Jorge Capestany has thousands of tennis drills to share with Atlanta

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[MUSIC]

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Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

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Every episode is titled, It Starts With Tennis and Goes From There.

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We talk with coaches, club managers, industry business professionals,

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technology experts, and anyone else we find interesting.

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We want to have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.

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[MUSIC]

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Hey, hey, this is Sean with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

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We are in the Rejovenate studio in Buford, Georgia, and in this episode,

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Bobby and I talk to Jorge Capastani.

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Jorge is one of only 11 people worldwide that has the distinction of being a master

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professional with the US PTA and an international master professional with the PTR.

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Jorge has been named the National Pro of the Year by both the US PTA and PTR.

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He is an internationally recognized speaker and a member of the US PTA Midwest Division Hall of Fame.

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Jorge may be best known for developing two leading tennis industry websites,

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one for tennis coaches and one for tennis players.

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Both websites can be found at capastanitennis.com.

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Let us know what you think, and in this case, if you're interested in getting involved.

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[MUSIC]

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First of all, I want to say thank you for making time.

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>> No problem, guys.

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Thanks for having me.

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>> And it's good to talk to you live.

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Both Bobby and I have been to a lot of the webinars where you've spoken and

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paid attention to some of the conferences and things.

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So we know a lot about you.

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I don't know how much you know about us.

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>> Where are your podcasts?

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>> I knew about that.

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>> Okay, so the podcast is start.

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That's good.

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I run tennisforchildren.com here in Atlanta.

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So I focus on 10 and under beginners and Bobby runs a club in coming,

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which is North Metro, Georgia, or North Metro Atlanta, excuse me.

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And as an example, one of our other partnerships outside the podcast is

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tennis for children runs his 10 and under program at his club.

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So he outsources that specifically to us as a specialist.

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Bobby is the director of tennis at Windomere Club in coming.

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And he and I spoke a few years ago and

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decided that we wanted to start talking about Atlanta specific concepts with

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the Atlanta tennis podcast because we got a lot of people out there that say,

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hey, we got this new thing and we're going to take over the world and it's going to be global.

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And we think that tennis is a little too federal for that.

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We think it's a little too specific to each location.

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Michigan is going to be different from Atlanta and where you are,

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how things operate is going to be, it's just going to be different.

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It's still tennis, it's still what we love.

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But we focus specifically on the culture here.

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And if you don't mind telling us, kind of give us your elevator pitch,

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but you don't have to limit it to 30 seconds of who you are,

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what you're working on now.

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I know you originally started with, I don't say originally, sorry.

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You had a Havana Bobz for a while.

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I think you moved on from that, which is how I

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figured out your Cuban background.

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I'm like, he's not a Cuban if he named that thing.

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And Bobby's got an excuse to be upset with him for not speaking Spanish as well.

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So we've got some connections, but I want to hear about you and what you're doing.

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And then eventually we'll tie it all back in to how this works for Atlanta.

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We've got a new project coming up called Go Tennis.

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It's in Atlanta starting and love to have you be a part of that.

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But that'll be a separate thing.

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So if you don't mind telling us who is Jorge Capacini and kind of a bit about yourself.

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OK, well, first again, thanks for having me.

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So who's Jorge Capacini?

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I've been in the tennis industry now for about 40 years.

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My background is I'm an immigrant from Cuba.

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I was born in Havana, Cuba, but came right away when I was a baby.

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I speak Spanish and English.

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And I didn't get introduced to tennis until almost my ninth grade in school

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happened really in the summer between my eighth grade and eighth grade years in high school.

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And the Bentley family, there's my two friends that moved into town and I hung up with them.

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We played all kinds of sports, but they were a tennis family,

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and a football family, and they played all kinds of sports.

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So that was my first introduction to tennis.

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And I really liked it.

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I fell in love and I got within a year I decided that didn't

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expring my freshman year in high school rather than play baseball in the spring.

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I wanted to do a tennis.

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I wasn't necessarily good.

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I was pretty raw, but my friends run the team.

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And luckily for me, I made the last spot in the team, and that was pretty cool.

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And I got to hang out and I really liked it.

