Is Playing College Tennis The New Pro Path?

(upbeat music)

Welcome to the GoTennis! Podcast.

Our conversations are uniquely engaging

and our tips will help you to win more matches.

Our mission is to keep you well informed,

give you what you need to improve your game

and help you save money.

We invite you to become a GoTennis! Premium member

and join our community today.

(upbeat music)

- Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the GoTennis! Podcast,

powered by signature tennis.

Check out our calendar of Metro Atlanta Racket Sports events

at LetsGoTennis.com.

And as you're listening to this,

please look in your podcast app

where to leave a review and do that for us.

We would love to earn your five star reviews.

And now let's get into our recent conversation with Rod Ray,

who is the men's tennis coach at Wofford College.

Rod has me speechless a couple of times

and leaves us wondering if we need more college coach types

in our lives to encourage and uplift us.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

(upbeat music)

- Who is Rod Ray and why do we care?

- Yeah.

Shaun, thanks for having me so much.

You and I met at the Atlanta Open this summer

and I was there watching and supporting Harris Porridge

who was playing in the finals of the pro league

and the Atlanta pro league that night.

And I was there watching and supporting Rob Galloway

who played for me who's currently 40 in the world.

And he was playing in the Atlanta pro tournament.

And so I'm a tennis coach and tennis is people to me.

That's what it is.

So I don't know if I'm not unique,

but what I care about people

and I was there supporting my players

and I talk to so many people like,

"Why do you coach?"

And I'm like, "Well, I mean, I love my players."

And sometimes I hear people say,

"Well, I don't know if I love my players or not."

But that's a decision to love your players unconditionally.

And I've been doing this a long time

and when you love people so much,

you get so much in return.

And that's what tennis has done for me.

And so like that night I met you.

I mean, that was one of the best days of my life

getting to see two of my former players

playing at a very high level.

On the same night,

they hadn't seen each other in a few years.

Both really good players,

but to be involved in people's lives in a way

and just love people that way.

And tennis has given me that gift

and to see if that way is really cool.

- Yeah, we agree.

So you are the head men's coach at Wofford College.

That's South Carolina, correct?

- That's right, yeah.

So Wofford College, Smallest Division One School

in the country was scholarship football.

We just beat the University of Richmond on Saturday,

which was a ranked team.

So really good athletics, beautiful campus,

great academics, high level tennis.

We play in a great league.

I coach a league players

who get a really great academic experience.

- And elite players is that Division One range,

Bobby, where is you, didn't,

what's your connection to TCU?

You had your masters there?

Is that where you went?

- No, I have my undergraduate.

- Your undergrad was TCU, right?

So you know a little bit more about the college,

the Division One College, tennis scene, right?

- Yeah, well, we were national champions.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I bring that up?

Oh, just not driving.

- Did I see that one up?

(laughing)

That was nice, put it on the tee and off to the tee.

- Yeah.

- TCU, great, great, they congratulations.

One the National Championship this year

and David Raditi's a great coach

and they won it and got to visit the White House

and then on the women's side,

Lee Taylor Walker is the women's coach there.

And he's one of my best friends.

Our former athletic director here at Woffer

was the athletic director at TCU as well.

And our current athletic director came from TCU

and Mark Cohen is the sports information director at TCU

and he was at Woffer for a long time.

So lots of connections between Woffer and Texas Christian.

- Well, it goes back to the funny part about tennis too

that David was coached by somebody

that I know coaches here, Chakoria.

And it's like the small world of,

and David's from California.

So it's like no matter where you are in tennis,

you're probably bump into somebody

that you have a connection with.

I mean, do you know Billy Payne and...

- Sure.

- Paire Nilson.

- Yep.

- So Billy was my grad school roommate.

- Oh wow.

- Billy's who got me back into playing tennis again.

So it's a small world.

- Yes, yeah.

Doing an unbelievable job at Princeton.

Billy Payne.

- Crazy, yep.

- So yeah.

- So how do you...

- Are you gonna play, Sean?

- Yeah, no problem, I'm sorry.

(laughing)

- And now it happens every once in a while.

It tees up nicely.

So how do we take the fact that we're seeing now

at the ATP level, and I don't know as much on the WTA level,

if this is true also, but we're seeing a few more players

come through college.

We remember, you'd have one or two.

You'd have the genetically impressive John Isner's

of the world that kind of had that superhero,

that natural genetic superhero scenario that worked out well.

But even you got guys like Cam Nori,

who comes through, sorry to do TCU again.

- Yeah.

- But then, but we're not looking back at like the John McEnroe

age where very few of them played in college.

- Yeah.

- What's going on now?

What's in the water?

Are the coaches that good?

- The coaches are really good.

- Yeah, coaches are really good.

So like, I mean, in Atlanta,

Kenny Thorne and Kevin King, unbelievable coaches,

Kinesoff State, unbelievable coaches,

Jamie Hunt at Inathons at University of Georgia,

unbelievable.

