�鶹�ƽ��

“He didn’t play a competitive match for over a year, and for a tennis player that’s a long time,” Pedroso said. “And so it’s going to take him some time to find himself out there again. He’s been doing it little by little since he started here in September, and it’s a gradual process that he’s working through with the way he trains and the way he lives his life off the court, the way he thinks on the court. And if there’s one thing about Bar Botzer, it’s that he loves to compete.”

Over the years, many former UVA student-athletes have returned to Grounds to attend Darden. Botzer, however, is believed to the first student-athlete to compete for one of �鶹�ƽ�� varsity teams while enrolled at Darden.

“Now that we’ve experienced it, we have a true appreciation for how hard it is to juggle both, because Darden is so demanding,” Pedroso said. “It’s such an all-encompassing experience, that to combine that with being a student-athlete is a huge challenge.”

Botzer noted that “the programs are not designed to work with each other. It’s not like undergrad where you have constant communication between the school and the athletic department. So, it’s learning on the fly for me, for the coaches, for the school. I know the coaches are working really, really hard on making things work, especially now that the spring is coming up. I want to play in all the matches, I want to help the team, I want to be able to give back on the court with everything they’re giving me every single day, both coaches and teammates.”

At Wake Forest, Pedroso said, Botzer “took very tough classes, took 18 credits every semester, so he was used to having his hands full, and the way he approached the whole process of communicating with me was so professional and so transparent. I felt that if there’s somebody that can do this, it’s Bar Botzer, and so far, especially this spring, he’s showing us that he can do it, and he’s going to get better and better at doing it, and Darden has done everything they can to support us. His professors have been great, and we appreciate that. It’s a team effort that’s creating a really unique and fantastic story about a student-athlete at Darden.”

Botzer wasn’t sure what to expect when he joined Pedroso’s program. For starters, he’ll turn 28 in March, “and I have teammates that are 18,” he said, “so there is a generation gap, for sure.”

It helped that while at Wake he’d competed against some of the players who are now upperclassmen at UVA, including Gianni Ross, Ryan Goetz and William Woodall.

“So I had some sort of familiarity with those guys, but just from an opponent’s [perspective],” Botzer said. “I didn’t really know them, and I was coming from a rival school. But since day one they’ve made it super smooth for me. All of the guys are really, really good people, and the coaches as well. It’s a tight group.”

The coaching staff has worked hard to accommodate Botzer’s obligations at Darden.

“I wouldn’t be able to sit here right now with a smile on my face without Andres and without the coaching staff,” Botzer said. “They have gone way, way above and beyond anything I could have imagined. They’ve worked with me since day one. They trust me. They give me confidence. They’re always with open ears and open mind to hear what’s going on with me and what I have to offer even for the team, and they’re giving me, I would say, a lot of freedom and a lot of trust.”

Sometimes I’m asking myself, ‘How did I get here?’ I’m just super lucky to be here,” Botzer said of UVA. (Photo by Matt Riley, UVA Athletics)

In addition to his military service, Botzer’s résumé includes several internships that helped prepare him for Darden, where his classmates include veterans of the U.S. armed forces.

Botzer looks back on his experience in the Israel military as “a little bit of a love-hate relationship.” Some Israelis try to get out their commitments, but Botzer never considered that option.

“It’s a duty of mine as an Israeli citizen,” he said. “We all do it. All my family members have done it, all my siblings, parents, grandparents. But I’m not going to lie. It was hard to be in basic training somewhere while people that I was competing with in juniors, they’re practicing and they’re traveling and they’re playing tournaments and they’re completely free to do whatever they want. It was hard to not to live my life as my friends from across the world were living theirs.

“So it definitely held back my tennis career, but I think it gave me a lot as a person. Also, when it comes to getting an MBA, I don’t think I would have gotten into Darden without my military service. So looking back at it, I’m extremely happy that I made that decision, and it opens a lot of doors for me today.”

His three years in the Israel Defense Forces taught him how to confront adversity and deal with situations where “things are not going the way you want them to go and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it, but you still have to get your work done,” Botzer said.

His military experience also helped him “gain perspective on life,” Botzer said. “We can get really upset for losing a tennis match or getting broken in the final set, but there are things that are way more important in life.”

He expects 2022-23 to be his final season of competitive tennis “unless Coach Pedroso gets me another year [of eligibility] somehow so I can get a Ph.D.,” Botzer said, smiling.

“I’ll be 29. I’ll have a top MBA degree under my belt, and Darden opens a lot of doors. I’m currently interviewing for a summer internship, and I’m going to try and interview next year to get a full-time job. Again, I’m extremely lucky to be a part of this school. The best companies in the world come to recruit on campus and want the talent that Darden has to offer. I’m looking at my classmates, and they’re all really, really, really impressive. Sometimes I’m asking myself, ‘How did I get here?’ I’m just super lucky to be here.”