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And that's what kind of hooked me on tennis.

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Within a year, I'm realizing, I got to play your round on the Michigan.

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You can't really play outdoors in the winter.

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So I started sniffing around the local club and I went and spoke to a guy there at Don Dickinson

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who was the pro at the time.

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And I didn't know.

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I just wanted to have the people play inside tonight.

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I remember walking into this indoor club the first time, and I'm like, oh my god, look

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this place is crazy.

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But being an immigrant family, we really didn't have much money.

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And my parents, they were freaked out if I said, hey, I need hundreds of dollars or clinics

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and stuff.

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So as I listened to that guy, tell me about what it takes to play inside.

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Internally, I was kind of already checked out.

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I go, man, this ain't going to work, but I was too embarrassed to say, oh, I can't afford

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it.

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So I just listened to him and I said, okay, well, let me get back to him and talk to my

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parents and stuff.

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And I was, I'm the way out the door.

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And he literally says, hey, come on back in here and he asked me a few more questions.

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So I think he might have sent something.

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But he said, listen, if you don't have the money to do this, maybe what I can do is set you

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up with a walk-on pass.

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And I go, what's that?

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Because while you pay 20 bucks and you can walk on the court, but literally you can't reserve

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it.

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You got to be in person, walk on.

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And I'm like, man, that's 20 bucks.

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I can do that.

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So that's how I got started.

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He kind of gave me that special walk-on.

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And I used the heck out of it.

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I had played like 15 hours a week with the same person, Chris Benjamin.

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And he noticed, we could get there at your school around three by four p.m.

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the clinics were running and we were off the courts doing homework and the lobby.

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And he saw that I was just living at the club waiting to hop on the court whenever and he

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approached me and says, hey, if you, I know you can't do the clinics, but if you wanted

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to do a clinic, maybe you can clean the courts and sweep the courts in the morning.

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I said, heck yeah.

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And that got me my first clinic.

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And then he said, maybe you can sweep the court outside.

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I'll do it.

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Maybe you can clean the pool.

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Maybe you can clean the toilets.

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And I just took in these odd jobs so I could play in clinics.

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Never had a private lesson in my life.

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So that's how I got into that.

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And then right about when I seen your year, the coach, Don said, listen, here's another thing

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you can do.

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I was about teaching with kids, little kids and you know, that'll give you some more time

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on the court.

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And I said, yeah, I'll do it.

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And I think I did it halfway decent.

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And he says, if you want to do more, you know, start working with more levels, I need you

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to get certified.

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And I said, okay, what's that?

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He says you got to and he didn't tell me about one option.

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He said you got to go to Quebec in Canada.

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And then you got to get certified at the same call to PTR University with Dennis Bandermere.

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I said, okay, how do I do that?

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And I did it when I was about 20 or 19, I think.

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And that opened my eyes because I really didn't know anything about teaching.

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But that was an amazing experience for me.

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And I got started and I kind of liked it.

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And then I kind of taught a lot through my college years.

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And then right after college, I did not think it was going to be a tennis pro.

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I literally had already interviewed for a sales job.

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And my buddy who played doubles with me called me at the time.

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He said, look, I want you to come back to your home club, Rambo Wood, and I want you to

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be the director of tennis.

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And I thought, oh, man, I'll try that for a while.

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And here I am.

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I was in 40, one years ago now that I took that first job.

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And I liked it.

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I had some good success.

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I was able to balance with really good juniors and some global winners.

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Next thing you know, here we are.

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So the careers evolved.

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I think my early years, I was definitely a high-performance coach.

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I was lucky to have some really good athletes and really talented players.

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And within my first 10 years, I had three different goal ball winners.

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And then of course, that makes you the guru and talent.

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So all kinds of people were driving over to my club.

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And then I switched to a bigger club.

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And I did that.

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And probably in my around 35 is when I started shifting off the core, doing more on the

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core.

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I do have an entrepreneurial spirit.

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I started a couple of companies.

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First of all, I was having an ABOB tennis shirt, which I know.

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But it's still out there and doing well.