These are fantastic people.

Great level of coaching is incredible.

You know, you've got the winner of the US Open Juniors

is going to Virginia.

So he want, he arguably, one of the best juniors in the world,

and he's going to Virginia to play.

And he's getting an incredible NFL deal.

So he might make more money,

he might make more money going to play at Virginia

than he would if he went to the pros right away.

But the resources are incredible.

I mean, like, at Wofford,

I'm sitting in a beautiful new facility.

And everyone has great facilities.

We play a great schedule.

Everybody plays.

The level is so high.

I think people would be surprised to see

how high the level is right now.

So you can, you know, you can go,

there's guys playing college,

Tennessee that won 10 ATP points this summer.

- Is that the difference?

'Cause you can do both now?

- Yeah, you can do both.

- Yeah, you can do both.

- And so you can do both.

- Yeah, you can do both.

- So maybe that's the biggest difference is,

if I can get a full ride to college,

and somebody's gonna help me be able to live

for four years and feed myself,

and really focus on, I'll have to take some classes,

sure, maybe pass a calculus class,

which, you know, wasn't that hard,

if I remember, but maybe calculus is different now.

But what is that?

So now it's just, I've got four more years to develop,

and Ben Shelton goes and wins,

and Ben has a big tennis match or two,

and says, I think I can do this?

- Yeah, well, and what we can talk about,

Ben's kind of unique, and I'll circle back to Ben,

but, you know, people are playing longer, right?

We're playing longer, like a male,

a professional male probably hits his peak

in his late 20s.

You know, so you're not gonna hit your peak

while you're in college.

That note, there's no way, you're not even close.

So you're, and we're taking better care of ourselves, right?

We have better resources.

We know more.

We have things like the Atlanta tennis podcast

where we can learn information,

and so we have more information where we can play longer.

I mean, look at the big three,

how long they've, where we throw Murray in there, big four.

I mean, where guys are playing at a high level longer,

so why not go to college and where you have incredible resources?

You're gonna play fantastic competition.

Education's still a great thing, right?

The best investment you can make is an education.

That's for sure.

So, you know, just for a 19 year old to be ready

against a grown man who's still getting better

when he's 25, 26 years old,

it's just a different world than it was,

say, 20 years ago in Pro tennis.

Well, I don't know how much.

Bobby was it, Evon Lendel that made his comment

about hitting the tour,

but not being in an age group anymore.

Who was that?

This said, hitting the tour,

wasn't, you know, weren't no longer playing only 17

and 18 year olds all of a sudden you're playing full grown man.

It was a different thing.

- Yeah, that's a tie.

- But I do like what Coach is saying.

I think that's the great part about it.

'Cause I think you always had the outliers succeed

because who is physically and mentally ready at 18, 19, not a lot?

And it's, like you said, in every other sport,

the peak is 28 to 33 type thing.

- Okay.

- When the mind and body come together in tennis.

I mean, gosh, I like watch a lot of highlights

and San Frist was out of tennis by 31.

He had won his last US Open, was done.

You know, and was complaining about how his body

was breaking down.

So, you know, like you said,

you got the big three, four who won made it into their 40s

and the other three late 30s.

So it is a different world.

- Yeah, and we were talking about Ben Shelton

and my son grew up playing with Ben Shelton

and one of my, one of my children did, same age.

And his father, Brian, who coached in Atlanta,

George Attack before he went to Florida,

well, I think, no one, both of them,

I think Ben had the advantage of Brian.

And so, who's just such a solid person

who also had a fantastic pro career.

But, so Ben is a little bit of an outlier,

great athlete, great kid, great human being, great man now.

But he also had the benefit of having,

one of the best coaches I know as a father

who had been on the tour.

And that probably helped him to be able to leave Florida early.

He had a broader vision and more resources

than a lot of people do.

- And incredible genetics.

- Yeah, Bobby and I talk about the genetics a lot,

but also there's an unfair advantage.

He's got an unfair advantage in having

a professional tennis player father.

- Yep.

- I look at Sebastian Corta.

I'm like, all right, come on, kid.

You've got the genetics and you've got your father

who knows he's been there.

It's different.

- Yep.

- You've got parents that have been there.

If you don't have an uncle Tony,

or you don't have somebody else like that,

it's just gotta be harder,

unless you're just that driven kid,

like a sinner or an alcharez.

And those are, as Bobby says, probably the outliers.

- Yeah.

- But in this case,

the college system in most sports

is the feeder system for professional sporting.

If I've got the view right.

- Yeah.

- And so in that, like you go and you play

a few years of college basketball,

and then you try to figure out

if you're the one that's gonna go pro.

In this case, are we looking at a pretty good shift

because we can play older.

If your career can be 22 to 37,

instead of having it have to be the first five years

getting to know the tour,

so you better get on tour by 15.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It's a much more,

it's just such a physical, mature league.

