Ferguson's academics earn him 2nd-team honors

As if beating five top-ranked players while being a sophomore and captain of a top-50 team isn’t enough, Lachlan Ferguson is back to making a name for himself again. This time, his accomplishments include off-the-court achievements.

Carrying a 3.9 GPA, along with a solid sophomore season, the Hoosier captain earned second-team honors when the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) announced the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District teams.

The honor is a precursor to becoming an All-American, the most prestigious award for a college athlete. But to become one, Ferguson would have needed to be named to the first team.

“Obviously, it’s pretty difficult juggling those kind of things, academics especially,” Ferguson said. “When we’re in season, in the spring and actually part of the fall as well, you have to have really good time management skills, which is something I’m always working to try and get better at.”

As a fitness specialist major in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Ferguson usually takes 15 credit hours a semester, but he cut down the amount of credit hours during the spring semester to help him balance his studies and tennis.

“It was a little bit easier on me to get everything done that I wanted to, but you just have to make a lot of sacrifices,” Ferguson said. “I don’t go out a lot, particularly in the spring, but that’s just one of the things that I have to deal with to do well with my studies and on the court as well.”

The Adelaide, Australia, native’s mind-set of never settling is an attitude IU coach Randy Bloemendaal said makes Ferguson a nationally ranked player.

“He’s very professional about the way he goes about anything that he sets out to do,” Bloemendaal said, “and he wouldn’t necessarily have to make straight A’s or even set a goal to achieve straight A’s, but that’s always the goal for him every semester.”

Bloemendaal said he believes Ferguson’s attitude toward his academics helped raise the team GPA and set an example for his mostly freshmen squad.

“You can do so much as a coach, but if you don’t have the leadership in a team, things can stall out, and he can move that along,” Bloemendaal said. “Until you have one person that kind of leads by example, I don’t think the message clearly gets sent, and I think he does a good job at that.”

Ferguson earned All-Big Ten honors and finished his season 22-13 in singles play and 23-12 in doubles action.

“Every day at practice, Lachlan is the first one out of the locker room, the first one ready for practice,” teammate Stephen Vogl said. “He’s always dedicated to the sport, always has a goal in mind of what he wanted to accomplish on that specific day.”

Ferguson’s accomplishments and dedication do not go unnoticed by his teammates.

“He’s definitely the most hard-working person on our team in terms of workouts, conditioning, tennis,” Vogl said. “He was never on the bottom tier of our team in any competition we did.”