In the hyperbolic world of Syracuse tennis coach Luke Jensen – whose tongue rolls out assessments fit for infomercials, wrestling rings and used-car lots – constant desire for team promotion usually prompts his exclamatory phrases. Subtlety doesn’t fit Jensen’s flavor.

It’s his playfulness that makes his program rhetoric so innocent – are the hand gestures for attention, or attention deficit disorder? – and he seems to acknowledge his role as a character and a kid. But for two years, he was, like it or not, the unquestioned face of the SU tennis team he tries relentlessly to prop up.

And so the soft rise of the No. 1 singles and doubles player this year comes as a twist: With little fanfare, a freshman has emerged as the building block Jensen seems to have been looking for since arriving at SU three years ago. There’s irony in how he found her, too.

Scouring the nation for champions and winners, for those that believe, like him, that there are no moral victories, Jensen discovered Emily Harman after she had lost a match in a tournament in Arizona. In that, though, he saw enough.

‘There’s no ceiling in her game,’ Jensen said. ‘She has no flaws in anything she does.’

The whirlwind tour of Harman’s first season at Syracuse continues on, boosted by the accomplishment of leading the Orange to its best regular season ever, tested by the expectations pressed upon a 17-year-old still wetting her feet to what Jensen calls ’20-25 percent capacity’ to what she could be. She has paced SU’s 15-5 record, the best in program history, as it heads into the Big East tournament on Thursday poised to make a run.

Led by a freshman, Syracuse finally seems to be fulfilling Jensen’s master plan for reshaping the program. In his third year as coach, Jensen has finally hooked the prospect that can be its pillar.

She’s a 5-foot-9 blonde who teammates nicknamed ‘Sunshine.’ There’s almost nothing intimidating about her – until she crushes a 115-mph serve, with either hand.

‘I call her ‘West Virginia mean,” Jensen said. ‘She gets that growl going and she kind of snarls. She really does come out to play. And it really is the cornerstone for what we’re doing.’

For Harman, coming to Syracuse meant delaying a potential professional career. She had graduated high school early, at age 16, and considered taking a year off to dabble in pro events. She met Jensen at the tournament in Arizona, after losing. Jensen liked that Harman came back later in the afternoon to watch her opponent play her next match.

To Jensen, it was a sign of the competitive spirit he so treasures in recruits. To Harman, it was part of the developmental process she still feels she’s going through. It’s as if she’s still catching up.

Raised in a rural town in northeastern West Virginia – population 2,500, and the nearest mall is two hours away – she used to have to travel an hour and a half to use indoor courts. She got her first racquet at Wal-Mart.

She started playing tennis out of curiosity, developing her initial skill mostly just by watching others, and joined a small summer league for teenagers at the age of nine. By the end of the summer, she had won the league. At age 10, she was playing with the high school head coach.

Often she’d sign into USTA events and see she was the only West Virginian on the list. Her opponents came from tennis-centric areas, schooled and trained in serving and volleying since childhood, leaving Harman at a big experience disadvantage.

‘She never was given the opportunity,’ Jensen said. ‘The kids that went to the academies, that lived in the warmer climates, got to play six, seven hours a day.’

But few seemed to have the raw ability Harman has, Jensen added. ‘They’re one-dimensional,’ he said. ‘This girl has got all the dimensions. To see her grow, honestly, by the shot …’

Harman’s won her last seven matches, en route to a 9-2 record against Big East opponents. As she leads Syracuse into the Big East tournament beginning Thursday afternoon, she’ll face off against West Virginia. The Mountaineers have only one in-state player on their roster.

‘When I did go to these USTA tournaments all over the country, I was the little West Virginia peon who didn’t know what the heck I was doing,’ Harman said. ‘I was always the underdog. I kind of struggled with that because I was a little under-confident. Now I kind of embrace it and I kind of like it. It does take the pressure off a little bit.’

Now she’s emerged as the singular star for this Syracuse team, a team filled with underclassmen and young prospects as a result of the revamping of the program under Jensen. He’s got his pawns in place.

In each of his three years, Jensen has had a different player finish the season as the No. 1 single. Now, for the next three years, he seems to have found his cornerstone.

A diamond in the rough – or in the backwoods of West Virginia, an unlikely prospect feeder for a Big East school looking to churn out pros. But Jensen’s more than willing to let the other teams underestimate her.

After three years of unfailing promotion, maybe he’s content he almost let Harman slip under the radar. After three years of exclamations, maybe Jensen’s power game has found some spin.

Zach Schonbrun is the sports columnist for The Daily Orange, where his columns appear every Wednesday. He can be reached at zsschonb@syr.edu.

Published on April 14, 2009 at 12:00 pm