the Ride as admission of defeat

The ranking machine's cruel gradient made explicit: even a college scholarship, "the Ride," reads as failure. "Opting for the college-tennis route in the first place is kind of an admission of defeat and a surrender of dearly held dreams of the professional Show." The only non-defeated destination for the developed body is the Show; everything short of it — even a full ride to a good school — is a downgrade you console yourself over. The body is trained toward a single apex, and the whole broad base of alternatives registers as loss.