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And about 11 or 12 years ago, I started my current company, Capastan and tennis Inc., which

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is best known for tennis drills.tv because I had a chance to speak.

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And I spoke on tennis drills because that's what I always thought I wanted when I went to

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conventions.

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And it just went bonkers.

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People really, coaches, as you know, I mean, you give a coach a new drill and they're happy

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for a month, you know.

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Because it's really easy.

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I was told victim of using the same five drills over and over forever.

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So yeah, now that company had, or my website has 2,000 tennis drills on it and subscribers

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in 72 countries in the school and brainwaves.

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My current day job, if you will, is I'm the manager of the Duitt, Tennis Center at Holt

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College, which is a division three school in Holland, Michigan.

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And I also am the PTM co-director.

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I started the PTM standing for professional tennis management with one of nine schools in

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the country that you can go and get a call for me and also study how to teach tennis.

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And I'm really proud of what we're doing with those kids because, you know, they get a lot

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of aversion because we have full programs.

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So we're not huge.

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We're probably around 15 kids, but the kids that we're putting out are really, really good.

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They're getting an amazing job and job offer.

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So that's kind of my life journey in tennis.

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I like it.

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We've got two things I want to go from that.

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Because first of all, I think the tennis drill comment that you made for the coaches is

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kind of two-fold.

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Bobby always says, he says, "When we go to a tennis coach convention, what is it, Bobby,

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like, if I come back with one new drill, I'm happy?"

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It was a good, good, good convention.

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Yeah.

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That's true.

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And the longer you teach, this is phenomenal.

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And if you've taught even 10 years, you probably use over 100 drills in your lifetime,

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either as a player or a coach.

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But I do this exercise when I do these four hour workouts, I'll say, "Everybody, right now,

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take a piece of paper.

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We're going to take 10 minutes."

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And I want you to write down every single drill that you can think of.

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And these coaches, and I know it's literally a couple hundred, at least, especially if they've

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been teaching for a while.

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But no one can write down more than 15.

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They get the same.

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Top of your head?

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There's no way.

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I'm doing it in my head right now.

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I got to five, and I'm done.

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But I know hundreds.

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And I know.

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That's kind of why I built a website.

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I know I'll be presenting here at the World Conference in New Orleans, and I present all

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over the world.

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I'm really lucky to be able to do that.

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But yeah, it's so easy as a coach.

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You're like, "What do I do?"

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And you end up doing your best hits, the five that you're in your current rotation.

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And if you can have a new drill that you really like, it was playing well, like, "Oh, genius,

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I love it.

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I'm going to use it."

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Even your players are fired up for a few months.

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You're just like, "Oh, I was cool with you.

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And that would, you know?"

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So that's my passion.

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I love coming up with drills.

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I'm pretty good at it.

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And now that, you know, right now, I filmed, when I say over 2000 tennis drills, I can't

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tell you 2000 tennis drills.

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I can't tell you 100 tennis drills.

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So we need to place a database where we should get more drills and we can remember, for sure.

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I agree.

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That is one of those scenarios.

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Back in the day, you just have that book.

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Oh, man, I just, I need something fresh today.

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We do the same thing with the beginner eight-year-olds.

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It's okay.

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You know what?

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We've been doing the same thing for a month.

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We need at least one new thing to introduce.

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You've got your staples.

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You have the things you still need to do.

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You've got your six to eight different shots that we all know exist.

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We've got our targets to be able to handle those.

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But it's always coming back with that one slightly different version.

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You know, how many different ways can you play jail with a bunch of 10-year-olds?

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And at some point it's like, okay, what is that called?

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Maybe there's 100 different versions of that.

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Right.

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It'd be really cool to be able to do it just by level.

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And that's one of the things Bobby and I talk about all the time.

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We're going to do drill, we're going to work with players similarly.

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But if you're an eight-year-old beginner, it's different from a 12-year-old beginner.

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It's different from, obviously.

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You can keep going, right?

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Yeah, one of the things I find, you know, because I do speak a lot on that topic.

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And a couple things I've learned.

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And this is global.

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Like, it doesn't matter if I'm speaking in China or in Wemmelton or Norway or Australia,

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the same pro, teaching pro, the same problems.