It's just, it's incredible.

- So if we end up,

that's just so much fun because we look at the colleges,

now we can look at things differently.

You will say, okay, can I get my kid at least that good?

Can I, because we talk to parents all the time.

All right, so my kid's gonna be a professional tennis player.

I'm like, he can hardly walk.

So slow down there, pops.

And you got some that are in high school

and they're just not that good.

But you got a few,

hey, how far can my kid go?

Well, it's no longer like, well, you're 15

and you're out of time.

We don't have that anymore.

We really do have a better option to be able to say,

hey, you know what,

let's get you into some division one school,

maybe some of the NEI school,

just go play tennis somewhere and keep going.

Is that a bit of what it can be now?

- Sean, I was in Atlanta watching Rob Galloway, right?

Rob, from the time Rob was 14 to 18,

he played four junior tennis tournaments.

That's not much.

- Okay.

- He came to offer, played number five as a freshman

and the rest is history.

So can you develop late?

Yeah, you can.

I mean, if you're incredibly athletic,

if you're incredibly competitive, right?

That driving determination needs to be off the chart

and yes, yes, 'cause you're not hitting your peak

until later, you know, you're not gonna,

you're not, it's, that thing like, yeah,

Of course it is, not to get those skills,

but that's not the only factor.

It's one factor.

There's lots of others.

- Right, being six foot four left handed

with a two handed backhand might be three other factors.

At least one of those you can't help unless you're,

is there and you're gonna row 10 inches during college.

Right, right, right.

I mean, Tommy Paul was on his way to college

and then got hot.

He had committed to Georgia and then boom,

had a great French junior French open run and went pro.

- Have a good summer, yeah.

- You know, and so yeah, for sure,

for sure your chasing that target that's way out there.

If you stay with it, like if you stay with it, right?

So like my, my play, my seniors, I mean, they're not done.

They've learned so much in the last few years.

Like, this is gonna be their best year.

Right, 'cause they're learning, I mean,

that learning curve is just terrific.

They're learning so much and getting stronger.

So the seniors, you know, it's not like,

well, they're just, their careers almost over.

They're gonna run out of time

before they reach their potential.

Unless they keep playing, you know.

- What is Bobby, Bobby was telling us,

is it 70% Bobby that division one player's never played again?

- So we're not playing again.

- Yeah.

- Interesting.

- Luke Jensen told us to say, yeah.

- Okay.

Interesting.

And that's a scary thing because is it the end of the career?

I remember when I finished my senior year at college,

I didn't play again for a couple of years.

It was like, well, all right.

There's no way to play tennis.

There's nothing for a 21 year old

while you're trying to get a job

and maybe I just needed a break, I don't know.

But I think we keep those division one players

still on the court.

- Yeah, yeah.

And Charlotte has a pro league

with a lot of former college players.

Of course, we know we just talked about Atlanta

having that pro league.

And so in Atlanta, there's lots of former college players.

- We've got two of those.

You know? - We've got two pro leagues.

- And so it's so exciting.

And yeah, they're not, you know, they got a job,

but they're still, I think one of the things

we love about tennis is it's so competitive,

it's so fun.

Tennis players live longer than other people, right?

It's a great quality life to stay competitive,

doing some kind of racket sport is awesome neurologically.

It takes a lot of physical discipline in your life

to be a great player.

But why not be a college player?

And then sure, have a job in a family,

but you're not training every day,

but play three times a week and be,

and plan on being the best 80 and over player,

80 and over player in the world, right?

You can do that in tennis,

and you should do that in tennis, right?

- Yeah, we're gonna have to figure out

how to sell everybody on that idea,

keep doing it 'cause our league partners would be very happy

if they don't have more former college players

continuing to come out.

But Rod, you made a joke earlier jokingly saying,

you don't know how unique you are,

but you've written a book and that's pretty unique.

And I know what that means to be able to put yourself out there.

So tell us a bit about the book,

and I think what that'll do is that'll give you a chance

to share about your personal reasons

for writing the book as well as professional.

- Yeah, so the name of my book is Hard Comes First.

So it's life, everybody's got a hard story.

I'll share mine, but everybody's got some kind of hard story.

And then my book is about the,

really what I've uncovered about the secret

of having a rich life after hard.

So I mentioned one of my children,

one of my children played for me here at Wofford.

He graduated in May and he's working on a master's degree

at Elon and assistant coach of the women's tennis team there

and doing great, his name's Ash.

And then I have a son with autism,

who also graduated from college in December.

And his name's Cole.

And he was on the cross country team at Gardner Web.

And like I said, graduated in December.

And so I coach elite people, top 1%,

their great athletes, their smart, their good looking,

all of my former players are successful.

And that has a lot to do with the school

and the kind of kids we get from the school.

And I think also from the competitive nature of tennis

and what they learn in that.

And then I have a son with autism.

