A New Arena in Troy

I was granted a behind-the-scenes tour yesterday of the new Trojan Arena on the campus of Troy University.

It's state-of-the-art, it's beautiful and well designed.

It has the features of a bigger arena and it only seats and intimate 5,200.

The fans will love it and it looks like it will give Troy a great home court advantage.

Practice courts within the arena

 I'll be doing a feature on the arena for Yahoo and Examiner in the next week or so.

A Quick Chat With USTA Troy 50K Tournament Director - Eric Hayes

There was nobody working harder this week in the world of tennis that Eric Hayes.

Who is Eric Hayes, you ask? 

He's this guy...

Here's a quick interview with Eric Hayes, the tournament director of the USTA Classic of Troy women's circuit event held this past week in Alabama.  Hayes is the men's and women's tennis coach at Troy and he's pretty much a one man show running this tournament.

From driving the players around to setting up the tennis center for play and everything in between including spending time on the court as a ball boy during some of the matches.

Hayes is a long time college coach and a former coach of players on the pro tours.  This is the ninth year for this event in Troy and as you can tell by the interview, Hayes is looking forward to next year and the 10th year of professional tennis on the campus of Troy University.

Here's an Audioboo of the interview, give it a listen.

Here's the USTA Tennis Classic of Troy.  You can see Hayes as a ball boy on the far court.

Congrats to Eric Hayes on another successful event.