8 Siblings Pulling for UVa Standout at NCAA Tennis Championship

May 13, 2011, 1:34 pm

I first met Jarmere Jenkins about a decade ago, when he was a precocious 10-year-old living with his eight siblings in the family’s modest home in College Park, Ga. When you have nine kids, six of whom were adopted from some of the worst backgrounds imaginable, you’ve got to do something to keep everyone in line. Jarmere’s parents chose tennis, and over the past decade and a half they have worked late-night shifts and extra hours to pay for their children’s training, positioning several for the rigors of college tennis. (Jarmere’s brother Jackie Jr. played at Northwestern, while another brother, Jarmaine, starred at Clemson.)

Jarmere, now a sophomore on Virginia’s undefeated and No. 1-ranked team, will try to accomplish what neither of those brothers did when he steps on the court tomorrow for a first-round NCAA tournament match: win a national title. Jarmere, who plays No. 4 singles for the Cavaliers, has been ranked as high as 16th nationally, a testament to UVa’s depth. If he helps his team win it all, it would be the university’s first NCAA team title in men’s tennis. [Updated, June 1, 2011: Virginia reached the finals of the team championship before losing 4-3 to the University of Southern California. Jenkins reached the round of 32 in the individual event.]

I wrote a profile of the Jenkins family for Tennis magazine in 2001, which chronicled their challenges in raising such a large brood, including two adopted children who were born with drug addictions and another pair born legally blind. Jackie Sr. and Brenda, Jarmere’s parents, are two of the most inspiring people I have ever met. I watched Mrs. Jenkins, who insisted on bringing all the extra kids into the home after nurturing them through foster care, get up before sunrise one day to iron all the children’s clothes and ready them for school. Her husband has worked the overnight shift as a dispatcher at the gas company for more than 30 years, a schedule that puts him home when the kids get out of school.

Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins never allowed their financial situation to temper their spirit. When the United States Tennis Association didn’t help out two of their older sons as much as the family wanted, they found other ways to provide them the elite training they needed. That often meant doing it themselves. Mr. Jenkins, a self-taught player with an easy-going style, loaded everyone up in the family van, and drove off to the local park to feed them ball after ball.

Back then, Mr. Jenkins told me, he and his wife used tennis to keep the kids busy and out of trouble, and to keep the family connected. The sport also showed their children a path out of their lower middle-class life: “Tennis is an intelligent game; you’ve constantly got to think on your own on the court,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Then, when you go to tournaments, you’re surrounded by intelligent people. If it wasn’t for tennis, none of my kids would be exposed to that. It’s going to change their lives.”

After my story came out, the Jenkins’s got a call from a producer for Oprah Winfrey’s show. Soon afterward, the Oprah crew showed up at their three-bedroom house, not far from the Atlanta airport, to film scenes from their hectic lives. They were later featured on a program about extraordinary families.

Their story touched a nerve not just because of Jackie Sr. and Brenda’s extraordinary efforts to provide a home for so many needy children. But as their sons climbed the rankings–at one point, Jackie Jr., Jarmaine, and Jarmere were all ranked No. 1 in Georgia in their respective age groups–they upended stereotypes. Tennis was (and still is) a game dominated by well-to-do white kids, but not when the Jenkins boys stepped on the court.

From an early age Jarmere told people he planned to play pro tennis one day, and that’s still his goal. He thought about skipping college and heading straight to the tour, but he’s happy he didn’t choose that path. “Starting off I didn’t really like it that much,” he says of campus life. “But the university kind of grew on me. It’s really been a great opportunity to just learn and better myself, and I’ve built great relationships with coaches and players as well as people outside of athletics. It’s nothing short of fun, really.”

Jarmere, who has also qualified for the NCAA singles and doubles championships, which follow the team tournament, plans to complete his degree before trying his hand on tour. When that day comes, he’ll likely have no shortage of help from his family. Two of his older brothers are now full-time tennis coaches, and his dad still keeps his hand in the game. All of their expertise, Jarmere says, “would sure help me out.”

