Conn Game Includes Sting After Layoff

Like the sun-tinted auburn highlights in her shoulder-length brown hair, the change in Missy Conn’s tennis game is subtle.

Two years ago the Cal State Northridge senior could have been a spokesman for Kampgrounds of America for all the time she spent bivouacking near the baseline. From that distant and nettlesome stronghold, Conn confounded challengers by sapping their spirits with her soft but taxing returns.

One coach described Conn’s game as a tennis version of the Chinese water torture. The maddening spin-till-I-win, hit-till-they-quit strategy catapulted Conn from the depths of unseeded anonymity to national semifinalist at the 1986 Division II championships.

But after a one-year layoff from tennis to concentrate on schoolwork, Conn is courting success with a new aggressiveness. No longer is she simply postmarking every ball “Return to Sender.”

“We tried for three years, but couldn’t get her to come to the net more and finish off the points,” Coach Tony Davila said. “She’s doing more of that now.”

Longfellow wrote that “All things come ‘round to him who will wait.” And Conn, 22, prospered by that credo at the junior high and high school level and through her first three years at Northridge. Being away from tennis last year, however, altered her attitude.

“I’m not as patient as I used to be,” Conn said. “I remember those matches of being on the court for three hours. I’m coming to the net more because I want to get off the court sooner.”

Despite her growing affection for a serve-and-volley style, rallying from the baseline is still the main component of Conn’s game. Sophomore Nicole Gillis characterizes her teammate as “a human backboard” who “gets everything back and doesn’t give anything up.” In a match last Thursday against UC Davis, Conn defeated Heather King, 6-1, 6-0, by mixing her strokes from familiar territory.

“She keeps you moving back and forth and side to side,” King said. “She doesn’t give you a chance to get into a rhythm. She either spins it, chips it, hits it deep or hits it short so you end up running around all the time.

“You can have long rallies with her but it’s tough to hit that one more ball over than she does. She doesn’t hit a lot of winners, but she wears you down.”

Conn, 22, wore herself out during her All-American performance in 1986 and gave up tennis to salvage her grade-point average and a hoped-for shot at graduate school, both of which were sinking because of her concentration on the game and little else.

“I was thinking, ‘What do I want to do after college,’ ” said Conn, who majors in home economics with an emphasis on child development. “I knew tennis wasn’t going to be my career. When I’m playing, I dedicate most of my energy to tennis and I don’t do any schoolwork. I felt it was a good time to take some time off and concentrate on other things.”

Conn, who worked full time as a preschool teacher last year while attending classes at Northridge, lifted weights to fill the exercise void left by tennis. It wasn’t until the second semester of this year--about 10 days before Northridge opened its season--that Conn wandered out to the campus tennis courts to watch practice.

“I was thinking about tennis in general and I got to talking with Tony,” Conn said. “He asked me if I was interested in playing again, so we were both kind of thinking the same thing.”

Like many athletes who, either by choice or circumstance, spend a year away from competition, Conn returned to the courts with new-found physical strength and a renewed appreciation for the sport.

Her teaching at the preschool also proved beneficial to her game.

“You need a lot of patience with 20 preschoolers,” said Conn, who continues to teach at the San Fernando Valley Child Guidance Clinic in Northridge. “You have to stay calm and relaxed just like you do on the tennis court.

“You also have to block out a lot of noise because if you really listen to all the noise that kids can make throughout the day, you just go crazy. That carries over to tennis because I have to be able to tune out people watching and playing on other courts so it’s like they’re not even there.”

As the team’s only senior, Conn serves as a kind of unofficial assistant coach. Davila split up the doubles team of Gillis and Allison Kincaid, which qualified for nationals last season, to pair the talented-but-volatile Kincaid with the low-key Conn.

“I’m very impatient,” Kincaid said. “I’m the player who likes to go for the big shots and I get inconsistent sometimes. Missy is just the opposite. I kind of get into her mode if I think I’m playing too radical.”

Conn is 13-7 in singles matches this season, 8-7 in doubles and is still in contention for a berth in the nationals. Northridge is in third place in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn.

Qualifying for nationals is one of Conn’s goals. And, like the change in her attitude about approaching the net, a self-described maturity has resulted in a subtle change in Conn’s approach to this year’s postseason competition.

“I’ve got more confidence and now that it’s my last year I don’t put so much pressure on myself,” Conn said. “I just want to have a good time so I can go ahead and do those things that I felt so pressured to do a couple of years ago.”