During college, I remember playing a lot of tennis matches moving around the court telling myself to concentrate. My mind would wander at the slightest provocation – listening to music from a passing car, thinking about my next meal, wondering whether my girlfriend was watching, thinking about my exam tomorrow, etc. Fast forward to my…

Be specific to play better tennis – Playing your game. I had a discussion the other day with the father of one of the promising juniors in our program. He and his 10 year old son had just returned from a tournament and it was the dads’ observation that his son just wasn’t ‘playing his…

Alex, one of our former pros, and I were teaching a match play clinic, which for us was organized set play against a variety of opponents focusing on strategy and mental skills.   And we realized that the kids were playing terribly.  Our main complaint was that most of the kids simply weren’t trying hard. There…

Coach Bill’s tennis diary: “I CAN’T SEE.” It was December at CTA and that meant that the sun started to set much earlier.  My countdown to Dec 21st (the shortest day of the year) started as soon as daylight savings time began. That’s because my workday afternoons revolved around orchestrating tennis clinics for kids from…

Success principles for life… I ran across a book last month that caught my eye immediately entitled Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern*. If you have a sensitivity towards off-color-language I do not recommend you get the book. Anyway, it’s one of the funniest books I’ve ever read and it often reminded me of…

Sports principles for success… I think about the stuff my dad said from time to time, particularly when asked for advice by the kids I coach, and/or their parents. Quite often the issues involved go beyond the scope of my tennis expertise. One of my favorite movie lines is “A man’s gotta know his limitations”…

“Should have” – the most dangerous term in sports. I spend a lot of time around tennis listening to other coaches, watching kids play, talking with parents about their kids. One of the most common terms I’ve heard over the years is “should have” – all three groups use it a lot. I’ve decided recently…

The #1 challenge in Sports Parenting: what you say vs. what they hear From the ages of 8-13 baseball was the center of my athletic world. I was a big fish in my little pond but I was clueless there were bigger ponds out there. I asked my dad whether he thought I could play…