All spring and summer, there have been debates in the media and internal discussions at the NCAA and the ITA (Intercollegiate Tennis Association) regarding how many foreign players compete for American college tennis teams and whether they are truly amateurs.  Benjamin Becker will go down in history as the player who beat Andre Agassi in his final match.  Becker is a German-born player (no relation to Boris!) who won the NCAA singles title in 2004 while playing on a tennis scholarship for Baylor University.  The main question seems to center on what constitutes “being a professional” and whether many of the foreign players competing for U.S. colleges are really former pros.  It’s an important issue to resolve because at the recent NCAA Individual Championships this past May,  43 of the players in the men’s 64 draw and 29 of the players in the women’s 64 draw, were foreigners.  The chief complaint is that many of these foreigners collected prize money playing overseas and then decided to quit the tour and pursue a college scholarship and education.  These players are therefore older and more experienced than their U.S. counterparts and are also taking valuable scholarships away from American amateurs.  While it’s not that difficult to document prize money earned, it is often difficult to determine the player’s associated expenses, i.e. amateurs are allowed to accept prize money equal to their expenses, usually just for that specific event.  So what to do?  Should the NCAA require all foreign applicants to submit detailed prize money and expense reports and subtract a year of NCAA eligibility for each year that a player competed “as a professional”?  Or if they’ve played as “professionals” should they be ineligible for college scholarships because they are no longer amateurs?