And I've learned so much from my childhood with autism.

So you think autism, there's some statistics.

Families with autism, one study has shown

that a family with autism has an 80% divorce rate.

That's pretty hard.

One study has shown that 80% of college graduates

with autism are either underemployed.

So that's pretty hard.

Well, in my experience, at 25 years,

I'm in my 25th, 25th year here at Wofford,

most of my best players have had something

they've had to overcome.

So in the recruiting process,

tell me about the adversity that you faced.

And now we're having a conversation.

Now I'm getting to know them.

Now I'm beginning to find out what really ticks.

And a lot of times it's that adversity in our life

that makes our lives kind of forms us in some way.

Maybe we don't want to talk about it,

but it's in there somewhere for most of us.

And in college coaching, I spend so much time with my players.

I get to know that.

I get to know that about my people.

And so my book shares a lot of the stories

about people overcoming hard things.

Whether it was my player who was born with a club foot.

And nobody would operate on it.

They couldn't figure it out.

Family, after six doctors, one months later,

they, he has a surgery and he comes to me.

He's wearing a nine and a half on one foot

and a 10 and a half on the other.

And he's had all kinds of adversity.

He's overcome.

He ends up being the fastest player on my team.

Or it was the player who, well, two years ago,

October, I had a player on my team

going to cardiac arrest.

We were at Duke and he, no heartbeat, no pulse.

We thought he was gone and he came back.

He was forcissotated and I spent eight days with him

at the hospital at Duke.

And he doesn't play tennis anymore, but he helps me coach.

And he was our best recruit.

He was an unbelievable tennis player.

Well, I get to see him come to practice every day

and have a good attitude.

And I see how his life is rich, although it's not how he planned.

Okay?

So hard comes first, my book.

Most of sports books I read are about,

we won the championship.

Or business books I read, I invented Uber.

Let me tell you about it.

Or something like that.

Well, my team's improving.

We're pretty good, but we're not as good as Texas Christian yet.

But we're improving.

We're improving.

My family's okay, but we're not perfect.

We're still kind of, we got our stuff, you know?

So, but in the middle of that, in the middle of all our stuff,

I describe ways to have a rich life

and how to find meaning and how to help other people

and how to grow in the middle of all that chaos.

And I don't think, I don't think a book that describes

if you do these things, your life will be perfect.

That's really not, that's not really helpful.

'Cause it's not true.

I haven't seen that book, I haven't heard of that book.

And that's not my book, but my book is,

if you do these things, you're gonna be rich

in a way you didn't know you were gonna be rich.

And it's gonna be really cool.

So that's my story of hard comes first.

Like my son, my son is on autism spectrum.

You know, he, he, at one time, my family, we were told,

you know, he never go to college, he'd never drive.

He wouldn't be very athletic.

Well, I mean, this weekend we ran a race together

and I 10 mile race and he won his age group

and I think he finished six and six out of hundreds

and hundreds of people, he finished six overall.

And so you can, and so if he can do that,

I mean, that changes the way that I see,

maybe my player who doesn't believe in himself, right?

And that's what we all really need is we need somebody

to believe in us, right?

Even my elite people, what do they really need?

They need somebody to love and believe in them, right?

I mean, that's what, I mean,

Yonic center needs that, right?

Everybody needs that, right?

I mean, he might not feel like he needs it today,

coming off a yesterday,

but he didn't even gonna be long until he's gonna lose two

and he's gonna need that, right?

And he probably has that great support,

would be my guess.

So thank you for asking, yeah.

- Yeah, and that's, like I said,

you'd have to share a lot about yourself

when you write a book.

The theory is the psychological point of view is,

show me something somebody's written

and I'll tell you all about 'em,

'cause if you're a writer, you have to,

you're gonna share a little bit about yourself,

that's just how it has to be.

And I love the concept of being able to get through adversity.

From the point of view of I've been there.

- Yeah.

- And I go through quite a few books,

and actually, Andre Agassiz book came to mind,

like a hardship in his case seemed to be pervasive.

- Yes.

- In fact, that he was almost bringing it with him,

in that case, but it wasn't a book about that,

but you're gonna find out about somebody,

and I'm looking forward to Bobby writing a book,

because we learn a little bit more about him.

- I mean, Agassiz, if you see him on YouTube,

he says, "Rock bottom's not a bad place,

I've been there often."

Right?

- Perfect.

- And that's when he had struggled to be,

he'd overcome an addiction,

he went from number one in the world

to maybe 300 in the world,

and then worked his way up to big time again.

So we can learn, and now look what Andre Agassiz doing now.

What's he doing?

He's running that school, right?

- Yeah.

- I mean, he's running a school

for lower socioeconomic people.

I mean, so if he hadn't overcome,

I mean, obviously his life has been shaved

by overcoming adversity, by hardship.

- I mean, right.

- And now he's doing something really cool,

and I bet you, like he gets as much from that school

as he did from being the best in the world.

