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November 15 • 2018
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jn
asha Hartje was a busy young
woman in high school.
She played tennis, volleyball
and soccer for Detroit Country Day
School. Outside of school, she played
high-level travel hockey.
She was a tennis state champion in
2016 and 2017. She was a member of
the Tier II 14-and-under AAA nation-
al champion USA Eagles hockey team
in 2014.
Her accomplishments in sports
and academics at Country Day led to
her being named one of nine Class B
winners of the Michigan High School
Athletic Association’s Scholar-Athlete
Award for the 2016-2017 school year.
And she was named the 2017 Jewish
News Female High School Athlete of
the Year.
Hartje attends Emory University, a
private school near Atlanta, Ga., and
plays tennis for the Eagles.
Just tennis.
“I was excited to see what I could do
if I devoted all my time to one sport.
But I also was worried that maybe I’d
get bored playing only tennis,” she said.
Boredom hasn’t set in.
“I’ve fallen more in love with tennis
than ever before,” Hartje said.
Hartje, 19, is a sophomore at Emory.
She’s 11-8 in singles and 9-11 in dou-
bles so far in her college career.
“I prefer playing doubles,” the 5-foot-
8 Bloomfield Hills resident said. “I like
the aggression that’s needed to win in
doubles.”
Her college tennis career got off to
a slow start. She was sidelined for two
months by a stress fracture in her right
shin in fall 2017.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been
hurt playing sports. Among her inju-
ries are a broken arm, broken wrists,
and a torn tendon and ligaments in her
ankle.
Hartje said the stress fracture made
her sad, “but I know what it takes to
recover from an injury.”
While Hartje’s wins and losses play-
ing tennis for Emory are important,
especially for someone who is fiercely
competitive and hates losing, they don’t
tell the full story of her time so far at
the school.
“The other girls on our team are
my best friends, and our coach (Amy
Bryant) is like a second mom to me,”
Hartje said. “She’s there if you need
to talk about something on or off the
court.”
Having a solid relationship among
teammates is essential in college tennis
because teams have small rosters.
“There’s only 10 of us on the team at
Emory,” Hartje said. “If we didn’t like
each other, that could ruin the whole
team dynamic.”
Team is a big deal in the Emory
women’s tennis program. The Eagles
are a perennial NCAA Division III
power.
Bryant led Emory to team national
championships in 2003-2006, 2014
and 2016. Her teams are 382-96 in
her 19 seasons as Emory coach with
13 appearances in the team national
finals including a runner-up finish this
spring.
When she isn’t playing tennis, Hartje
enjoys her time on the 630-acre Emory
campus.
“You’re a 10- to 15-minute walk
from everything and while Emory is
a small school (undergraduate enroll-
ment is nearly 7,000), it’s not like you
know everyone when you’re walking
around,” she said.
Academics also have gone well for
Hartje, who wants to pursue a career in
marketing.
Her parents, Tod and Nicole Hartje,
were athletes at Harvard University,
and her brother Jake plays hockey
there.
“I considered going to Harvard, and
it would have been amazing to go to an
Ivy League school, but I wanted to fol-
low my own path,” Hartje said. ■
Send news to stevestein502004@yahoo.com.