He chose to fly here - airfare, international athletes say, was in the $1,000 range - and then began a 14-day, government-recommended quarantine. One of eight international players on a 12-man roster, Okonkwo wanted to be with his teammates, who had developed a tight bond and assembled the best team in Hawkeye men’s tennis history. Okonkwo is a native of Berkshire, England, and over the summer was in discussions with his family back home about whether to wait until the second semester to return to the U.S., where he understood the COVID-19 pandemic was far from controlled. “… I still don’t understand it.” The news came quickly and coldly. “It just seemed like they were gunning to get rid of us, to be honest,” said Oliver Okonkwo, one of the team’s top players.

Hawkeye men’s tennis, which officially began in 1898, will be done after the spring of 2021. 21 that some athletes feel was not only misguided but cold-hearted. Yet the sport was among four discontinued by Barta, Iowa's 15th-year athletics director, and university president Bruce Harreld in their staggering decision announced Aug. That represented 0.59% of the athletic department’s $146.3 million budget. On top of all that: After golf, men’s tennis is the cheapest sport to operate on campus - either gender - with $857,787 spent in fiscal-year 2019. Under coach Ross Wilson, men’s tennis had earned a high-character reputation off the court that was also ascending on the court as one of the Big Ten Conference’s scrappiest teams. The team GPA in the spring was 3.84, the highest of any of Iowa’s 24 sports. 20 nationally (out of 245 Division I teams) before the spring season was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Iowa men’s tennis team was 12-2 and had risen to No. If you follow Hawkeye sports, you’ve probably heard this before. Gary Barta has long used a three-pronged mantra to outline how he wants his sports programs at the University of Iowa to function.

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