Washington State University Athletics

By the time Erica Perkins finished her career at Washington State in 2002, she had set the gold standard for all Cougar tennis players to follow. In her first year she helped WSU to the NCAA Championships for the first time in school history, the first of four appearances during her days in a Cougar uniform. As a sophomore she reached the NCAA Singles Championship, another first for a Cougar tennis player, and remains the only player to accomplish that feat three times. She battled an injury that forced her to miss her junior season, but she responded by winning 43 matches over her final two seasons and reached a high of No. 23 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association national rankings. Her accolades are astounding: three times an All-Pacific-10 Conference honoree, three times a Pac-10 All-Academic first-team selection, a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American, including a first-team selection as a senior. She held national rankings in each of her final three years, received the ITA Cissie Leary Award for Sportsmanship following the 2001 season and was WSU’s Pac-10 Conference Medal female recipient signifying the outstanding student-athlete as a senior. By the time she departed WSU, she held the school record for career singles victories while receiving an undergraduate degree in history and master’s in education administration.