Pettengill Rejects Third Partner Candidate
He requires a partner meaningfully worse than himself, not merely a weaker one; Simone, Miles and Giles all fell short
Sign-up sheet in the hut has logged fourteen names since Labor Day, nine crossed out in red marker
Interviews continue; the space below the tenth name remains blank
By Anita Bath·Staff Reporter
William Pettengill watches a candidate's overhead from the sideline Sunday, the tenth name crossed off the sheet since Labor Day.
“In my country we did not rate men for this. We rated them for other things. Compared to some of what I have witnessed, I find the whole exercise sane, so I do not interfere.”
ROWAYTON, Conn., Aug. 29 —William Pettengill turned away a third prospective doubles partner this week, closing out another candidacy in a search that has stretched across three weekends of interviews, and returned to the hut Sunday afternoon to continue vetting applicants.
The search has taken on the shape of a formal hiring process. A member of the paddle committee, granted anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the sign-up sheet taped beside the whiteboard, said the sheet has logged fourteen names since Labor Day, nine of them already crossed out in the same red marker.
Pettengill, who holds no captaincy and answers to no lineup but his own, has structured the search around a single requirement: the partner must be meaningfully worse than he is. Candidates who arrive with genuine promise, associates say, tend to be the first shown the door.
"He wants ten points of daylight, minimum," said Sergey Chernysh, who captains Rowayton C and has taken to presiding over the interviews from a folding chair beside the propane heater. "In my country we did not rate men for this. We rated them for other things. Compared to some of what I have witnessed, I find the whole exercise sane, so I do not interfere."
Andrew Simone, the first candidate turned away this month, said he had been rejected before but never on these terms. "I've heard I talk too much on the court. I've heard I quit too easily," said Simone, who co-captains Rowayton E and Rowayton F and has announced his resignation from each role, by his own count, six times since August. "Nobody has ever told me I wasn't bad enough."
Shawn Miles, who arrived at the club this season with a reputation among teammates for winning regardless of who he is paired with, said he suspected the rejection reflected poorly on him rather than on the process. "My number's probably wrong anyway," Miles said. "Wouldn't be the first time it undersold me. Or oversold me. I don't actually know which way it's wrong."
Jordan Giles, whose improved play ended his own partnership with Pettengill once before, said he had reapplied anyway. "I got better," Giles said. "Apparently that's the problem now." He said he intends to submit his name again next month, once the improvement wears off.
Pettengill declined to discuss the requirement directly. He has told friends the Screen mischaracterized his arrangements once already, in an item this spring about a frozen roster designation Kyle Avery gave him, and has since directed all questions about his lineup, his partners and his standards to Chernysh.
By Sunday evening a tenth name had been crossed off the sheet in the hut, in the same red marker as the nine before it. The space below it, according to the committee member, remained blank.
