In a match of true champions, Fordham University senior offensive lineman and team co-captain Garrick Mayweather, Jr., picked up a racquet and went head-to-head with one of his professors, Mark Naison, PhD, on the Hawthorn/Rooney Courts on May 3, the two men raising funds for charity.
Mayweather was downed by Naison, 6-2.
The charity match was proposed by Naison when he discovered that Mayweather was a tennis player in high school. Naison challenged Mayweather to a match with the loser having to donate to the winner’s charity of choice.
A consensus All-American on the offensive line for the Rams in 2015, Mayweather played #1 Doubles and #1 Singles in high school, winning a regional championship in doubles his junior year. He has continued to play tennis on and off, but has not played in a competitive match in four years.
Naison also has a tennis background, having attended Columbia University from 1962-1966 where he was captain of the school’s tennis team, playing #1 singles at the school during the 1965 season. In 1966, he played #2 singles and came in third in the Eastern Intercollegiate Doubles Championship.
After the 6-2 loss, Mayweather will be writing a check to the Bronx African American History Project (though Naison is willing to wait until Mayweather signs his first NFL contract, he said). However, Naison decided that he will still write a check to Mayweather’s charity, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
–Joe DiBari