- Yeah, and that's sometimes picturing what is now.

I asked somebody the other day,

I said, "So this week versus last week,

which one was hotter?"

And they said, "Last week," which made me realize

that's not possible because last week doesn't exist anymore.

Only right now is hotter than, so I get what they were responding,

and I was being a bit pedantic on the language there,

but to be able to say what I'm doing now is as fulfilling,

if not more, I really hope in Agassiz case

in that time and his life that he's been through everything

to get there and the same thing with you.

It's okay.

Maybe I'm still going through some of it.

Maybe some of this is, it isn't a thing that just goes away.

These are things we consistently go through.

I look back of six months of chemotherapy and say,

"Oh, what could be worse than that?"

I don't want to ask that question 'cause I don't want to find out.

And in that case, we all have things we've gone through,

but we also don't all want to share our story.

We're not all willing to share our story in a way that says,

"Hey, I've found some answers and see,

"in here are some good responses."

And before we forget, sorry, you've got an offer,

you said you've got a few books you're willing to sign

for our audience specifically,

and I'll put it all in the show notes,

but tell us what you got.

- Yeah, if somebody wants, it's interesting in my book.

If you look me up on Instagram, send me a message.

I'll sign a copy, put it in the, send me your address.

I'll sign a copy, put it in the mail to you.

- For free, for three people to do that,

I'll give them a complimentary copy of my book.

And I'd like to do that, yeah, thanks.

- That's awesome.

And we'll put your Instagram in the show notes.

We'll make sure everybody has the information for that.

So we really appreciate that.

And I want to make sure we didn't forget to bring that up.

And we've got your book linked in our shop as well.

It's called Hard Comes First.

And there's the guide to winning.

But you didn't say the guide to winning tennis matches.

'Cause that's not what it's about, right?

It's not a tennis book.

- No, I mean, it is a tennis book,

but it's not a tennis book.

I'm getting, I'm getting, I'm people are calling me saying,

it's about overcoming adversity.

And it's about sports and it's about life.

And I mean, obviously it's a lot about tennis.

And I think, I mean, people,

a lady contact me yesterday,

whose son plays for University of Georgia,

and she says every tennis coach needs to read this book.

And compliment.

And so it is both, but it's life, it's life, you know?

And I think we take tennis from a whole list of approach, right?

Like from my players, you know, I'm with them four hours a day.

Well, the other 20 hours of the day

are really important to their tennis success as well, right?

So it's not just the four out.

So a holistic approach to life.

So the guy to winning, I want you to win on and off the court, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, that's what I was thinking about.

And that's why I like that phrase, 'cause it's winning.

But it's not necessarily, and Bobby and I talk about the,

the winning isn't necessarily that someone else is losing.

- No.

- In case me getting it right for me,

doesn't mean somebody else has to lose something.

- There's enough for both, right?

There's enough.

I was at a wedding, a beautiful wedding.

At Ferman recently, and one of my players was getting married there.

It's a neighborhood school very similar to Wofford,

and sometimes one of our rivals,

and people kept calling up and saying,

"Coach, are you okay being an Ferman at this wedding?"

And I was like, "This is beautiful.

Of course I'm okay."

And I pull for Ferman, right?

There's enough for both, right?

Like love that school.

So absolutely.

- So you don't have the whole, I'm the coach over here,

and if I go to the other place, Lightning might strike,

we don't have any.

- No, there's more than enough, right?

There's more, I'm closely aligned with a guy who says,

"Love your enemies."

So let's follow that.

Let's pray for our enemies,

and there's enough for everybody, for sure.

- And I found we have less enemies that way.

- It helps us.

- It helps us.

- It helps us means we have less.

- You got it, well done, yep.

- You got Bobby, what you got for Rod?

- Well, I've been joined listening because I,

I'm too big subscriber.

I remember Don Henley when he wrote the end of the innocence,

they asked, "My God, this is unbelievable.

"Why don't you do this more often?"

And he was like, "Because it hurts."

It's, you know, to be that introspective

for that amount of time is not easy.

And, you know, to share that, you know,

we're all better because of it.

But, you know, again, coach,

I agree with everything you're saying.

It's a lot of what we're trying to accomplish

and trying to make an individual sport based like tennis.

They give everybody, realize that we do better

as an industry, life, whatever if we work together

and help each other out more.

And I do think, and, you know, just watching,

you know, say the kid talking after losing,

you know, so much more reality, bait, man.

He's just better right now, you know, he's, I'm not,

and to be able to look at and say,

"I did a great job where, you know,

"my generation second was not good."

You know, that, you know, you know,

or being tied for it.

I mean, you know, you can't even say the things

that we used to say if you were tied with somebody,

they're not politically correct anymore.

So, you know, there's a lot of good, I think.

It may not move as fast as we want it to, you know.

We see it and say, "Why can't we get there?"

