Jonathan Molner is a Man of Many Talents

By Andrew Arnold

The Washington and Lee Men’s Tennis Team has had only 10 walk-ons in David Detwiler’s 22 years as head coach. It wasn’t surprising that Jonathan Molner was turned away when he asked an assistant coach about trying out for the team shortly after he was accepted to W&L. But after a few more emails and a lot of lobbying by Molner’s high school coaches, Detwiler and his staff told the team captains to practice with him. They would decide whether Molner had what it took to make the team.

To get ready, Molner practiced every day over the summer with a Division-I tennis player. The captains decided in early fall that Molner played well enough to get his shot. But he joined the team in the last spot on the roster. The other players didn’t want to practice with him because he was the lowest-ranked member of the team. He’d practice by himself hitting balls shot out of a machine. Or he’d work with coaches, who wanted to change his swing. Molner lacked power on his shots, and he needed to reconstruct his forehand. He kept losing to other players in practice because it took time for him to change the way he played.

“Starting out tennis his freshman year, he wasn’t hitting the ball too well,” said Evan Brady, a junior starter. “Coach didn’t really expect too much of him.”

Molner kept working and wondering if he was ever going to master the new swing. In January 2021, he got his answer. He finally put it all together and beat a former high school teammate, Danny Nelson, who plays on the tennis team at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Molner and Nelson often played each other, but Nelson usually won. This time, Molner crushed Nelson with the improvements in his forehand that he’d been working on for months. He won the match that day, two sets to zero, each set 6-2.

“To put that in football terms, it’s a 17-point win against a good team,” Molner said.

Molner entered the preseason that spring with a new set of skills, and it paid off. He defeated teammates who were ranked above him in the line-up. By the time the season started, he’d moved up to seventh on the roster, which meant that he often got to start. “He probably puts in more practice time than anyone else on the team,” Detwiler said.

In collegiate tennis, the top six ranked players on a team compete in singles matches to accumulate points for the squad. The remaining nine compete in exhibition games or play doubles. As the seventh man, Molner often got to start because of injuries and COVID-related absences of the players ranked above him.

By the end of spring 2021, he had been named to the All-Old Dominion Athletic Conference first team.

“It was really unexpected, especially the way the year started,” he said. “But it was nice to get the confirmation that the hard work had paid off.”

Molner’s quest for perfection doesn’t stop with tennis. He brings the same intensity to his role as a tenor in the University Singers, the premier singing group on W&L’s campus. It’s not easy to be selected. At times, there are seven or eight people trying out per spot. And singing tenor isn’t easy either because it has one of the largest ranges in choir, which means mistakes happen. Josh Lewis, another tenor in Molner’s section, noticed that them,” he said.

Molner often held back the first time he sang a piece. Lewis said he thinks that’s because Molner didn’t want anyone to hear him mess up.

“He is one of the people in our section who gets his part memorized first,” Lewis said.

His mother attended the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and his father attended Yale, where he played football. His dad, Phillip Molner, graduated summa cum laude with a double major in economics and mathematics before earning a J.D. in law from Yale. He is a managing partner for PRIMUS, a national private equity firm.

An economics major and minor in entrepreneurship, Molner also is a member of the Williams Investment Society, a student-run organization within W&L’s Williams School of Commerce, Economics and Politics. The WIS manages a multimilliondollar stock portfolio. More than 100 students apply every year for about 20 spots.

Molner knows he has taken on a lot of responsibility as a college student. But he also knows why. “I’m just trying to compete against my parents to see if I can be as successful or more successful than

The younger Molner’s competitive nature kept him in the mix when the tennis team began making cuts in fall 2021. He had to play matches against his teammates that would determine who would stay on the team and who would not. It was even tougher for Molner because tennis practices conflicted with choir rehearsals.

His first match was against one of the highest recruited players in his class. “I was very nervous coming into that match,” he said. “The stakes were high.”

After winning the first two games, Molner said the match got “easier.” But he still wasn’t happy. He thought he should’ve put his opponent away sooner. The other player was cut from the team.

Players are largely responsible for the quality of their individual efforts on the court, even though tennis is scored as a team sport. That can take a toll on players. “It’s been a huge focus for a while, trying to do better than other people, which has driven me a little crazy,” Molner said.

He won three of his four matches in the fall to solidify his spot on the team. He was succeeding on the court, but he said his coaches noticed that he was stressed out. Molner said they recommended that he talk to a university counselor. He said he knew that he was “spreading himself too thin,” and met with a counselor.

“I try now to focus more on doing better than myself in the next match or the next test,” Molner said. He also said he tries to avoid worrying about what someone else is doing.

“It’s a natural habit for me. I want to do better than other people,” Molner said. “I’m going to compare myself to my parents still. Maybe just not do it as much.”

To ensure that he balances his commitments, Molner often sits down with his tennis coach and choir director. Most of all, he wants to make sure he will have enough time to excel at both.

“When you have a student who is doing it like that, I’ll bend over backwards to help them,” said Shane Lynch, director of choral activities.

Even with advanced planning, Molner can’t do everything. “It’s a struggle right now,” he said. “It’s hard to keep 100 percent in both areas when I’m not there, 100 percent of the time.”

Lynch said he wants Molner to find a way to do both. “At a small liberal arts school, we sell the fact that you can come here and play tennis and still be in University Singers,” Lynch said.

“That means we have to actually make that a reality once people get here.”

Diya Shreenath, Molner’s girlfriend, said Molner finds a way to meet his obligations. “He’s got a lot of different things to juggle and balance, but he does a good job allocating his time,” said Shreenath, who is majoring in accounting. “He’s very caring about all the people around him.”

The tennis team has had a rough start to the 2022 season. They play one of the toughest schedules in the country, including matches against two Division I programs and six nationally ranked Division III teams. They started the season 0-7, and they didn’t win until March 8 against Shenandoah University.

Molner won, two sets to zero. His opponent won only one game. Molner’s response: “Room for improvement.”