Determination and Drive Make Jamal a Blackstone/Franklin Scholarship Winner

It wasn’t until Zarina Jamal began her freshman year that women’s tennis became a bona fide athletic program at Roxbury’s O’Bryant High School. That was back in September, 2007.

Jamal is now readying to begin her college career at Wake Forest this fall, and she’s doing it with a little help from the Blackstone/Franklin Square Neighborhood Association’s annual scholarship drive, which awards select area seniors $1,000 toward books and/or a computer for college.

Part of what made Jamal a deserving recipient was the pro-active leadership stance she took four years ago when she realized her high school was without a women’s tennis team. The local tennis star refused to stop playing her favorite sport, which in her mind left only one option: she launched a new team.

“I think there was a citywide team at the time, but the high school didn’t have its own,” Jamal said. “It kind of put me off track since tennis was my favorite sport, and I thought something should be done about it. There was a team for every other sport, so why not tennis?”

Jamal first picked up a tennis racket at age six, learning the sport through lessons and numerous summer camps at the nearby Sport and Tennis Club.

“I went for two or three summers,” she said. “And then I just practiced and practiced and became more comfortable and got better so I wanted to pursue it. And ever since then I’ve been playing tennis.”

Jamal was determined to put together a competitive tennis team at O’Bryant, and to do so she had to surpass two major hurdles.

First, she had to get the support of not only the O’Bryant administration but also a faculty member that was willing to act as a coach. Jamal went straight to the school administration and quickly gained their support. A faculty member Jamal identified at Mr. Good agreed to volunteer his time to coaching the new team. 

The second hurtle was the bigger one: how do you form a team when you don’t have enough players interested?

“I had to gather people, and there weren’t many at first,” she said. “Tennis isn’t exactly a popular sport at my school, and nobody really felt it was as big of a deal as I did… so I had to get people together. We had about 12 people on the team the first year, but as the years went on the numbers increased.”

Jamal’s eleventh grade teacher, Nora Tsoutsis, attested to the commendable dedication with which she recruited enough of her O’Bryant peers to join the team and form a functioning, competitive unit.

“Zarina made arrangements to visit classrooms and made a personal pitch to students; she encouraged those who had never played tennis to try the sport,” Tsoutsis said. “Although her visits were geared towards the girl’s team, several boys ended up joining the boy’s tennis team as a result of her visit.”

This unmistakable drive and independence emanating from the then-high school freshman continued throughout her years at O’Bryant. Despite often being the underdogs, something she readily admits to be true, Jamal led the team as Captain through her senior year.

Her inherent determination was mirrored in the process by which she pursued her admission to college, once again forcing her to take matters into her own hands.

“I didn’t have a specific college that I have always wanted to go to, but I found Wake Forest just by doing research, asking people about it and going to visit,” she said. “When I visited I fell in love with the place and really wanted to go there.”

Tsoutsis echoed Jamal’s thoughts.

“During the college process, she invested the time to discover the schools that would be the best fit,” she said. “What I appreciated about Zarina is that she made decisions based on what would be best for her future, not simply based on location or on the schools her peers were applying to.”

“The day I got the [acceptance] letter, I actually jumped up and down and was so happy because it was my first choice,” Jamal said.

Although she doesn’t plan on playing tennis at the collegiate level, the drive with which she achieved her goal of bringing the sport to her high school will undoubtedly bring her great success at Wake Forest.