But I do think that, you know, we are getting there

and you see it in weird spots with the loser being so humble,

in realistic.

And, you know, and I was like, you know,

that's a good quality to have.

Not to say I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna beat this guy.

But, you know, he's got a few more weapons that I do.

He's a little bit ahead of the curve right now.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

It might be the drive he needs to keep going.

- Right on.

- Yep.

So, all good there.

But I do have, Sean, have we had the question time here

'cause I wanna make sure I get,

'cause I've always accused of never doing any homework

prior to and I did homework.

- I'm pointing out a fact.

- There's no act I reached out to somebody.

And I was told to ask Coach about his best friend MK

and that he will know what I mean when I say that.

- And just Coach, do you know your best friend MK?

- Okay.

So that sounds like it came from one of our players.

- Yes, it did.

- Yeah, so we have a running drill that we call MK.

And it actually comes from a sport science,

it's named Mark Kovacs is what the MK stands for.

My players think it stands for Mary Catherine

comes to practice.

(laughing)

They think it's a female friend of theirs

who's coming to practice.

But it stands for actually for MK,

who's a great sports scientist and a coach of tennis.

He's a tennis coach and a sports scientist.

So we're working, our team's working really hard right now

and they're embracing it,

but this physical conditioning test

that we got from MK, is rigorous.

And they're embracing it and they're getting better

and tennis is physical, isn't it?

And that's one of the things we love about it.

And so that is part of our program, the MK.

- Well, it's going to be like, yeah, you did it.

- It's willful it.

So it was a great kid obviously.

I had the brother working with him while he was in high school.

I, the community coach for where he went to high school.

And you know, they were many dynasty while he was there.

And I attribute so much because the character of the kid,

not only was he a great player.

He was the number one player, but gave back, came to practice

where a lot of those kids, you never see him

at a high school practice because they, they,

they think they're above it.

But he would always come back,

set the tone in the culture for the program

during that time period.

And he comes back during the summer

and has worked for me a couple of times.

So real, real close to will and obviously,

I don't know if you've met his girlfriend, Ashden.

- Of course, of course.

- She probably met quite a bit.

So, you know, Ashden, her mom,

lives in the community, I coach out of it,

Windomir.

So against small world department.

- Not not, yeah.

- Yes, not not.

- And he's learning how to be a Disney kid

after all these years, because you know,

that Morrison's a great, but to your point,

Will was a skinny kid.

And I laughed after he came home the first year.

I was like, oh, somebody had to meet the weights.

All of a sudden, their shirts get a little shorter.

You know, they, they're not so afraid to show their arms off.

I'm like, good for you.

You got to gym a little bit.

So yeah, but no, a great kid, but yes, I reached out to Will.

To Will, and say, give me something on coach.

Come on, I can use.

So he gave me MK.

So thank, that's cool.

- Well played, yeah.

- So you found it.

- That's it, Sean, I did my work.

- You did, I appreciate that.

- Lea's me the next question.

Where are we, where are we in touch with Mark Kovacs?

'Cause it sounds like we need a lot more of this,

this physical testing, because did you,

have you seen a big change since you implemented that?

Has it been incremental?

Do you see something major?

What's your response there?

- So we do, we do a combination,

like right now, I tell you what we're doing.

We're doing, so the MK is an on court,

on court running drill.

We do a little bit of track work, not too much.

We're in the gym, strength conditioning, mobility work.

Right now, we're also doing some assault bike workouts

that are very kind of fast twitch.

So we're, and so most of our players,

that's the trick about tennis, right?

It's, we're also wearing heart rate monitors now

in our training and getting a lot of good information from that.

But you're getting, you've got some players

that are better aerobically, they're athletically.

Some are better, they have a better an aerobically.

Well, tennis is both in it.

Like it's a duration, right?

Do you have got beat six one in the fifth

that he gets tired?

I don't know, you know, he's really fit, right?

He's improved his fitness, but probably,

and to, if you're super fit, you get to,

you get to train longer, you get in better quality reps

with better technique.

If you're strong, if you're, if you're flexible,

so it's not just on match day,

but your practices are gonna be better if you're fit.

So, we're, we're, we're trying to do a great job on our sleep.

We're trying to do a great job on our nutrition.

Tennis is tough, you know, and, and,

but we're not the only ones trying to do that.

Everybody's trying to do that, you know,

everybody's trying to do that.

And that's that, you know, you can play longer, right?

Guys are playing, we were talking about that earlier

in the pros, we're taking better care of ourselves.

There's sports signs out there that,

what, that wasn't readily available in years past.

So, where before, maybe you had an advantage,

if you used it, now if you don't use it,

you're gonna get crushed, 'cause everybody's using it.

- Yeah, I think, no, think about Novak, the shape is in it.

Like you said, the flexibility along what he brought

to the game, but what an advantage to know.