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cdleephd

“That very likely is because the persons entering the most competitive schools are smarter and more disciplined than those going to the less competitive schools.” This presupposition is the basis of a lot of flawed research. The Chronicle’s January 25th article entitled “At Elite Colleges, Legacy Status May Count More than Was Previously Thought” helps to debunk the idea that our colleges are meritocracies. “Brown and Cornell Are Second Tier” reported on January 7th discusses how prestigious firms attempt to hire graduates of prestigious schools almost regardless of the student’s individual achievement. They go on to say, “There are exceptions, but only if the candidate has some personal connection with the firm.” With the assumption that prestigious firms pay more, this might be an explanation for an income gap.
So, a reasonable conclusion is that if you are born ahead, you stay ahead, regardless of how smart you are or how hard you work. A very smart kid born to a graduate of an elite school may not be smarter than others, but he gets admitted anyway. Then he gets a job a better firm, though other kids outperformed him in college, learn more, and might be brighter than he, because he is ‘connected’ and/or he went to the elite school.
All things being considered (even without considering the fact that mounds of research indicate that your socioeconomic status is a better predictor of college admission than most other factors), it is even more appalling that the author would offer the unsupportable notion that “smarter” kids are “more disciplined.” There is plenty of evidence to refute both ideas. Let alone the notion of free will. The smarter kids might not go to elite colleges because they choose to go to other colleges where the live, attend where they can afford to go, attend where their parents went to school, choose BYU instead of Harvard for religious reasons, etc.
I would expect more from researchers than pundits who want to wage a war of words to advance their political positions. I am totally shocked that in the 21st century we are still making assumptions about intellect and ability based upon one factor—college admissions. When for centuries elite colleges have replicated themselves by preferring WASP males from ‘good’ families–the families like the ones of those who make such decisions.
hhopf

First, I would suggest you report median rather than mean values and report the variance (interquartile range). A few individuals with very high earnings will skew the data (and the variance would be interesting in the less competitive schools, where perhaps the highest achievers do just as well as the highly competitive grads). Secondly, it would be useful to stratify by SAT/ACT scores or some other measure of pre-college achievement. There was a paper a few years ago (can’t find the reference, sorry) where they looked at students accepted into the most competitive schools (I think the Ivies, possibly fewer) and compared those who went there and those who went elsewhere. There was no difference, suggesting that it is the student rather than the institution that makes the difference. As the product of two Ivy institutions (undergrad and grad), I think there is a benefit of the increased cost (and with financial packages, as pointed out recently in these pages, it isn’t as big as it looks)– being surrounded by highly competitive students, being connected to successful alums, being expected to excel. On the other hand, I think the reason for applications going up is misunderstanding of the data more than reality.
jffoster

I suspect there’s more to this particular story and some pieces missing. Otherwise, with a Ph D from Harvard in Classics and being a Latin scholar, it’s a wonder industry didn’t snap him right up.
11182967

It’s good to see Richard Vedder doing some really useful research. My one quibble with the article would be the addition of the judgemental term “too” before “much” in the penultimate line of the second pargraph. Vedder could have made his economic point without riding a hobby horse.

These results could very well have been referenced in that other article today about research which confirms things we already know. The really interesting research would consist in determining why these results occur. Most of us would speculate, I suppose, that elite institutions provide opportunities for the creation of connections among the elite which lead to better jobs at better pay. Is that what does it? We all know about legacies and arguments about various forms of affirmative action, but it would also make sense for the elite to carefully admit a certain amount of carefully vetted (Vedded?) “new blood” through the filters of elite institutions in order to avoid too much inbreeding. Is that what happens when choices are made about the admission of particular female or Black or Hispanic or Applachian students to the elite schools?–a bunch of guys who graduate with the “gentleman’s C” wouldn’t help you make the US News list these days (unless one was in charge of creating list, I suppose). Is there a correlation between the numbers of graduates of elite institutions in positions of political influence and the the decline of ostensibly public support for non-elite, public higher education?–are the elites carefully narrowing the opportunities for admission to their ranks? Are the higher earnings really deserved on the basis of the value of the work done or merely prizes that graduates of elite institutions give to each other in affirmation of their own (self-) importance–tokens of status: I’m valuable because I’m paid a lot, not I’m paid a lot because I’m valuable. Keep the data coming, Vedder–there could be some really useful research projects in the offing.
mbelvadi

