For Hayden, Connor and Mason Sass, playing tennis is a family affair.
The three brothers all currently attend North Central — Mason is a graduate student earning his master’s in management, Connor a junior and Hayden is in his first year at NCC — but the three have something else in common. All three are members of North Central’s tennis team. Mason, a former player during undergraduate, is now the team’s graduate assistant coach, and Connor and Hayden also play.
“We’re really family-oriented, we like to be close to each other,” said Connor. It is part of the reason that all three the Sass brothers chose to come to North Central, citing the closeness to home (all three are Nequa Valley alums) and small, close-knit environments as reasons for attending the College.
Though all three are playing, or have played, tennis in college, the paths they took to get there were all unique.
Mason remembers learning from his grandparents, who instilled a love in tennis in his parents as well. Connor, three years younger, wasn’t old enough to play with Mason and his grandparents. But, when Mason started taking more serious lessons at 13 years old, Connor, who was 10 years old at that time, joined him, playing tennis in between other sports like basketball and soccer. Hayden started playing tennis around the same time his older brothers did, but unlike his brothers, he started playing because his group of best friends did. Growing up around the courts made his friends interested in the sport too, and before Hayden knew it; he’d gotten his buddies hooked on the sport too.
Somehow, their paths all led to North Central, which seemed a natural fit. Connor admits he came to the college in part because he wanted to play as Mason’s doubles partner, and he got his wish his freshman year, when he teamed up with Mason during the latter’s senior year to form a formidable duo.
Growing up around two brothers who talked all the time about how much they loved North Central, Hayden picked North Central in part because of his brothers, but also because he wanted to keep playing tennis. The love for the sport runs deep now in all three of the Sass siblings.
But while going to school with your brothers may seem like a dream for some, it presents its own challenges for the Sass’s. Connor and Hayden, who grew up playing, and occasionally antagonizing, their older brother now have to call their brother “coach” which hasn’t been the smoothest transition. Making this transition was especially difficult for Connor, who went from playing alongside Mason to being coached by Mason in just one year.
“Our mother actually stepped in after a few rebuttals, and she kind of opened our eyes into realizing,” said Connor. “Once that happened, it just kind of opened my eyes… he’s here to do his job and do what he was hired to do, and he does a great job, he really does. And now we all get along great, I don’t have any problems.”
That’s maybe a stretch — they’re brothers, after all, so they still tease each other and aren’t afraid to be sassy.
“We’re sarcastic,” said Mason simply, in between Connor and Hayden bickering nearby.
Regardless of a little brotherly love here and there, that’s not to say that the three aren’t still close. Family is tremendously important for all three siblings. Living close to home means their parents can come to all their matches, home or away, that they can go home for dinner (or to do laundry) and that they were able to help each other out during their first years at North Central…even if Connor doesn’t always answer the texts that Hayden sends him when he has a question. But it works.
Each has their own group of friends, each is starting down their own path, but playing tennis with their brothers is a constant that they can always come back to.
“When you have your family on the team, it makes your team feel like family,” said Connor. “It feels like everyone of those guys are just as much as my family as those two guys are.”
This year will be Mason’s last with the team — he’s in his second and final year of the graduate assistant program. The Sass legacy at North Central will be left in Connor and Hayden’s hands, along with a young but growing tennis program that will only continue to improve.