If we're going to the fifth set,

I'll, I'll never forget the Nadal Novak,

Australian Open Final, when you watched and said,

somebody like could die here.

I need it was that grueling, that physical,

any of the awards ceremony, the guy's making

the trophy presentation is keep talking on and on it.

And then both, you know, Novak is finally exhausted.

Like they're getting him a chair to sit,

like I shut up, you got two players

that just bowed in for six hours.

You can make the speech after,

let him get rest, let him get an IV for God's sake,

but it is an advantage knowing that,

hey, if we're gonna go six hours, I'ma be here, are you?

And I think Novak, that's on top of everything

that he's a Nadal be, his legacy to me,

as he just brought fitness to it, a whole new level.

- He improved, right?

He improved, right?

- Yeah.

- Minally and physically, he improved.

- Yes, absolutely.

So yeah, I agree and I love, and I love,

'cause it's a great point.

Unfortunately, I don't really go,

the baseball steroid issue, you know,

when they were all hitting the home runs,

and the issue was steroid helping.

And to me, it wasn't, like you said,

wasn't to me whether you hit the ball further,

it was the fact you weren't getting hurt as much.

- You were able, you looked at numbers historically

and baseball after the all-star break,

the numbers went down, 'cause the players were getting tired,

they were wearing out, they were getting

those little minor injuries.

So steroids helped mass that.

Well, now that we got rid of that, you know,

I'm sure there's things out there being done,

but it's the fitness is taking that role

and said that's how we're gonna be able to continue

to train at a high level, be able to maintain

the mental acuity because we wanna be, you know, sharp,

and you know, fitness has become so much a part of every sport.

Let it not be like you said, tennis,

tennis just highlights what unbelievable athletes

are playing tennis right now.

It's, you know, top three most athletic people

in the world, I'll argue with anybody

as far as sports are concerned.

And, you know, in Mark, Sean,

we can get Mark any time you want.

He hangs out with ARP quite a bit over in Castleberry,

so we don't see Mark quite a bit.

Castleberry, that makes me think of the beginning

of my career way back in the day.

- Oh.

- Well, I appreciate it, Rod.

This has been fun.

I think we're gonna talk more to college coaches.

How many now?

We've talked to a few college coaches,

but every time we do, I'm reminded how unique

your position is as a coach because it isn't the same

as a coach.

We realize all the differences here in LA.

Director of tennis is different from head coach

that's different from independent pro

in the neighborhoods.

And it's just a very different world that you live in

as a coach and the men in your case,

as the men's coach, that you get to help shape

and you get them after Bobby does

and Bobby gets them after I do.

And we've just got a hope that coaches along those lines

are all doing great things for these kids

because by the time you get them,

my job is to make Bobby's job easier.

And his job is to make your job easier

to be able to look at some of those players and say,

"Hey, you know what?

I've got these kids coming in and they're good,

but they're also, they've been shaped a little bit

by a good coach, a good mentor."

And say, "You know what?

"You're gonna go play with this guy,

"get it together because he's gonna expect a lot from you."

And a lot of those college coaches that we talk to

kind of have that same mentality and the team atmosphere

and says, "Hey, this is for us, this is what's good."

And we appreciate what you do obviously

because we're in different aspects of it.

And that's why it's fun to have these conversations

to say, "All right, well the six year old starts with me

"and when he's 16, he's with Bobby,

"and by the time he's 19, he needs to be ready for you."

And well, I guess that would give him a couple years in.

17, when do people go to college these days?

I don't know, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18.

All right, but Rod, I appreciate your time.

I've got one more question.

As always, our King of Tennis question, which is,

if you were King of Tennis, for whatever time frame it took,

whatever it is, whether it's the whole world,

whether it's just college, pro, social, anything,

from year in year world and how you view tennis in general,

is there anything you would do or change?

Yes, like I, what I really like about tennis

is how hard it is.

That's crazy as that is.

And I would like to see that celebrated more.

I would like to see, I would like to see it go from a,

I think the level that people attack tennis

that I coach is accessible to people for the rest of their lives.

And so I think I'd like to see a celebrate how hard it is,

how elite it is.

And so I think the benefit, the benefits of tennis are so great.

I'd like to see us talk about that more

so that a 40 year old wants the benefits that they'll get

from playing tennis at a competitive level,

not just as a recreational sport,

but as a competitive level.

'Cause I think the benefits are incredible,

as far as quality of life,

being, we're living longer, right?

We're not just playing pro tennis longer,

but we're living longer.

And if a person is active and is playing tennis,

not just at a recreational level,

but at a really competitive level,

you can play tennis at a really competitive level

for a long, long time.

Okay, well, if we're living longer,

don't we want to be super alive and super competitive?

And super, I mean, that never has to end is what I'm saying.

So we need to talk about that and celebrate that tennis is

difficult and that's what we like about it.

That it's not a bad thing, okay?

Make it elite, like to be a lifelong tennis player

is like getting a black belt and karate, like it's elite.

