ELON, N.C. – They were Golden Gophers together before one became a Phoenix and the other an Owl. Now, dozens of matches and thousands of miles later, they're reunited.
Daniel Martin and
Dylan Heap have provided senior leadership, energy on the courts and a boost of personality to the Elon University men's tennis team since transferring from Minnesota. Their journeys to Elon, though, took on different looks.
Both began their collegiate careers in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but their paths to Elon are further intertwined. Martin is a Brit and Heap a Kiwi, and their decisions to come to America – all the way back to the beginning – and to Elon display a mite of similarity.
Recruitment To The States: Bring A Jacket
When Heap graduated high school in December 2018, summer was ramping up. Temperatures in Christchurch, New Zealand, touched the 70s as he loaded up for Minneapolis. Traditionally, his countrymen waited until August to enroll in college, matching the American school calendar, but he was ready to go.
Heap had taken memorable visits to Pepperdine and Minnesota, but the Gophers' effort to bring him in felt special.
"We started talking about a year before I visited and it happened that I really liked the coaches and the team and the culture there," Heap said. "I really felt like I fit in and it aligned with my tennis goals at the time."
Heap admitted that he wasn't quite sure what it would be like when he arrived in January even though he'd visited during November the year before, and he was greeted with cold he hadn't ever imagined: a polar vortex.
"It was negative-55 Fahrenheit or something like that and the school closed for the first time in 25 years or so," Heap laughed. "I wasn't even used to anything below zero Fahrenheit, so I just stayed inside."
Martin, from Letchworth, England, had slightly more experience with the cold, but not at the level of Minnesota. The cold didn't bother him, though; he grew up playing indoor tennis and felt more comfortable playing inside, anyway.
"At the time, I wanted big facilities, so I was kind of blown away by how big it all was there. The size of everything, how great the facilities were," Martin said.
Martin was excited about the pace and back-and-forth nature of indoor tennis, and it was the main driver in his first college decision. He visited Wisconsin, Cal Poly and Denver, convinced that indoor tennis was his strong suit, but found that he may have been better fitted to outdoor matches.
"Tennis is very quick, very fast-paced and explosive. I like to make points go on longer," Martin explained. "I'm not the quickest guy myself, so I like to maneuver the point and gradually win the point. I'm not the type of guy that can just bang-bang win a point, and that's what indoor tennis is."
"I think at Minnesota and in the Big Ten, it's not just indoor, those guys are top college players at that game style," Heap added. "When you're 18 and you're playing 22-, 23-year-olds who are massive and have big serves, it's a completely different type of game there. It's very different from junior indoor tennis."
"And I actually didn't realize I preferred outdoor tennis until I came here, but this just fit for me at the time and then actually worked out better for me. I realized I prefer slow, outdoor tennis," Martin said.
Heap wasn't as concerned with the indoor versus outdoor decision; he visited schools in California and Minnesota as well. But the two didn't expect to have to use their recruiting connections again, and certainly not as early as their sophomore year.
Then, they got the bad news.
Starting Over
"Athletics is no longer able to financially or equitably sustain 25 varsity programs, and pending approval of the Board of Regents, we will discontinue men's indoor track and field, men's outdoor track and field, men's gymnastics and men's tennis at the completion of their 2020-21 competition season."
On Sept. 10, 2020, the athletic department at the University of Minnesota released a statement communicating their decision to vote on cutting three men's sports due to COVID-related budget cuts. A month later, on Oct. 9, the Board voted 7-5 to cut the teams.
"We were forced out," Martin said. "Forced to transfer."
When the two hit the transfer portal, calls began to roll in. Heap entertained Pennsylvania, Rice and a renewed effort from Pepperdine, among other schools. He was close to committing to Penn, but being an Ivy League institution, it would only transfer about 10 of his 75 credits.
"I decided not to do that because I didn't want to start again," Heap said. "I was looking for a pretty good academic school, and Rice is obviously still very good. I got 55 or 60 credits transferred, I got a pretty good scholarship, so I decided to go there."
Elon wasn't even on Heap's radar the first time around, though Martin cheekily suggested that the Phoenix "reached out to every player in the portal." Heap spent his next two years at Rice, completing his degree and traditional four-year stretch of college tennis before beginning to consider a fifth year with his options open.
One of those options was beckoning him in with open arms: the Phoenix. Since the Gophers program was shuttered, Martin had settled in on the outdoor courts of the Jimmy Powell Tennis Center. He had considered schools around the country – New Mexico, St. John's, the University of the Pacific – before settling on what felt like the "best all-around offer" at Elon.
"When I first came, the team made me feel very welcome, but it's tough when you come in the middle of college," Martin said. "Most people make a lot of their friends freshman year, so it was tough moving away to a new place."
Despite the challenge of transferring, Martin had a hot first season as a Phoenix. That spring, he recorded a streak of 12 singles wins in 13 chances, also winning 10 of 13 doubles matches. He remained an anchor for the team into the following season when Elon would lose a tight 4-3 match to the Rice Owls and Heap.
"It didn't take much convincing because he'd seen Dylan play," Martin said of head coach Michael Leonard's decision. "He obviously knew the results, but he took my word and trusted me about how good Dylan is."
The Phoenix Phase
Heap has been a welcome arrival for the entire team, but especially for Martin. The two were roommates during their sophomore year at Minnesota and "basically lived together" freshman year as well, sharing in the challenges of high-major tennis in a new country.
Heap has battled through injuries this season, but with the two reunited at Elon, they feel like their college career is coming to a close how they'd hoped it would despite their winding roads to the Piedmont of North Carolina.
"It feels like a great spot to say goodbye to the sport. Minnesota is different and Rice is also different but I think what's the most different is my role on the team," Heap said. "I'm now the oldest person here and all the guys on the team are great, great people. It makes my time on the court easy and makes time off the court with them easy."
"In terms of being comfortable here, I think it's a great place to finish my last year of college because Dan's made it easy for me to transition here and it's just been an easy ride and smooth," Heap continued.
"I obviously didn't have a former teammate here [my junior year]," Martin laughed. "But now, I feel like it's very, very comfortable."
Under the experienced leadership of the foreign-born Martin and Heap, the Phoenix has rattled off 12 wins in 19 opportunities and is 3-0 in conference play, including a 4-3 win at No. 68 William and Mary. They've lost only two matches at the friendly confines of the JPTC.
After Senior Day on Friday against Radford, the team will set its sights on winning the CAA championship that has narrowly eluded them the last few years in what is coach Leonard's last season.
"It'll be a great group to graduate with, and we know what we want," Heap said. "We're looking forward to competing for it."
The only remaining question is whether the trophy will return home – not to New Zealand, to Britain or even to Minneapolis or Houston – but back to their adopted home-away-from-home: the Jimmy Powell Tennis Center.
'Rising Phoenix' is a new student-led initiative to cover Elon Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, Elon University students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department's various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix on Twitter (@EURisingPhoenix) and Instagram (@elonrisingphoenix). Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Jacob Kisamore at jkisamore@elon.edu.
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