CLOSE-UP : Wiere Thaws Out Tennis in Midwest as He Warms to DeKalb

L.A. Times Archives

March 5, 1987 12 AM PT

Some people thought Steve Wiere, formerly of Calabasas High and now one of those Huskies of Northern Illinois, had lost his mind when he headed east toward rarely defrosted DeKalb to attend school and play tennis. As it turned out, the only thing he lost was a few midseason matches. Now he’s on a roll that could land him a berth in the NCAA tennis tournament in May.

Wiere has won nine straight matches for Northern Illinois and since suffering through a five-match losing streak in midseason, the freshman has been almost untouchable.

For the record:

12:00 a.m. March 11, 1987 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday March 11, 1987 Valley Edition Sports Part 3 Page 11 Column 4 Zones Desk 2 inches; 41 words Type of Material: Correction
Stu Rawitt, a former tennis player at Calabasas High, mistakenly was identified as Steve Wiere in a story on Wiere that appeared in The Times’ College Digest on March 5.
Wiere and Rawitt were teammates at Calabasas. Wiere currently plays tennis at Northern Illinois and Rawitt attends Tulane.

They haven’t seen anything like this in DeKalb since the Wilkerson boys, Tim and Tom, blew through NIU in the early 1970s. And Coach Carl Neufeld said Wiere could follow the Wilkersons’ trail right into professional tennis.

“I have no doubt that he has the potential to be a pro player,” Neufeld said. “The thing that has come along is his serve-and-volley game.

“He’s playing a really athletic game. He’s got a big serve and it’s going to get bigger.”

Big enough, the coach said, for Wiere to get invited to the nationals in Athens, Ga., in late spring.

“He plays Illinois’ No. 1 player Thursday, and then on March 21 he plays Michigan’s No. 1,” Neufeld said. “Those are two of the best three players in the Midwest. If he wins one of those, he’ll be invited.”

Not bad for a player who for most of his high school career hadn’t stirred up much interest in the way of major-college scholarships. By the time he built a name for himself by making it to the Southern Section state final last April, Wiere had verbally committed to Northern Illinois, located 60 miles west of Chicago.

Neufeld had eased Wiere’s worries about freezing to death in DeKalb by inviting him to visit the campus in February. “I wanted him to see this place in the winter,” Neufeld said. “I wanted him to see that we don’t walk around in space suits. I wanted him to see that it wasn’t 80 degrees below zero.”

Said Wiere: “I wanted a change. It gets boring living in perfect weather all the time. The weather’s not that bad here.”