Another really big factor that seems to be missing is students’ family wealth. We all know that it’s true that it “takes money to make money” and also that wealthy students’ families are going to be better connected socially/politically/job-hunting-ly, and thus coming from a wealthy family very likely leads to higher earnings for the degreed offspring regardless of which university they attend. Combine that with the known skewing of wealthier families to the most elite universities, and you could end up statistically with family wealth being a major confounding variable to the attempt to correlate elite-status of the university with the lifetime earnings of the graduate. Obviously I’m making lots of assumptions about what the data WOULD say – my point is that if you’re going to do quantitative analysis in this zone, you need to see what the data DOES say in this regard.
vschwar1

The paper to which hhopf refers is by Dale and Kreuger, “Estimating the payoff of attending a more selective college”. It was published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2002 (vol. 117:4). This paper does argue that there is no substantial difference in future earnings when you control for SAT/ACT scores. Thus, equally capable students seem to do as well no matter where they attend school. Interestingly, the one group for whom attending an elite school helps is minority students. It is likely that the increased earnings of higher achieving students is based on a combination of intellectual talent and family/social connections. For students from minorities, going to an elite school probably helps establish the social connections necessary to get ahead in the hi-earning world.
drj50

There was also a study several years ago of (if I remember correctly) students accepted at the University of Pennsylvania who chose instead to attend Penn State. The study found no difference in later earnings between the those accepted at Penn who attended Penn State, and those who actually attended Penn. The authors concluded that what mattered was what the student brought to the school and not what the school provided (educationally or in reputation) to the student.

Another study (again, if I remember correctly) found that while there appeared to be no difference in later earnings for most students who attended an Ivy, there was a measurable difference in earnings for ethnic minority students. The authors attributed this to the enhanced social connections that the experience provided.

Sorry that I don’t have citations for either study.
sand6432

The rise in applications to elite schools is surely an overdetermined phenomenon, attributable to multiple causes whose relative influence will not be easy to sort out. Other factors include the relatively recent move toward a “no loan” system by some of the most elite schools like Princeton and the adoption of the common application, which makes it much easier for students to apply to a large number of schools.—Sandy Thatcher
teachfordamasses

Sigh. Harvard-bashing, again. As an alum, I prefer to do my own bashing, thank you, based on actual knowledge. While there are many things wrong with Harvard, the idea that sheer admission makes the outcome difference at the end is not well-informed. It’s not even, in my opinion, social connections made, family wealth, the quality of teaching, Nobel-status of faculty, facilities, etc. There is one huge factor that people rarely acknowledge: the quality of the student body, not with respect to “making contacts”, but with respect to the 24-7 learning that takes place among students. They are well-read, motivated, smart, focused, intense, multi-talented, seriously intellectual–about the most impressive group I have ever been among, including my PhD cohort at Famous-State U that followed. Being at Harvard (and this is certainly true of other top schools) was an every-day, almost every-waking-minute exercise in the development of arguments, critical analysis and mind vs mind gladiator combat. Maybe it’s not like that now and it’s as Gen X (or NeXt) as other places, but back in the day, although there were some slackers (they were a tiny minority), it was your peers–in nonstop serious discussion of every topic–that made the difference. I’ve never experienced anything remotely like it since (including three additional respected universities as a faculty member.)
proftowanda

To the claim that Wisconsin is high in educational attainment: Yes and no. Wisconsin ranks high in high school graduates. But (per the most recent, 2011 census fact sheet on educational attainment) Wisconsin is below the national norm — yes, in the bottom half of states — in college graduates. The Chronicle could have checked that and localized its stats to the specifics to see just how much Walker is pandering to his people: Compared to the Chronicle’s stat that two-thirds (of those 25 years of age or older) of people in this country do not have a college degree, the comparate figure in Wisconsin is three-fourths of residents (25 years of age and older).

But where is Walker’s support? Let’s ask the Wisconsinites who know him well, from his previous job — as a public employee, almost all of his jobs — as Milwaukee County executive. Wait, we did ask them, in the gubernatorial election just a few months ago, when two-thirds of Milwaukee County voted against Walker, including his own hometown (a suburb, not the city), owing to his mismanagement that that cost the county again just weeks ago in another lost lawsuit for which Milwaukeeans will have to pay. But they’re the lucky ones compared to people who died because of Walker’s neglect of county facilities, from inmates at the county mental health institution to a teenaged boy killed when a half-ton piece of a county facility fell on him last summer. That lawsuit just was filed that will cost Walker’s constituents in Milwaukee again and again.