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Why are we doing this jail?

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Is it boring?

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What's the purpose behind it?

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A lot of times with it.

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And by the way, I'm a consumer still.

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So if I go to a convention, and someone's title of the presentation has a word "drills" in

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it, there's like a 1,000% chance I'm showing up because I still want to learn that's your

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thing.

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But a lot of times you'll see a drill and you're like, "Oh, okay, that reminded me of this

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drill that my college school used to do.

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I forgot, I forgot all about that one."

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And it may not even be new, it just might rattle some thing in your brain.

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So I guess it is kind of new because now it's back in your rotation.

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And the other thing is, I've learned that coaches generally, this kind of sounds like it,

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but a lot of tennis coaches are not that great at modifying drills.

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So here's what happens to me.

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I'll do a drill.

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It's going to happen in New Orleans, guarantee it.

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I'm going to have my wife there, my daughter's going to be there.

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I'll get some coaches out of the audience.

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And I'll do drills and it'll go well.

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I know it well.

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But there's always going to be a percentage of people in the audience, sometimes it comes

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up to me and say, "Hey, Jorge, I really like those drills, but you know, I just, they won't

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work at my club."

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And I go, "Why won't they work?"

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They go, "Well, because you used Sean and Bobby, these guys are all freaking great players,

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my club, my players are horrible."

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They're really low skill.

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You can't do those drills.

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And I go, "Well, here's the deal.

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I actually do all those drills that you just saw with 2.5 players.

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You just got to know how to modify them."

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And man, I run across that globally.

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A lot of people, they just pigeonhole the drill.

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That would never work for that.

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That would never work for that.

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Most my drills, I'm going to say 90% of them, I can do with a 2.0 all the way to a 5.0.

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It just, here's the thing to remember, a 5.0, it's going to look pretty dang sweet, you

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know, because they're sweet looking players.

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And the 2.0, it's going to look a little rough.

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But they're still hitting the shots.

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They're still learning the idea, like, hey, in mid-court, you're going to be aggressive

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and you're going to do it.

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They're just going to look like two always when they do it.

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And that's fine.

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It doesn't mean you throw out a drill.

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There's maybe 10% of the drills where I would say, "Okay, don't do that for the 2.5.

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They skill wise, they can't do it yet."

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And it's just going to be a concert reminder that they stink at that drill.

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So there are some, but way overwhelmingly, I think most drills work for most people.

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Yeah, and we've got, with tennis for children, we've got our lesson plans and along those

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lines where we have, it's the same game, but there are three different versions depending

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on the 6-year-old, the 8-year-old, the 10-year-old.

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So they scale is kind of how we describe it.

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I say, "I've got this one game that it's pretty much the same concept, but we can play it

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from never played before to kind of figuring it out," which is basically all we work with

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in what we do is never played before to kind of figure it out.

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Once you kind of figure it out, then we give you to Bobby.

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And he gets to worry about the drills for them.

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Right.

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Yeah, that's great.

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But yeah, it's fun.

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I mean, that's kind of what I do.

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And I think, you know, from one of the unique things that I get to do, which not everybody

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does, that's teaching tennis, is I get to work with these, you know, basically new-ish pros,

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these 19-year-olds that are now in college and learning it.

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So for most of us, you guys included.

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We haven't really been a beginner at teaching tennis for quite some time.

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You know, you've been pretty good at it.

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So it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of a new pro.

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We all know there's a massive shortage of coaches.

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Literally a week does not go by where I don't get an email like, "Dude, you got to call

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me, I need a good pro."

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Everybody wants our great pro, you know, like, don't give me a scrub, don't give me

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some of those on a teach I need them to be a really good player.

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And I'm like, "Okay, well, that's a unicorn.

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Go have fun trying to find that."

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And are you willing to pay them what they're worth?

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Yeah.

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So, but now I see all these kids and the wild, the training and the drills I do when I train

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them is just teaching them up on how to do it.

Speaker: 00:18:33

And it's really interesting to see what scares them and what they need to, you know, what skills

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they need to acquire so they can feel like, "Okay, I can go on a court with adults and

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not be scared to death."