And I think, and we don't talk about that enough.

So when I meet someone who's 75 years old,

who's a great tennis player, like how cool is that?

And I think that's the goal to be an elite 75 and over player, right?

And I'd like to see us talk about that more.

But how do we do that?

Is it just talking about it?

We say, okay, but you're a king of tennis.

You got to tell us now you're in charge of out to get this done.

Yeah, I thought that if you already have in your mind

that can help us do this, help us celebrate its elite nature

and get more people living longer simply because we play tennis.

Well, I never heard anybody talk about it.

And so that's a starting point.

Like, let's just because you're an adult,

don't settle for being mediocre.

Amen.

Okay.

I like that a lot.

You know, like why would you do that?

The greatest tax you'll ever pay is that of your own unmet potential.

I tell my ladies when they go to the city championship

and no matter what their level, I'm like, guys, this is your day.

This is your day to accomplish something that other people aren't going,

don't be ashamed of, don't want to see, no, celebrate it.

Like, and I think Sean, that is the way to do it.

In this world of social media gets attacked for everything.

Let's just stay above it, celebrate it.

We're not condemning the person who doesn't live this lifestyle.

We're honoring or highlighting this person

and hopefully by example, which is, to me, the best way to learn

is the way we get the message across.

You know, celebrate it.

Show, like you said, the date is on our side.

It just came out.

Like you said, what other sport wouldn't be celebrating?

Tennis players live the longest life.

And that's, as you get older, I'm a year away from my 60th birthday.

And I'm sitting there going, my biggest fear is not dying.

It's not functioning.

Is changing, not being able to go hit with a 14-year-old anymore.

And I'm going to do everything I can to continue to be able to do that.

Bobby, I watched a lot of the US Open.

No one talked about that.

Yeah.

Not the pros that were playing, but they didn't talk about what you just said.

Two weeks of watching Pro Tennis.

I'm prime time.

Yeah, and that's again, that's always goes the way tennis is.

And it's yes, because they're unbelievable athletes.

And, you know, but it does have so many transferable benefits to life and everything about life.

And just the health benefits alone, as you get older, and that I completely agree.

And it's what we try to accomplish.

Look, we're not going to beat something to death.

We do poke fun at the leadership of the tennis organizations,

because I do think that's a failing on their part.

You know, that these aren't celebrated.

Let's use a very positive word.

But it takes more people to get out there and spread the message that we want to hear,

that we want to propagate to the folks.

Yes, sinner, hang, unbelievable.

Great.

But there's other things going on here.

And it should be a party.

It shouldn't just be celebrated two weeks at the US Open.

It should be celebrated year-round.

I think it was good. They put the World's Healthiest Sport on the court.

But I think you're right, Rod.

I don't remember them ever pointing it out or even having a conversation about it.

Interesting.

Yeah.

But that's a World's Healthiest Sport was on the court the whole time.

I hadn't seen that before this year.

Right.

Well, they have the data, but did they really do enough with it?

You know, we're not on the leadership team.

So we always get to sit here and complain and go, yes, we picked on USDA again.

And just going to just--

They're going to listen to your show and they're going to start, right?

Yeah.

Anybody USDA out there listening, feel free to call me.

[LAUGHTER]

I'd love to have you on.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

But, Rod, I appreciate it.

I-- you had me speechless there a couple of times.

You had two great quotes.

So I'm going to make sure-- or put in there because just because you're an adult, you

doesn't mean you have to be mediocre.

And the greatest tax that you will ever pay is of your own unmatched potential.

And I remember that was debilitating for me as a child, was the fear of reaching my potential.

So I think that was a struggle for me as a kid, even going into college, is what kind of

pressure that also puts on you.

And if you don't work toward it, then there's a good chance you're just going to have some

other people going, oh, you could be so much more.

And that's probably not a feeling anybody wants.

But I appreciate your time.

And we will follow up.

I'll make sure all the information is in the show notes in the audio only and the YouTube

descriptions.

So everybody knows what to click on.

And thank you for your offer.

I don't count about getting-- I'm not one of the three of them getting the free book, right?

Because I'm going to go--

Before we publish, it doesn't count.

But thank you so much.

Bobby is always.

I appreciate it.

Bobby's over there.

Thank you.

And--

Thank you guys so much.

We will stay in touch.

And good luck to you guys this season.

That's right.

Thanks so much.

Go Terriers.

Well, there you have it.

We want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio and signature tennis for their support.

And be sure to hit that follow button.

For more Racket Sports content, you can go to LetsGoTennis.com.

And while you're there, check out our calendar of events, great deals on Racket Sports products,

apparel, and more.

If you're a coach, director of any Racket Sports, or just someone who wants to utilize

our online shop, contact us about setting up your own shop collection to offer your branded

merchandise to the Racket Sports world.

And with that, we're out.

See you next time.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(upbeat music)