The Daily continues its “Through My Eyes” series on the women’s tennis team with freshman Megan Doheny.

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Joel Lewenstein

Freshman Megan Doheny, a Los Angeles resident, is all smiles about her experience at Stanford. According to the 5-foot-7 blonde, this year's postseason run at home is "like a dream come true."

Being a “mini”

Like Nuge [Jessica Nguyen] said (“Jessica Nguyen: Stanford’s mini-senior,” May 5), she and I are Amber [Liu]’s and Jess [Leck]’s “minis.” Nuge and Amber sort of look alike, both obviously have great work ethics and are really nice people. They’re really focused and get along really well together.

Jess and I have been pretty close because we’ve known each other since I was in ninth grade and she was in 12th. Like Nuge said, with the age gap it was hard for us to connect and really get to know each other well. But being on the team together now, all of our similarities started coming out. I think it was Alice [Barnes] who first said, “Dodo, you are exactly like Jess.”

We both have our little blond ponytails; we have similar ways of talking and ways of acting; we went to similar schools and grew up in the same area of L.A. Our moms are really good friends, and we’re both really close with our moms, so we’ll probably both be just like our moms. I love the humanities, and that’s definitely something else Jess and I have in common, which kinda freaks me out — I swear I’m following my own path! It’s just really coincidental that we happen to be doing the same things.

Who’s a dodo?

I think that in her interview with you, Amber said my nickname, “Dodo,” was for my “brilliant comments” and laughed. I tend to have some random comments every now and again. I like to think they entertain the team in times of need — though Theresa is also there for that. Dodo obviously comes from my last name, “Doheny.” But Anne [Yelsey] told me she was studying the dodo bird one day in class and that it’s a stupid bird, and so I was just a little bit taken aback by them giving me that nickname! But they actually just think I’m entertaining. Now it’s just a term of endearment, so I embrace my “dodoism.” The team actually even calls them “dodo comments” if somebody says something random, or funny but a little out of left field.

Freshmen friendship

Nuge is one of my best friends. I mean, it’s really easy to bond immediately when you’re two freshmen who don’t really know what’s going on. Being a freshman, it’s a little hard to get your grounding and know what’s going on all the time. Our team is on the older side and the other girls have been through it all before. As Nuge said, sometimes we just don’t really know what’s going on. We would call each other at the beginning and ask each other, “Do you know what’s happening?” More often than not, it would be some surprise from the team, and they would take us out or something. But as the year has gone on, we’ve gotten a lot more comfortable and I think that by next year, it’ll just be a lot easier.

But Nuge and I have been close right from the beginning. When I first saw her at some athlete dinner, we just ran to each other and embraced. And as the year has gone on, we’ve just gotten closer and closer, hang out all the time and have a lot of similar friends.

Why Stanford? Well, where else?

Stanford was pretty much my hands-down first choice. I didn’t really want to go anywhere else. You have to make the most of your experience wherever you go, but I love the campus, I love the fact that it’s on the West Coast, because I’m from Southern California, and I know a good place when I see it. I’ve always been really into academics and taken my work really seriously. Plus, we have the best tennis program in the country, and it’s such an amazing thing to be a part of that.

And the people. Everyone always says the people, but it’s so true. Everybody you know that goes here is going to be just so motivated and love to do a lot of things, and that’s what I love to do.

NCAAs: A dream come true

We’re the closest team in the country, I can say without a doubt. Everybody gets along so well. A big part of that is that it’s Stanford, and Stanford takes the type of person who is nice and motivated and going to want to make the most of her experience. All of us always — no matter how busy we are — make time to be together. I really love it. It’s so hard to talk about it and put it into words.

When I first got here, I was so unsure of things, and was just walking around feeling anxious all the time. Having the team just made it so easy for me to get into the swing of things. They did a lot more events, definitely, in the fall, to do that, and now it’s really just that — well, we’re looking ahead to NCAAs.

There’s so much uncertainty for me as freshman that I’m not aware of how big this tournament is even going to be. I just feel so lucky that it’s actually at Stanford this year, because it’s going to be such a huge event and everyone needs to go. It’s just too perfect to be coming in as a freshman and to have the NCAAs right on campus. It’s like a dream come true.