Davey Rashid’s high school sports career ended a day earlier than the Streator High senior may have wished, but the rushed, chaotic, incredibly competitive atmosphere at this year’s rain-affected IHSA Boys Tennis Finals was a somewhat appropriate finish for The Times 2022 Boys Tennis Player of the Year.
A four-sport athlete with the havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic planted right in the middle of his high school career, Rashid was never phased by being rushed, dealing with chaotic scheduling and still having to find a way to compete at a high level.
The spring of his senior season was just another chance for Rashid to show his ability to navigate an uncertain schedule, as the repeat Times Player of the Year followed standout seasons in soccer, golf and basketball with a dominant tennis regular season, a runner-up finish at the Class 1A Ottawa Sectional and a second straight berth in the IHSA State Finals.
“The start of the season I was still playing fine, but with all of the rain delays the first three weeks and tournaments canceled, things started off slow,” Rashid said. “We hadn’t really gotten in a groove yet, but once we got going and having two to four matches a week, everything was good. ...
“My goal was to win the sectional. That didn’t happen, but I still reached every other goal I had — undefeated regular season, qualifying for state, stuff like that.”
Davey’s older brother, Greg, was also a state-qualifying tennis ace for outgoing Streator High tennis coach John Sandoval.
“I’ve been blessed with some great singles talent the last five years with Greg and Davey,” Sandoval said. “Davey is the type of kid who is out there playing every day. He does soccer, he does golf, he plays basketball as the defensive [stopper] for the team. He’s just an athlete.
“That’s the biggest thing. He’s just an athlete. He loves competing, and everything he does, he wants perfection.”
Rashid’s winning ways carried over to the rest of the Bulldogs team.
With a quick win at No. 1 singles as good as in the books most afternoons, a talented freshman heir apparent (Ryan Beck) playing No. 2 singles and a couple competitive doubles teams, more meets than not Streator was in contention to score a close team victory. It made for an exciting senior season for Rashid, while also giving him the chance to get Beck ready to take over at No. 1 next spring.
“I kind of took him under my wing a little bit,” Rashid said of the promising freshman. “He and I hit every practice together, and he has super good fundamentals. I played No. 2 singles my freshman year too, so I knew what was expected. ... I thought it was great. I’d never really [mentored] someone to that degree, and I thought it went great.
“I don’t want to sound cocky, but I’d usually win pretty quickly, and I could go on and cheer on the No. 2 singles and No. 1 doubles. It was great, because when No. 2 singles won, our whole team would be focusing on No. 1 doubles. You usually don’t get the chance to see your team play a lot of live matches, because you’re playing.
“I thought this year more tossups than ever where if we won we were going to win the meet, and I thought it was a lot more fun.”
A player who relies on a high tennis IQ and pure hitting power, Rashid plans to continue playing the game, perhaps at the club level in college. He over the years considered dedicating himself year-round to the game he excels most at and perhaps elevating his game to the level where he could play competitively on the type of large university campus he plans to attend academically, but in the end dedicated himself instead to doing everything he could as a Streator Bulldogs.
“I thought about taking the winter off and going down to Bloomington to do tennis indoors ...” Rashid said, “but ultimately, I don’t regret playing all four sports this year instead of focusing on tennis. A value I was taught at a young age was to be an all-around athlete and an all-around academic. If I played tennis every day all year, obviously I would be better, but I think it helped a lot of other things — playing other sports helped my tennis game, and playing tennis helped my other sports.
“I want to contribute the most I possibly can to my school. Focusing on one sport is selling myself short from the soccer team and the golf team and the basketball team, where I could have contributed. I did contribute, and we ended up having a successful season in all of them as a team, not just individually.
“I had the mindset throughout the last four years, I wanted to be involved and I wanted to have those experiences. ... I think it worked out.”