf said. “When I wasn’t playing, I missed the competition. You miss the grind… I just missed out a lot on the competition; playing against different teams, seeing different players. It felt kind of boring at first, but the longer the wait, the better it was to play again.”
Wilson said Allaf is the kind of player that the Hawks wanted to recruit to help build the program in the right way.
One of the big things about Allaf’s absence was the effect it had on the team. The team, as well as the coaching staff, knew there was a good player who couldn’t play, but he had the potential to make a big impact.
Even though he couldn’t show his team what he could do on the court, he still showed a lot off it. After going through a long, hard process, he showed his coaches and teammates what matters.
“It shows that he has heart. It shows that he really cares about the game and the team,” junior Josh Silverstein said. “The fact that he was sitting around for a year while we were all competing, and he just kept his mouth quiet, didn’t complain a lot, and just showed up to practice every day. It showed that he has heart and that he’s really tough.”
