(2 minute read)

It’s December at CTA which means the sun starts to set much earlier. My countdown to Dec 21^st (the shortest day of the year) starts as soon as daylight savings time does. That’s because my weekday afternoons revolve around orchestrating tennis clinics for kids from 4:30-6:30. There’s a small window of time just before 5:30 when it gets harder to see. Unfortunately….

(1 minute read)

Alex, one of our pros, and I were teaching clinic the other day and realized that the kids were playing terribly. Our main complaint was that most of the kids simply weren’t hustling. There was little intensity, effort, or energy.  Normally our inclination would be to bring the kids together and give a talk about the importance of trying their hardest. These talks, although delivered with great passion on our part, were usually met with mild indifference and limited enthusiasm by our...

(3 minute read)

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 to ban this term from my vocabulary and encourage my students, and their parents, to do the same. Let me take a stab at an explanation.

(4 minute read)

From the ages of 8-13 baseball was the center of my athletic world. Assuming success in Little League would lead to a pro baseball career, I asked my dad whether he thought I could play shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles when I got older. He said that with hard work anything was possible. This was encouraging because, like many boys my age, I took whatever my dad said as gospel truth.