Welcome to Season 8, Episode 36 of the ParentingAces Podcast. In this week's episode, we hear from the 2019 ITA Division I Arthur Ashe Leadership & Sportsmanship Award Winner Isaac Perez and his college coach Dan Oosterhous. Apologies for the poor sound quality - we recorded this episode while sitting outside during Arthur Ashe Kids Day and it was just a little noisy out there!

Coming from a military family, it wasn't so far-fetched that Isaac Perez would look to the military academies to further his education and tennis career. While he was a solid 4-star recruit according to TennisRecruiting.net, he knew he wanted to fly jets once he completed his college degree. Air Force Academy Men's Coach Dan Oosterhous said he could tell right away that Isaac would be a great fit for his academy and his team. He noticed leadership qualities in Isaac from the first time they met and was thrilled to nominate Isaac for the prestigious ITA award.

You will hear from both Isaac and Coach Oosterhous about what's involved in recruiting at one of the military academies and how it differs from "civilian" programs. If you would like more information on how the military academies work, both in terms of academics and tennis, we will be doing a follow-up podcast with Coach Oosterhous very soon. In the meantime, you can contact Dan Oosterhous at Daniel.Oosterhous@usafa.edu.

I know you all join me in wishing Isaac all the best as he pursues his dream of flying jets and defending our country. If he is indicative of all the men and women in our armed forces, we should all feel very well-protected!

As always, a big thank you to Morgan Stone, aka STØNE, for our intro and outro music this season and congratulations to him on his latest performance in San Francisco! You can find more of his music at SoundCloud.com/stonemuzic. If you’re interested in House Music, please be sure to check out his social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. 

If you’re so inclined, please share this – and all our episodes! – with your tennis community. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the ParentingAces website. If you haven’t already, be sure to become a Member of ParentingAces – we have 4 options for you – by clicking here.

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