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And it's totally different than what you might want to teach a 20-year-old veteran pro

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that's had, you know, 20-years-old experience.

Speaker: 00:18:53

Well, that would be harder.

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I know Bobby's got a lot of questions about your PTM program and how are we bringing new

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players or new coaches in?

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And that'd be one of those scenarios is, "Okay, once you've been in the industry 20 years,

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we're all really great at it and, you know, there's nothing left to learn."

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And if you're that coach, you're probably not listening to this conversation because we

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all know there's always something left to learn.

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But Bobby and I were talking about that recently and Bobby had a bunch of questions of, "Okay,

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how do we get more pros?

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What does that look like?"

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And is that something, is this PTM program helping with that?

Speaker: 00:19:26

And how does that happen?

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Because we're going to have a similar question here in Atlanta because we want to bring all

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those people that, you know, Bobby had to describe it, just the guy with the basket of tennis

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balls in his trunk.

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Right.

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Well, that's it.

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And I hear that one of the fascinating things I love listening to you speak.

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What is the kid that's entering your program?

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Are they players? Are they a decent player who played in high school but really wants to

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career and coaching?

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What is the kid who's walking in the program?

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Yeah.

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Well, I know for us, and I'm pretty sure this is universal because I've been friends with

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a lot of PTM directors and, you know, I know a lot of people who've gone through it.

Speaker: 00:20:07

The, your average PTM student in America is not an elite player.

Speaker: 00:20:13

Half of them don't even play on their college tennis team.

Speaker: 00:20:18

So the first PTM program ever at Ferris State University, my buddy Scott Schultt started

Speaker: 00:20:24

that.

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And back in its heyday, it had like 100 people.

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So obviously, you know, you don't have 100 people on your varsity tennis team.

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So the people that I look for, I look for people that play tennis, you can't be a total beginner.

Speaker: 00:20:38

And I mean, you can be actually, I can teach a total beginner how to be a really good

Speaker: 00:20:43

teacher, but they're probably going to be teaching younger players and new-ish adults because

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for good or bad, they're not going to get the respective or 4.5 person that wants to

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take a lesson and then they'll just, you know, say, well, this guy is not even as good

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as I am.

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So I think I was the general type of PTM student is that I look for.

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Someone that loves tennis, they got to be a tennis nut.

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And I want to know that they have an outgoing personality, the kind of personality that's

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not shy, quiet.

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You can be shy and quiet and be a really good tennis pro, but I'm looking for the person

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that's kind of more outgoing because if they have those skills, I can teach them how to

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teach tennis.

Speaker: 00:21:26

You know, he's not going to know.

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No one walks in to my college PTM program knowing that nine checkpoints for the serve

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and the six checkpoints for the ground strokes, but I can teach them that.

Speaker: 00:21:37

So the problem that we have, unfortunately, is that there's just even in PTM schools, all

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the PTM schools combined have 160 total students.

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We need that to be like, you know, 3,000.

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I think, and there's the equivalent and golf is the PGM programs.

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And I think there's like, somebody just told me like 2,000 of them and all that combined

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out of the college.

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So that's 500 a year graduating going into the industry.

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Tennis doesn't have that.

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And that's been around for thousands of years, as I would put it.

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I mean, that's just been around forever.

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And golf is more, I think historically considered a business.

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There's a higher, and correct me if I'm wrong, Bobby, my opinion in the Atlanta area, we

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see your career path ends at director of tennis for a tennis pro.

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And if you're in for a golf pro, you can go further up into general manager to run a club.

Speaker: 00:22:39

Usually it's not your tennis pro that makes it there.

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So your golf pro college program is probably significantly more popular.

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But we would ask somebody like you and say, okay, how do we help with that?

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How do we promote, and we focus mainly on Atlanta, of course.

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But how do we help with that?

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When we go out with, as an example, our new project is going to be yelling at the Atlanta

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area.

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Talking about what's going on with the coaches, players, the social aspect of it.

Speaker: 00:23:08

Why does it exist?

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We don't necessarily need a lot of high performance coaches here, because it's much more social.