His support, his winning margin, came from the next county to the west, one of the most conservative counties in the country, whose population has soared with “white flighters” from Milwaukee who have turned on their former city — and turned to him for his rhetoric that barely masks what Walker really means. And they know what he means. They know. And now, so do you.
mikepierce625

The important think is balance. In private industry, the competitive marketplace places limits on how much unions can demand. If they push too hard, their jobs disappear. The public sector has monopoly power and taxing authority which effectively allow unions to ask for more and more until the public gets outraged enough to put a stop to it. Here in California, the unions have accumulated benefits that the general public views as outrageous. For example, it is almost impossible to fire a public school teacher no matter how badly they teach or how many students they have bullied and abused. Seniority trumps performance. Public employee pensions are incredibly generous when compared to the private sector. At some point the public will balk.
carefree1

katikoos,
Best post on this thread.

CF
bdmcd

Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows.

South Carolina -50th

North Carolina -49th

Georgia -48th

…Texas -47th

Virginia -44th

(By the way, Wisconsin is #2.)

just saying….
kopernikus

State rankings by SAT score are better explained by demographics than by union membership.
katikoos

Actually, I was instrumental, AS A PARENT who participated at my child’s school, in ridding the school of a tenured teacher who was ignorant, incompetent and inappropriate and to do it without too much work.

It is NOT impossible to fire tenured teachers if documentation exists of their incompetence or misbehavior. Sometimes, it does require those outside the ‘system’ to do the work of documenting though.

Unions, for the most part have assured that those without power or without much power and certainly without financial resources have a voice. That voice, gained through collective bargaining assures that they get what they LEGALLY are entitled to, that they are able to negotiate — not get whatever they want. Unfortunately, the few unions that have managed to get unreasonable concessions color our view of the concept of collective bargaining which merely aims to level the playing field.

Sitting in a gubernatorial office, collecting a governor’s pay hardly supports the concept that it is UNIONS that are the problem.

It was the linking of budget and employee compensation to the right to collective bargaining that is central to this debate.

However … we might all question where all the money has gone. Where are American dollars going? to unions? to Unionized workers? to teachers? or to the defense department … to major contractors who command huge contracts to pay for their lobbyists and office spaces adjoining the Federal government. In fact, if you want to find some money, look at Wall Street, look at oil companies and other huge corporations that have even bigger profits. YOu might actually find far more resources there than with the working class public employees.
coolbeans413

I have a tremendous amount of respect for teachers as well as public servants. Its not a question of personal respect. Its a question of fairness and ability to pay. Wisconsin is broke. This is not an overnight surprise. The public employees union could have and should have done more to help avoid a crisis. Look again at Ohio– they are also considering a similar bill- Senate Bill 5. Feel free to google it.

If there were a mass of Newt Gingrich’s living in Wisconsin, I’m sure that many of us would be glad to pick that pocket. But there isn’t. There is no big oil to squeeze in Wisconsin. There are no big corporations- this is not a business friendly state because of the tax policies and the deficit. The funding has to come on the backs of farmers and the blue collar folks, many of whom cannot buy their own health insurance nor save for retirement.

And by the way, there is a tremendous amount of support for Walker in my low-income, redneck part of the state- contrary to the assertion that Walker’s supporters are solely wealthy, white flighters from Milwaukee. Wealthy people could care less about what teachers make and are happy to live in the best neighborhoods with the highest property taxes that support them. They can afford it. The backlash against the unions is coming from the unemployed neighbor who’s house is in foreclosure.
missoularedhead

man, I wish I had a chalet in Sun Valley (actually, I don’t. I hate snow). I forgot to mention that I have a child, too. Rats. I really am a spendthrift, reproducing like that.
11126724

Those who attack unions don’t seem to realize they are attacking the one institution in American life that has prevented open class warfare for the past 80 years. Unions have allowed conflict over unequal (!) wealth to be negotiated in a manner that has mostly prevented bloodshed and property damage of untold potential scale.

