Scholar Stories: Ehrenschneider Expands Comfort Zone and Finds Career Path at Michigan
4/24/2024 2:33:00 PM | Men's Tennis
Continuing the series that began in 2016-17, each Wednesday MGoBlue.com will highlight a Michigan student-athlete and their academic pursuits. These are our Scholar-Athlete Stories, presented by Absopure.
By David Woelkers, Jr.
The measure of an athlete can be found not just in their talent, but their ability to roll with what life throws at them.
Senior men's tennis player Nino Ehrenschneider knows that first hand, having had to navigate a different education system and the COVID-19 pandemic on his way to earning a University of Michigan degree.
Even his decision to pursue a degree at all was the result of his ability to navigate uncertain waters; while Ehrenschneider took classes back home in Germany, it was mainly to serve as a backup plan.
"I decided to play tennis and try and earn my card for like six months, but I still signed in Germany for college and studied sports management for two semesters," Ehrenschneider said. "Kind of the reasoning behind it was just to keep the chance of going to college in the U.S. If you take a gap year that takes longer than nine months, you lose your eligibility. So there was some thinking behind it, but after high school, my first intention was to go professional. During the gap year, I kind of realized that I wasn't ready yet."
Ehrenschneider was far from the first tennis player to temper his professional aspirations straight out of high school. Unlike other regions, Europe often leaves these kinds of players without an apparent path to improve their games.
"We don't really have that system in Europe where you can play a sport while getting a proper college education," Ehrenschneider said. "It's not really a thing in Europe -- getting a scholarship, earning a degree and playing in general. Because of that, I never intended to go to college, but I realized I had to give myself a little bit more time and education has always been something that was really important to me. I think it's essential.
"I didn't know much about American college at all before. I didn't know about the University of Michigan and how great it is to get a degree here and go to school here, so I talked to people and they said, 'Yeah, this is a great university and you should definitely do this.'"
After matriculating to Michigan, Ehrenschneider chose not to continue pursuing sport management. Instead, he took on a path of study near to his heart.
"I guess I was always into the environment since the beginning when I was little," Ehrenschneider said. "I actually joined a non-profit organization called Plan for the Planet and I was an ambassador there and learned a lot about the environment. I'm also a nature guy. I just like to slow down and find my inner peace a little bit there because, I don't know, for me, time stands still if you spend time with nature.
"When I came to Michigan, I wanted to try something else from sport management, and I was looking into the sustainability management direction. That's why I also did the business minor, because I'm really interested in that path, not strictly environmental science but more taking the lessons of environmental science and applying that to business and learning about having sustainable solutions in the business field."
Despite not having made it his Plan A, Ehrenschneider has no regrets about putting his professional career on pause. Not only has his time in Ann Arbor made him a better student and player, but it also has made him a more resilient man as well.
"So I came to school in January 2021 and it was still at the height of COVID-19, so we lived in the dorms and there was nobody there because of COVID," Ehrenschneider said. "All the non-athletes were remote, classes were remote and I struggled a lot in the beginning. I had left my comfort zone, which a lot of international students talk about, but I struggled with that especially because I was isolated physically as well as mentally.
"I was pleased when May came and I could go back home my freshman summer, but when I came back and things had opened up and there was football season, that kind of opened me up a little bit and got me more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
"I think I've learned a lot more off the court than on it in my time here, especially expanding my comfort zone and being more open-minded and learning a lot about myself. College time is very different, very energetic, but also before I had played only for myself, whereas here I was surrounded by a team. I had to learn how to lead a team, how to be a role model to younger teammates, and really just how to embody the core values of the team."
From across the globe to the University of Michigan, Ehrenschneider has taken an unorthodox road that has shown his ability to take any challenge head on.
Players Mentioned