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Yet the young coaches, and I remember myself being a young coach, really liking the feeling

Speaker: 00:23:18

of working with the high performance player, it felt like I was a, that was a better thing

Speaker: 00:23:23

to be until I realized that director of tennis doesn't do that.

Speaker: 00:23:29

And I wondered why the young player.

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So trying to figure out when you start, how do you get those young people that may or may

Speaker: 00:23:38

not know there is a career path here, and even getting out of high school and go, you can

Speaker: 00:23:43

go create a career path to get into teaching tennis where I didn't do that.

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I know Bobby was in sports marketing.

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I went out and got a really useful philosophy degree.

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So I wasn't going to college to be a tennis coach.

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Right.

Speaker: 00:23:59

That can be a thing.

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Yeah.

Speaker: 00:24:02

It exists.

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And how do we promote that even more?

Speaker: 00:24:04

How do we make that more of a thing?

Speaker: 00:24:06

Well, I think, here's the way I think we do it.

Speaker: 00:24:12

So obviously I'm running a PTN program.

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I want to have, well, actually I don't want to have 100, but in theory, the more the better,

Speaker: 00:24:19

right?

Speaker: 00:24:20

And all colleges can do the same thing.

Speaker: 00:24:22

So what I think, and the USDA has made some efforts in here too, right?

Speaker: 00:24:29

So for years, we get an email list from them, like, hey, here's, you know, they're running

Speaker: 00:24:35

ads on social media and stuff, and here's names that have clicked, they say they're interested

Speaker: 00:24:39

and they sent it to us PTN directors, and it's up to us to follow through with them.

Speaker: 00:24:44

The problem is there's not that many that are just evolving and showing up at your front

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door showing an interest.

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So if you just kind of wait and sit back and see who comes, there isn't.

Speaker: 00:24:56

The PTR would probably want to have thousands more, the USPTA would probably have thousands

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more.

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There's no real good recruiting thing.

Speaker: 00:25:04

So what I would say, and I would tell this to the USDA because they have the money to

Speaker: 00:25:09

pull it off, is we know that in America, there is 355,000 high school tennis players, okay?

Speaker: 00:25:19

That's pretty consistent number.

Speaker: 00:25:21

And high school tennis is a big deal.

Speaker: 00:25:24

Right now, I wouldn't say that either the PTR or the USPTA or the USDA is famously known

Speaker: 00:25:32

for helping out high school coaches.

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It's just not what they think.

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Now they might say, hey, hold your horses there.

Speaker: 00:25:41

But let's face it, no high school coach in my area has ever been reshowed to these people.

Speaker: 00:25:48

It doesn't mean that they don't want stuff.

Speaker: 00:25:50

You might have stuff for them, but if you don't know how to get all of them.

Speaker: 00:25:53

So here's the problem of that 350,000 prospects.

Speaker: 00:25:56

Those are all prospects for me for as a PTM director.

Speaker: 00:25:59

The problem is that that's not a database.

Speaker: 00:26:02

You don't have everybody's name in the high school database players of America that you can

Speaker: 00:26:07

go and buy the list in market too.

Speaker: 00:26:09

Right?

Speaker: 00:26:10

So the only way you get to these kids is through their coaches or A.Ds, okay?

Speaker: 00:26:15

So we know there's tens of thousands of high school, middle school coaches in our country.

Speaker: 00:26:23

So that you can't get to them, okay?

Speaker: 00:26:26

There's ways to market to all the coaches in America through different marketing channels

Speaker: 00:26:31

and email lists that you can buy.

Speaker: 00:26:34

That's where I think that they should start.

Speaker: 00:26:37

But then the problem is, well, the USDA by email lists and they can't seem to want to do

Speaker: 00:26:43

that.

Speaker: 00:26:44

But it's really tough.

Speaker: 00:26:46

But the way I've been doing it, the way I've recommended people to do it, it's just the phrase

Speaker: 00:26:51

"grow your own garden."

Speaker: 00:26:52

So let's just narrow it out to my PTM program here in Holland, Michigan, Western Michigan.

