DAVIS, Calif. — "Tennis is usually not considered a team sport, but that was not the case with us," notes former UC Davis tennis superstar Brett Stone.

Stone was a four-year starter and letter-winner who earned a spot in the starting rotation from the first day he stepped on the court as an Aggie freshman after a standout career at San Ramon High School in Danville.

His first season, in 1967, Stone spearheaded the Aggies to the first Far Western Conference tennis championship in school history, with UCD taking the title with a tense 5-4 win over heavily favored Sacramento State.

In 1968 Stone was at it again as the Aggies claimed another conference title and the NCAA West Regional crown to qualify for the first time for the NCAA Division II championships in Fort Worth, Texas. The team finished ninth nationally that year.

It can be argued that this was the start of a proud and successful run of UC Davis tennis that continues to this very day.

"We were a close bunch," Stone explains.

"We loved being together. We cared for how we performed. We coached and encouraged each other and we became friends apart from the team."

Even nearly 60 years later, Stone is still in contact and close friends with several of his long-ago teammates.

Stone had a number of options coming out of high school, but explains with a laugh how he ended up at UC Davis.

"I didn't pick it, it picked me," he says.

"I had been leaning toward choosing the brand-new UC Santa Cruz until a close friend and Aggie tennis player, Rich Almassy - who was a year ahead of me - came home after his first semester. He pointed out that I no longer had a choice of what school I was going to attend. It was going to be UC Davis. Otherwise he and his older brother were going to seriously hurt me. Because I valued my life, I became an Aggie. As it turns out, it was the best decision I ever made."

George Stromgren was the Aggie head tennis coach in 1967, then Will Lotter took over for the final three seasons of Stone's UC Davis career. 

Lotter had been UCD's head football coach, winning an FWC championship in 1963 and later served as head men's soccer coach and Dean of Students.

Stone gives Lotter much of the credit for molding the team into a group that loved and supported one another.

"Will Lotter was fresh from a stint as Director of the Peace Corps in Malawi and loved to engage us in conversation about the political issues of the day - the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, social justice and world problems."

Adds Stone, "This made long road trips fly by and opened our eyes to a world beyond books and sports. This attention to world events beyond our insulated student lives made a permanent impact on me. I chose my major in international relations in the hope I could merge what I learned in the classroom with what I learned on those road trips. And I have held onto that interest and involvement throughout my life."

While road trips were a special highlight because they included a massive $7.75 per player daily allotment for meal money, Stone explains that they also provided a welcome escape from the rigors of undergraduate studies at a highly respected UC campus.

"Classes were always challenging, and the papers and quizzes and exams were non-stop," he says. "It was so refreshing to be carried away by athletics."

Stone has a long list of things that made being an Aggie athlete a special experience for him.

He liked getting clean socks, shirts and shorts every day before practice from the legendary Steve Reid, who ran the UC Davis men's locker room in the basement of Hickey Gym.

He loved the game-day uniform with "California Aggies" emblazoned in bold blue letters across the chest. And he loved admiring his treasured letterman's jacket that still hangs in his closet.

"Tennis practice meant I always had something to look forward to at the end of the day's classes," he says. "They were always fun and unpredictable and a total change of pace."

Stone tells an incredibly amusing story about an overnight stay in Arcata as the Aggies prepared for a Far Western Conference battle the next day against the Humboldt State Lumberjacks.

On a tight budget, the team pooled their meal money, found a nearby grocery store and decided to cook dinner together in their motel room's kitchenette rather than go out for fast food.

It was an enjoyable and bonding experience, to be sure, but as it became time to head to bed to ensure a good night's sleep before an always tough match with the talented Lumberjacks, Stone noticed a couple of his teammates, both upperclassmen, whispering and giggling.

Being a younger member of the team, Stone had been assigned to a pull-down Murphy bed in the small four-person motel room and suspected his whispering teammates were planning to fold him back into the wall in the middle of the night.

"I know what you guys are up to," he remembers warning them.

Still wary as everyone headed to bed, Stone collected all the team's rackets - made of wood in those days - and stacked them together in an intricate and delicate "trap" that would noisily collapse if anyone dared come near his bed that night.

A teammate did indeed trip on the rackets while heading to the bathroom around 2 a.m., and the resultant clatter woke everyone up, including teammates in the next room on the right and Coach Lotter in an adjacent room on the left.

The team still managed to beat the Lumberjacks the next day, then slept all the way home.

Stone still remembers coming home after what he describes as "an outrageously fun road trip" to encounter "endless exams, papers, readings and early-morning classes."

With his UC Davis degree in hand, Stone graduated in 1970 and says being on the tennis team opened up a whole new world for him competing in Open tournaments with a former Aggie teammate throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.

He won Open singles and doubles titles against international competition on the hard courts of Nova Scotia, the grass courts of Ireland and the clay courts of Scotland.

He was also a highly-respected longtime teacher in the Davis public school system and for a while was a successful businessman as the owner of his own tennis and running store, Run and Racket.

Speaking about his after-graduation tennis exploits, Stone notes, "I remember those years with extreme fondness. Our tennis, which in the beginning was our primary interest, ended up being the means by which we could be adopted as members of whatever community we visited, anywhere in the world. We became friends with everyone and were included in all their social events. What a jeweled gift that was. And none of it would have occurred had we not begun as UC Davis Aggie tennis players."