After Bouncing Back From Tuberculosis, Foxon Has Opponents on Run

Julian Foxon went from super sophomore to subpar junior, but this isn’t your run-of-the-mill case of tennis burnout. It was a run-down-your-will case of tuberculosis.

Foxon, a senior at UC Irvine, returned home to Hinckly, England, the summer after earning second-team All-Big West honors as a sophomore and brought a nasty little microorganism back with him on the plane to California.

He didn’t feel ill, but the tuberculosis was discovered during the mandatory physical athletes undergo each year and the prescribed antibiotics--a six-month dose--thoroughly sedated Foxon’s junior season.

“One of Julian’s greatest assets is his mental approach, his ability to focus and play big points well,” Coach Steve Clark said. “But last year, he’d get to the third set and just sort of fall asleep.”

And Foxon, once a fierce competitor, was now almost too tired to care.

“I could only practice for an hour and then I had to go home and rest,” he said. “The drugs drag you down for six months, but it takes you much longer than that to become fit again.”

Foxon’s legs may have felt limp, but he retained the stiff upper lip.

“You’re not going to be healthy all the time, and you just have to live with that,” he said. “But this went on so long, it was really quite annoying.”

Foxon’s senior year has been a much prettier story so far. The Anteaters have upset two teams ranked in the top 20--No. 14 Cal and No. 16 Harvard--and Foxon has won five of his last seven singles matches. During that span, he’s beaten No. 55 Atur Rusiekcki of Colorado and lost to 32nd-ranked David Roditi of Texas Christian and 82nd-ranked Fred Niemeyer of Middle Tennessee.

Foxon and doubles partner Marc Tardif are 11-7 this season, with upsets over the ninth- and 30th-ranked doubles teams in the country.

“We’ve had some very good wins, you really can’t expect more than we’ve done so far,” said Foxon, the only senior on the team. “There’s a lot of young guys here and there’s always room for improvement, but at the moment, you can’t expect much more.”

Foxon is also still improving at a rate that bodes very well for his future, one he hopes will enable him to play professionally. He didn’t start playing tennis until his parents joined a club when he was 15. He played for a year at Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Fla., but that wasn’t exactly a turning a point in his career.

“It was fun and a great experience to play a lot of tennis,” he said. “I got better because I hadn’t played much and when you hit a certain amount of balls every day, you’re going to make a few more every day.

“But I didn’t really have better shots. From a mechanics point of view, I wasn’t very good.”

Clark noticed pretty much the same thing, but he also saw the concentration, the approach to the game and a chance to help a young man become a very good tennis player.

“He had a great serve and a very good forehand,” Clark said, “but he sliced everything from the backhand side and was pretty weak at the net. He had some questionable shots, but I know I can teach a guy shots. You never know if you can instill the mental aspect, though.”

So Foxon started hitting over his backhand and learned to back up that big serve with solid volleys.

“The things we’ve been working on for so long are really starting to show in matches,” Foxon said. “I feel very comfortable with them now.”

He’s also fit again. His 9-8 singles record is more indicative of his move up to the No. 2 spot after playing mostly at No. 4 last year than the quality of his tennis.

“I’m playing better players and, in some ways, it’s noticeable,” he said, “but it’s only a big difference if you put it in your mind. Then you get psyched out because some guy is ranked. I say that most of the guys who are playing in college have something wrong with their game or they’d be making money on the tour.”

Foxon, a Big West Scholar-Athlete who will graduate with a degree in economics this spring, hopes to be on that pro tour one day, but he’s being pragmatic.

“We’ll have a go at the tour for a year or so,” he said. “If I do well, it could be longer. If I don’t, it could be a short stay and then I’ll be off to go into business in London.”

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Fans in the stands: One of the most positive aspects of the 1995-96 Anteater men’s basketball season was attendance in the Bren Center. The student section was filled for most games and the place had an atmosphere, well, like a college basketball game.

“I remember my first day on the job,” Athletic Director Dan Guerrero said. “I walked into the Bren Center and it was packed [for a game against Georgetown]. I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to be great.’ It took awhile for me to see it like that again, but this season we really started to generate some interest and hopefully it will translate into some TV games in the future.”

The Anteaters will play USC and Nevada Las Vegas at home next season and negotiations for a game in the Bren Center against Utah are under way.

Such scheduling certainly can’t hurt attendance.

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Anteater Notes

Rod Baker recently was named the District 15 coach of the year by the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches. . . . Basketball player Leticia Oseguera, diver Christie O’Grady and swimmers Omar Amr, Bryan Dove, David Durden and David McGlynn earned Big West Conference winter All-Academic honors for maintaining a cumulative grade-point average of 3.2 or better. . . . Center Allah-mi Basheer was named to the Kodak All-American honorable-mention team. Basheer, who finished her career No. 2 on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,380 points, averaged 16.7 points and 7.1 rebounds last season. She is only the second Anteater woman to be named an All-American--Cheri Graham was a third-team selection in 1984--and is the eighth Irvine basketball player so honored.

After hosting the Anteater Invitational, which concludes today at Coto de Caza Country Club, the golf team will head up north for the U.S. Collegiate Golf Championships Saturday and Sunday at the Pasatiempo Golf Course in Santa Cruz. The event will be televised on ESPN with live coverage from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and 9:30-11:30 a.m. Sunday.

All-conference volleyball player-turned-sprinter Popi Edwards has the third-fastest times in the Big West this year in the 100 and 200 meters. . . . Jackie Joyner-Kersee will be the featured speaker at the women’s basketball banquet Monday night at the Newport Beach Marriott. Tickets are $25. For more information, phone (714) 824-3233.