Following the ending of this year’s NWAC tennis championship and Highline’s women’s tennis taking home the women’s tennis title, the morning of May 5, 2025, NWAC announced their discontinuation of the sponsorship of men’s and women’s tennis within the conference. 

This discontinuation will impact Highline College, Bellevue College, Treasure Valley Community College, and Spokane Falls Community College. All of these teams sponsor women’s tennis, and three of them sponsor men’s tennis. 

In recent years, tennis has found to have a decline of support through the NWAC communities, and when one team decided to make the decision to drop out of the league, another followed, which caused the whole sport to tumble and fall. 

NWAC released an article explaining the reasons behind discontinuing the sport. Marco Azurida, NWAC’s executive director said, “This was a difficult decision to make and this announcement no doubt is disappointing for our student-athletes, coaches, and the conference as a whole.” 

Azurida promised the NWAC community that the league will do its best to focus on providing resources to maintain the remainder of the league’s championship sport programs. 

Laura Rosa, head coach of the Highlines Women’s tennis team also addressed this discontinuation on the team’s Instagram page the morning after. 

In a sentimental note towards the T-bird community, Rosa said, “I think coaching tennis might be where the phrase ‘putting in blood sweat and tears’ comes from. But the truth is, I always got ten times more out of my teams than I ever poured into them.”

The entirety of the T-bird community is saddened to find out the news of such an amazing sport that has been coached by Rosa for nine years. We will cherish the time that was spent on the court, and honor the two women’s titles that were taken home by Highline over the years.