By. Nick Morgan, Sports Editor
A series of stories from our international athletes and their journey to Asbury
The flight from Wilmore, Kentucky to Nassau, Bahamas is just under 1000 miles, but that distance didn’t stop tennis player Josh Turnquest from choosing to attend Asbury University. He had dreams of playing professional tennis in high school, but a reality check from his father persuaded him into looking at going to college.
“My dad influenced me,” said Turnquest. “He said, ‘Josh, I’m not telling you you can’t be a professional, but you should go to school and get a degree, and you can pursue it afterwards if that’s something you still want to do because you never know what will happen with things like injuries.’”
So Turnquest sent a few emails out to some colleges in America. He waited two months before hearing anything. “A lot of schools told me they already have their teams set up for the next season,” Turnquest said.
Three schools emailed Turnquest back expressing interest: Division I Liberty University and two NAIA schools, Cornerstone University and Asbury. “I went on a visit to Liberty, and I got a chance to play with some of the guys, but they were, you know, cussing on the court, and I didn’t think that would be a good fit for me, and my parents agreed,” said Turnquest.
Turnquest received a call from Jared Miller, the head coach of the tennis program here at AU. He said that in listening to what Asbury was all about and who some of the guys were on the team, he knew that this was the place for him. “When it came down to Cornerstone and Asbury, I found out there were guys from the Caribbean, one from Barbados and a couple guys from Trinidad and Tobago, … [and] that made the decision for me when I found out there were people from the same area as me.”
Turnquest has shown that he made the right decision by coming here. His freshman year, he was awarded Conference Rookie of the Year as well as Player of the Year, along with the NAIA Eastern Region Rookie of the Year. He was ranked 30th in the country in singles play and 21st in the country in doubles. He’s also earned two straight Second-Team All American awards, and he’s just entering his junior season.
Be on the lookout for Turnquest and the rest of the AU tennis squad to make noise in the conference once again this spring.
