Lisa Shelton has always seen her son as a vivacious child, someone who spent a majority of his time outside.
She remembers once, when he was around 5, he was banished to his room to atone for whatever mischief his young mind got himself into. She went to check on him and heard how desperate he was to be free again.
“I go up there and he’s like, ‘Can I just take a spank?” she said with a laugh.
That mischievous kid grew into a Division I tennis player, and his desire to play propelled him to develop a dynamic serve he now uses as a member of the Florida team.
Ben was in fourth grade when his father, Bryan Shelton, became the head coach of the Florida men’s tennis team. The Sheltons packed up and moved from Atlanta to Gainesville.
The Gators entered Ben’s life.
The program became something of an extended family to Ben over the past eight years, pushing him, including guidance from volunteer assistant coach Scott Perelman.
Ben recalls one night, shortly after his family arrived in Gainesville, when he and his family stayed in the same hotel as Perelman. The fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, forcing the Shelton family into the parking lot when Perelman presented Ben with an opportunity.
“‘Benny,’” Ben remembers Perelman telling him, “‘It’s the middle of the night right now, everyone else is asleep. You could go up the elevator just like all these other normal people are going to do tonight when the fire alarm stops going off, or you could take the stairs and get a head start on everybody for today.’”
“After the fire alarm stopped going off, I ran up the stairs,” Ben said with a laugh.
Despite how much the program means to Ben, it wasn’t always his plan to stay home and play for his dad. For a long time in his childhood, tennis wasn’t even his favorite sport. Far from it, in fact.
“Until I was probably 11 or 12, I hated tennis,” Ben said, “I did not want to play it, and I was really big into football and basketball, baseball, soccer, I mean, basically any other sport.”
Even before he became a star on the tennis court, Ben was still playing, starting as a quarterback for six years with the Boys & Girls Club both in Atlanta and then Gainesville.
Lisa recalled one game against a team of players much larger than Ben where the field was covered in puddles after endless rain. He took one crushing hit after another. Ben got tackled face-first into a puddle with a pile of defenders on top of him at one point.
Lisa jumped up concerned, but Ben got back on his feet without hesitation.
“He was really upset, he had just been hit so many times,” Lisa said, “but he would not come out of the game.”
However, the older Ben got, the more he found himself gravitating toward the family business. The switch didn’t come from trying to follow in his father’s footsteps, but rather his older sister’s, Emma Shelton, now a junior on South Carolina’s tennis team.
“I saw my sister doing really well in tennis and going and playing with my dad every day,” Ben said, “And I just thought like, maybe try it out.”
The transition to tennis was made of little indistinct steps like colors changing on a maple tree. The more he played, the more he noticed the tennis talent definitely hadn’t skipped a generation, and the more he honed his skills, the more he grew infatuated with the game.
“I saw that I had some gifts in it and that I could possibly go somewhere with my tennis,” Ben said. “And then I just kind of weighed the options and realized that I had one of the best coaches in the country as my dad, and that might be a good idea for a path for me to go.”
The decision paid dividends; Ben blossomed into a junior star. He won national tournaments with the United States Tennis Association (UTSA) as well as the FHSAA state championship in singles. Tennis Recruiting Network (TRN) ranked him as high as ninth nationally as a junior, and he even reached the top position in their TennisRPI rankings in March. TRN called Ben a blue chip prospect — a ranking beyond even five-star prospect.
It quickly became clear that Ben had the talent to play for his father’s team. The only question now: Was Florida where Ben wanted to be?
“It’s kind of been a dream, you know, for me,” coach Shelton said, “Quietly, over the years, hoping that one day I’d have the opportunity to coach my son here at Florida.”
Coach Shelton and the Gators weren’t exactly a lesser option, either. With two SEC Coach of the Year awards (2016, 2019), a 2019 ITA Southeast Region Coach of the Year award and a team ranked No. 1 to open spring competition in 2020, there was more than just family that Florida could offer.
However, Bryan knew that for it to be a marriage of player and program truly, this had to be Ben’s choice.
“I mean, you love your son, right?” coach Shelton said, “and you want what’s best for him and so you have to, in that, keep an open mind, knowing that you want him to come to that realization himself. Not for you to force his hand, because that doesn’t do anyone any good in the long run.”
Both Bryan and Ben knew the moment he was destined to become a Gator: when Ben returned from touring Stanford.
“I liked it,” Ben said, “but it just seemed like there was so much at Florida that it didn’t seem like they had much more, it was pretty similar.
“I just thought that being at home with my dad, in-state, would just be a lot easier for us, and I thought I could definitely do better with my tennis here than anywhere else.”
On July 22, Ben signed to become the newest member of the Florida men’s tennis team. Originally in the high school Class of 2021, Ben completed his coursework over the summer in order to enroll a year early.
As his father noted, Ben’s love of playing has also grown into a love for life and people, making him someone his father sees as an easy person to connect with.
“I felt like, even through his junior days and his high school days, he was always somebody that other people were drawn towards,” coach Shelton said. ”And I think he’s going to help us on our team and is going to be an energy, high-energy guy out there on the court or off the court.”
Ben is the only freshman on the team this season, but he may be more suited to handle that challenge than most. He’s been coming to the Florida tennis facility with his father since he was in elementary school. He has a familiarity with everyone involved with the program, including his new teammates.
“He’s been around, obviously, ever since I got here,” senior captain Duarte Vale said, “And he’s a great kid, the best type of people, and he’s an extremely hard worker.”
While a younger version of himself may not have believed it or even wanted it, Ben now takes the court for the Gators and wears the logo on a little patch over his heart wherever he competes. That is something his father refuses to take for granted.
“To see him out there playing and smiling and running around the court, it was a great feeling to have him be a part of this thing,” coach Shelton said.
While the Shelton name may already have impacted Florida tennis, Ben wants to create a racket all his own at Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex.
Contact Ryan Haley at rhaley@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @ryan_dhaley.
Freshman Ben Shelton walks alongside doubles teammate Will Grant after dropping a match, 8-7, against Auburn on Oct. 2 at the Tiger Fall Invitational in Auburn, Alabama.
Ryan Haley, a UF journalism senior with a sports & media specialization from Jacksonville, Florida, is Summer 2022's Engagement Managing Editor. He grew up playing a bunch of different sports before settling on golf, following Rory McIlroy and all Philadelphia sports teams. He also loves all things fiction, reading, watching shows and movies and talking about whatever current story or character is in his head.