Destroy unions at your peril, America!
11126724

It has nothing to do with democracy. It’s about class warfare, pure and simple. When is the last time any of you met a Marxist on campus? How many are there on your campus. Not very many, I bet. So how can they have so much influence as you allege? It’s all nonsense, what you say.
http://www.facebook.com/rick.vach Rick Vach

Great story, and great family success story.
http://ericstoller.com/blog/ Eric Stoller

Comments like this are why I generally do not read comments. So many trolls with ridiculous amounts of time on their hands. Shoot…I can’t believe I just fed on. Sorry folks, my bad.

The article isn’t about Spaniards…it is about Spanish-speaking individuals in the U.S.
davidsheridan

How does reaching out to one group automatically exclude another group? How does a translation option on a website constitute “preferred treatment?” ”Has this college stopped recruiting or admitting these unfortunate neglected “native-born, white, English-speaking students?” And automatically bringing up the “illegal” angle…congratulations, you win today’s Arizona award.
RedSucker

I understand your concerns…because I used to think exactly like this. But: What presumption you have to suddenly become caretaker or grand modifier of things for people you not know? What dirty assumptions you are making of the parents! And of course about yourself because this is what your construct is really all about….making you feel better. You see if YOU…a driven, success oriented person, personally, were those first generation parents you speak of, you would darn well learn Englinsh….fast (to the great betterment of all) or have (by your admission) your above bilingual kids explain it. Keeping the parents unilingual in the wrong lingua is more of the same. I wish I could make life a game of Candyland without the swamp for you ….REAL compassion for those of whom you seek to help would be a meeting and website urging parents and students to learn English fast, and well, or risk failure, isolation, second class banishment. PS None of these are my ideas. They are the arguments of obvious and daily proven, reality.
PSS Did you notice that with more unemployment checks, unemployment goes up? The more Spanish you use, the less English you will get. Do you really want less English? If so, why?
latino2

Language and culture are here to change (all sides). If you cannot face that challenge and work accordingly in order to create a human environment, education is not your place. If you are a “purist” on language and want to talk to me just llamame para atras.
jlbarcelona

Although I understand perfectly that the Spanish speakers catered to here are not Europeans, I have to say that I find the “predominantly white” and “Hispanic” dichotomy expressed in the article unfortunate; that said, it is not nearly as unfortunate as the Spanish translation offered on this institution’s website, which is not Spanish, but rather Spanglish.
greatcollegeadvice

Here’s an idea: translate the site into Chinese, too. Chinese parents are very leery of colleges that they cannot learn about independently. I often cannot get families to look beyond the US News rankings. If colleges are serious about attracting kids from around the world, then by all means, translate your websites–or big chunks of them–into the languages that parents speak. Of course it’s important that kids read the English…but the parents pay the bills.
11144703

Good advice, but add Korean, Japanese, Hindi / Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bangla, Malayalam, Telugu, etc. No need to include too many languages–just the major ones.
jlbarcelona

I’m a translator and editor. Although I track and debate how language changes every day, I also adhere to style guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style or the el País Libro de estilo and consult a range of dictionaries before I accept a given word in either language. If universities lower the writing standards for their website content (or any other “official” text) in any language as a tip of the hat to the families of prospective students, higher education is in big trouble.
toltonrpace

This is great to hear! I’m glad to see more schools taking this initiative. I am an alumnus of Emory University and I happened to work there as Asst Dean of Admission & Director of Multicultural Recruitment (’05-’07). At that time, I was the lone African-American on the recruitment part of the staff and I just happened to be bilingual (Spanish/English). I actually championed the hire of a Latino/Hispanic Recruiter and for us to look at launching “Emory en Espanol”. I’m proud to say that we did hire the aforementioned recruiter and I helped to lay the groundwork for translating our Admissions site and printed materials into Spanish! Within the next year, “Emory en Espanol” went live and the Latino/Hispanic recruitment efforts continue to date :-)
http://profiles.google.com/thomasgokey Thomas Gokey

Bingo! There’s rich material here (and tons of it) for dozens of dissertations on the sociology of knowledge. SR gives us two things that are genuinely new, it gives us a play-by-play documentation of how these theories mobilize, and how people mobilize around them, and this new way of communicating and thinking is genuinely changing the kinds of thoughts that are possible.

Thinking has always been a social act, but it has never looked like this before.