I got a state rule rewritten at 17. Then I played four years of Division I. Then I got sick and beat that too.

It started in Bradenton

Long before anybody was talking about the Gulf Coast as a place to live, I was a kid training at Nick Bollettieri's academy in Bradenton. In those years it was the hardest tennis room in the world. I trained alongside players who went on to win Grand Slams. Iva Majoli, who won the 1997 French Open, was one of them, and I beat her in practice. I hit with Jimmy Arias, Nick's first star and a top-five player in the world at the time.

I grew up a ranked junior in the Eastern section and competed nationally through my teens. In June 1989 the Eastern Tennis Association put me on the cover of its magazine with the rest of "Eastern's Class of 1989." I still string my own rackets, and have since I was a junior. Forty feet of string, tension set to the pound, every pull by hand in the right order or the frame is ruined. It teaches you patience with things nobody sees.

The rule they named after me

In New Jersey high school tennis, only first and second singles could qualify for the state singles championship. Third singles could not, no matter what the record said. I played third singles for East Brunswick High School. I went 43-1 over two seasons, was ranked 107th in the country in the 16-and-under division, and did not lose a regular-season match in two years.

In March 1991 the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association changed the rule because of me, opening the state singles tournament to nationally ranked, unbeaten third-singles players. The Star-Ledger reported that in high school tennis circles it was already being called the Dennis Hendrickson rule. The state tournament director said that after seeing what East Brunswick had done, they had to take a good look at it.

"If a player has good enough credentials, no matter what position they play, they should have a chance to play in the state singles tournament." Me, age 17, The Star-Ledger, March 14, 1991.

The sentence is still in the book. The NJSIAA's singles tournament regulations give the seeding committee the discretion to select exceptional third-singles players who are undefeated and playing behind two potentially seeded players. That language exists because a 17-year-old would not take no for an answer.

Then I went out and used it

The next season East Brunswick won its first state Tournament of Champions and finished the year ranked number one in New Jersey at 27-2. In the final against Newark Academy, with the match tied, I clinched the state title at third singles, 6-1, 7-5. I finished the season 25-3 and won the 1992 Middlesex Conference championship.

The rule did what it was supposed to do. East Brunswick became the first school in state history to put all three of its singles players into the semifinals of the state singles tournament. Change the rule, use the rule, make history with the rule. That is the pattern, and it has held up.

Recruited by Columbia, Rutgers, and the Naval Academy. I chose to compete.

Coming out of East Brunswick with that record I was recruited by Columbia in the Ivy League, by Rutgers, and by the United States Naval Academy. I chose UNC Charlotte, a Division I program in Conference USA where I could play from the first day. I looked past the name on the letterhead at where I would actually get on the court, and I went there. I would make the same call today.

Four years of Division I

Four years of NCAA Division I tennis at UNC Charlotte in Conference USA, four varsity letters, and a degree in Business Administration. The numbers on the plaque are the school's, not mine: 42 career singles wins and 18 in doubles. I won a career-high 14 singles matches as a freshman, which led the team, and 13 as a sophomore, tied for second. Over four years I played singles flights two through six and every doubles flight. Those 42 wins were the most of any letterwinner on the 1996 team, seven shy of the school's all-time top ten, on a senior-year squad that went 13-9 against one of the toughest schedules in program history.

That freshman season got me a letter from my state senator and two assembly members back in Trenton. I am on the cover of the 1996 media guide, and the school's record book lists me on the all-time roster, 1992 to 1996. I bring this up not to relive it but because it is the reason I can watch a match and tell you what the guy on the court is feeling. I have been the guy on the court with the crowd against him, at a much lower level than the ones I write about.

After the court

After Charlotte I studied journalism at Harvard University, and I am a member of the Harvard Club of Sarasota today. That training is part of why this site exists. I spent years managing shopping centers, which is where I learned that most arguments are settled by whoever actually read the document. Then I built Hendrickson Insurance, an independent agency in Sarasota, which is my day job and pays for the beer.

I came back to the game as an adult, coaching competitive juniors and adults in Sarasota. Nothing recalibrates your opinions about professional athletes faster than trying to teach a 14-year-old to hit a kick serve.

The hardest match

I was diagnosed with cancer and went through a full course of radiation to beat it. I lay under the machine session after session. I will tell you that tennis got me through it, and I do not mean the strokes. I mean the part of the game that teaches you to show up for a match you might lose, play it one point at a time, and never quit in the middle of it. I have been on the wrong end of the odds. It changes how you watch someone else fight through a fourth set.

Off the court, in Sarasota

I live and work in Sarasota, on the same coast where I trained as a kid. I have ridden out the hurricanes here like everybody else, and I have learned which roads flood because I drove them.

The photo is a kitten I pulled out of the middle of a three-lane highway, on foot, across moving traffic. She lived. My friends bring it up more than the tennis. Fair enough.

What this means for the takes

I am not a pro and I never say I was. I was a ranked junior who trained in the toughest room in the sport, a high school player good enough to get a state rule rewritten, and a four-year Division I starter who led his team in wins as a freshman. That is enough to know what a double fault at 0-3 in a major final does to a player's chest, and it is enough to know when a football analyst has never had a crowd against him.

You will get opinions here. You will not get picks, odds, or a link to a sportsbook. I have watched what betting does to people who love a game and I would rather talk about the culture around it honestly than sell you a parlay. Pull up a stool.