Once a year, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) awards one college tennis player with the Ann Lebedeff Leadership Award. This year’s winner was Leawood, Kansas, native Nathan Turtledove, who just graduated from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York.
The highly competitive award — which comes with a post-graduate scholarship endowed by Billie Jean King — recognizes “a recent college graduate who played college tennis and demonstrated excellence on and off the court, leadership on his or her team as well as on his or her college campus and in his or her community,” according to the ITA website.
Outside of these qualifications, Turtledove had to write an essay on the importance of community service and have his coach, professors and teammates send letters of recommendation to ITA on his behalf. Once selected as a finalist, the president of the university had to send in a letter of recommendation as well.
At St. Lawrence, Turtledove served on the board for the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, which represents all the university's sports and athletes. He also served as president of the Jewish Student Union; was a co-founder and vice president for the campus’s Students Supporting Israel; and helped organize community service days through St. Lawrence.
“To me, leadership is doing all that you can for others and helping them through whatever else they need,” Turtledove said.
Turtledove’s history with tennis began when he was 10 years old and first began playing at Oakwood Country Club in Kansas City, Missouri. Within two years, he was already playing at a competitive level and joined the Kansas City United Tennis program. He became one of the youngest certified United States Tennis Association officials in the country at 15 years old.
“I did that just to give back to the sport that gave me so much, to help younger kids in their journey, and just to give kids the opportunity for fair play that they wouldn't necessarily have otherwise,” Turtledove said.
Receiving the Ann Lebedeff Leadership Award as a Jewish person holds significance for Turtledove. He did not play against many other Jewish tennis players in collegiate tennis, but said his participation in the JCC Maccabi Games as a high school student was a highlight in his overall career.
“I think my Jewish identity, my background, plays a huge role in who I am today [and] who I've always been,” Turtledove said. “It's the reason that I stepped into a lot of these leadership positions. I wanted to make meaningful changes.”
In addition to his tennis career, he interned last summer with the Kraft Group’s Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Turtledove will be recognized for winning the Ann Lebedeff Leadership Award at a dinner on the first night of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships on Aug. 26. With the mentality of “paying it forward and giving back,” during the weekend, Turtledove will also run and participate in activities at the U.S. Open’s Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day family event.
Turtledove cites his family, friends, teammates and coaches for helping him get to where he is and in receiving this award.