Quick Chat: Madison Anger

By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Madison Anger's father was an elite college tennis player at Southern Cal, a four-time All-American that was inducted into the ITA Men's Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame in 2014. Now the head men's coach at the University of Washington. Matt Anger had many big matches at Georgia's Dan Magill Tennis Complex during his days with the Trojans in the 1980s and spent plenty of time in Athens during the NCAA Championships.

For Madison Anger, a senior on the Georgia equestrian team, tennis was a sport she liked, but her love and passion was horses. She was honorable mention All-America last season and was named SEC Co-Scholar Athlete of the year, and she will be in action Friday when the seventh-ranked Bulldogs visit No. 1 Auburn.

During a recent Quick Chat, Anger talked about her start in riding, her tennis days, the proliferation of Madisons, Maddies and Maddys, and much more. Here's some of what she had to say:

Frierson: Have you ever been around so many Madisons or Maddies before, because there are a lot of them on the team?

Anger: Yeah, I think so, in school there were always a couple of Maddies, but there were never 65 girls in a group together. There are four of us on the team, which is a lot for a pretty small group, and it does get kind of confusing. We all have nicknames that we go by, so that makes it a lot easier.

Frierson: What is your nickname?

Anger: They call me Maddle.

Frierson: Do you like Maddle?

Anger: I go back and forth (laughs). It's kind of funny, it stuck — we were volunteering and it was on my name tag, like they miswrote it, even though I don't know how you miswrite it. I guess the "i" looked like an "l" or something. It just kind of stuck for whatever reason.

Frierson: Tell me about home, when you think of home what comes to mind?

Anger: I think a lot about the mountains and trees — it's a really green state, Washington, and I live really close to a lake, and right across from the University of Washington. I picture that, the mountains on both sides and everything.

Frierson: So what is your origin story when it comes to horses?

Anger: I was really late to the party. My dad works at the University of Washington and is the men's tennis coach, so I grew up playing tennis. I was going to play tennis and wanted to be a professional tennis player for the longest time, and then right about when I was 10 my mom, because she had ridden when she was younger, she wanted to get back into horses.

She started taking lessons and I got into it with her. I didn't start showing until I was about 14 and at that point it was kind of like, "Oh, I kind of like this a little bit!" I started doing that more, doing that more and got more and more into it. By 15 or so I had decided that I wanted to stick with that, rather than play tennis. I kept going and that's how I ended up here.

Frierson: I'm actually in charge of the ITA Men's College Tennis Hall of Fame and I remember your dad as a player. In fact, I probably was a ballboy during some of his matches. Small world.

Anger: That's awesome.

Frierson: What was it that drew you to equestrian, especially since it's so different from tennis?

Anger: I've always loved animals so I think that was a big part of it. I love tennis, but it was also hard to have a parent as a coach sometimes. I felt that a little bit, and it was kind of my own thing. I think it was more so that it was my own thing — my mom had done it a little bit, and I think I liked going into that new territory and doing my own thing.

I still to this day love tennis and love to get on the court and hit. It's been a while but I do miss it.

Frierson: If you could go anywhere in the world on somebody else's dime, where would you like to go and who would you take with you?

Anger: That's a tricky one. I have a long list of places I want to go to, but if it was on somebody else's dime, right now I think I definitely want to go to England and see Wimbledon and stuff that. I think that would be really cool because I've grown up watching it and I think that would be a really awesome trip.

I'd like to see the castles and I'm Scottish so I could maybe go over and see that and I'm Irish so I could go over and explore and see all that.

Frierson: Equestrian has taken you all the way across the country, to Athens, so is there one place in your years of competing where you've been like, I can't believe I'm here because I like to ride horses?

Anger: There are a few places. Oklahoma City has a huge facility, a big coliseum, so that place was always shocking. But I think the biggest one, there's a big show in Columbus, Ohio, called the Congress, and that's like the largest single-breed horse show in the world.

That show, you just see people everywhere. There are so many people, so many horses and you have to walk a mile to get to your arena where you're competing. It's just massive and really overwhelming the first time. I remember the first time ... I was in way over my head, just getting lost every single day.

Frierson: When you came to Georgia from Seattle, did you drive?

Anger: No, I haven't done that drive, I've flown every time. It just seems like a really long road trip. I've briefly considered it once or twice, but I've never done it. ... It seems like quite a trek.

Frierson: In a perfect world, what are you doing in 10 years?

Anger: That's a good question; I don't really know what I want to do, exactly. I'm on a pre-med track, so I'm planning to be a doctor. But I am keeping my options open in my head and floating a few things around while I have time and can.

I'd love to find something that would let me keep being involved with horses, whether it be showing or doing something of the sort, so some career that's flexible enough that lets me do that. I know that's not the easiest thing.

(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)

John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.

Players Mentioned

Madison Anger

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