St. Louisan Blake Strode has been a star on the tennis court and in the classroom ever since he was a grade school student.
Strode’s excellence in athletics and academics have afforded him some very interesting choices these days.
After graduating from the University of Arkansas last spring as a NCAA Academic All-American and a NCAA Tournament Final Four participant, the aspiring attorney was faced with a choice that every parent would love their son to have.
Strode applied to and was accepted into the prestigious Harvard Law School. Yes, the same Harvard Law School that once produced a bright, young lawyer and future President named Barack Obama. At the same time, Strode saw his tennis skills continuing to improve as he made his great run through the NCAA Tournament last spring.
Instead of choosing one over the other, Strode will get a chance to experience the best of both worlds. He will eventually attend Harvard Law School, but that will come after he experiences life as a professional tennis player. Strode was able to get a special waver to defer his law-school studies for at least one year while he pursues his lifelong dream of becoming a professional tennis player.
“It was a pretty easy decision to make,” said Strode, a former state champion at Pattonville. “I look forward to attending law school, but my desire to be a pro has never gone away. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do since I was a kid. I was able to get a one-year defer from classes to play professionally.”
So far, Strode has been playing well in his first months as a pro. He has played in eight tournaments over the summer and early fall. He won a big United States Tennis Association (USTA) Futures Tournament in Joplin in July, which qualified him for a spot in the U.S. Open in New York last month. It was Strode’s debut in a Grand Slam tournament.
“It was kind of surreal being at the U.S. Open,” Strode said. “Just being around the locker room and being around the players that you have followed and watched on television for years, it was an amazing experience.”
This weekend, Strode and some his tennis friends will be bring a little of that professional flavor to St. Louis. He will be partnering with the Net Rushers Tennis Association to present a special fund-raising event on Saturday at the Dwight Davis Tennis Facility in Forest Park. Admission is free, but people are encouraged to make a donation.
The event will begin at 5 p.m. with a special kids clinic host by Strode. A silent auction will also take place at the same time. At 6:30 p.m., Strode will participate in a special exhibition doubles match. Strode and locan tennis pro Kenneth Powell will play against American doubles legend and St. Louisan Ken Flach and his partner Stefan Kruger. That match will be followed by a special pro-am tournament featuring many of the area’s top tennis pros and top amateur players.
Strode is a product of the Net Rushers Tennis Association, which is an organization that has promoted tennis to countless numbers of African Americans for the past three decades.
“I am really excited about Saturday because so many people have worked so hard for quite some time to put it together,” Strode said. “It should be a fun night.”
A standout on the junior tennis circuit as a child, Strode became the top player in Missouri in 2005 after winning the Class 4 singles state championship during an undefeated senior season. Not only was he a state champion, he was Pattonville’s valectidorian with a 4.0 grade-point average.
He went on to the University of Arkansas, where he became one of the nation’s top scholar-athletes. He finished his career with a dramatic run to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament in singles, earning All-American honors. In the classroom, he accomplished a 3.976 GPA with a double-major of International Economics and Spanish. He received the presigious Bodenhamer Fellow Scholarship at Arkansas. Strode was also the recipient of the ITA Arthur Ashe Award for leadership and sportsmanship, which he received at the U.S. Open.