Speaker: 00:26:58

I have a system where I go to all the local kids in our, so we have a pretty good size junior

Speaker: 00:27:04

program, right?

Speaker: 00:27:06

So I'm guessing we have a couple hundred high school kids that come to our lessons pretty

Speaker: 00:27:13

much on a year-round basis or just at least season.

Speaker: 00:27:16

I will start reaching out to them and I'll email that list all the time, so hey guys, I have

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a volunteer opportunity.

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Do you guys want to come?

Speaker: 00:27:24

And most of them are doing this national honor society so they need volunteer hours anyway.

Speaker: 00:27:29

And I say I wanted to try to help us with some kids.

Speaker: 00:27:34

You don't have to lead it obviously, but this way, I get a look at them.

Speaker: 00:27:38

And I always have probably a recession, at least ten high school kids out there kind of working.

Speaker: 00:27:44

Now, more recently, I developed a course online on tennis field side TV that I share with them,

Speaker: 00:27:50

that they can get their training before they show up.

Speaker: 00:27:53

So they're like, what's a red ball?

Speaker: 00:27:54

What's the size of the core?

Speaker: 00:27:56

What's, you know, what's the visual scoring?

Speaker: 00:27:58

What can you expect from a five year-over versus a eight year-old?

Speaker: 00:28:01

So they see all this before they get there.

Speaker: 00:28:03

And then once they get there, our coaches lead and then they take their three little kids

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and do their thing.

Speaker: 00:28:08

It works good, but they get volunteer hours.

Speaker: 00:28:11

I get extra help for free.

Speaker: 00:28:15

But more importantly, now I'm seeing ten kids.

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And then my little brain, I'm like, that one would be amazing.

Speaker: 00:28:22

I'm going to, and not all of them, but probably half of them will say, hey, I want to talk

Speaker: 00:28:27

to you.

Speaker: 00:28:28

First of all, thanks for doing this.

Speaker: 00:28:29

Secondly, you're pretty good at this.

Speaker: 00:28:31

You have the right personality, you have the right to be here.

Speaker: 00:28:35

Do you know about this problem?

Speaker: 00:28:37

And I'd like to talk to you and your family about it.

Speaker: 00:28:39

So we're growing our own garden, basically.

Speaker: 00:28:42

And that's where we're getting most of our kids.

Speaker: 00:28:44

Over half the kids in our PTM program came from the DeWitt Tennis Center junior program,

Speaker: 00:28:51

so that we raised them up.

Speaker: 00:28:53

So it's a good success rate.

Speaker: 00:28:54

So we would ask that of you.

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We would say, okay, if we want to grow the garden that is Metro Atlanta, we would come

Speaker: 00:29:01

to you and say, okay, we want this advice.

Speaker: 00:29:04

And we use your preparation videos.

Speaker: 00:29:07

I mean, I got some, but they're targeted toward tennis for children, specifically, because

Speaker: 00:29:12

we do a lot of high school recruiting because our best coaches aren't, I'm not coming to

Speaker: 00:29:17

you saying I need a certified pro who's really good, because we don't pay $70 an hour,

Speaker: 00:29:22

$100 an hour, right?

Speaker: 00:29:23

So ours is, like you said, are you happy hanging around with a bunch of six year olds?

Speaker: 00:29:28

If so, I can give you the lesson plan.

Speaker: 00:29:30

I can teach you how to teach them, but you have to enjoy being there.

Speaker: 00:29:34

And if you can help us find who might be interested, that'd be great.

Speaker: 00:29:39

Yeah, first of all, I can always do it myself, but I'm going to tell you something that very

Speaker: 00:29:43

few people actually know, so I'm kind of breaking the news here with you guys.

Speaker: 00:29:47

There's a guy in your area, Mark Covex, good buddy of mine.

Speaker: 00:29:51

He's the sports scientist right there in Atlanta.

Speaker: 00:29:54

And Scott Schultz, who I mentioned earlier, he's the first guy that ever started the PTM

Speaker: 00:29:59

program at Ferris.

Speaker: 00:30:01

He's retired from the USC, and now he was a high level executive in the USDA, kind of the

Speaker: 00:30:06

Godfather of PTM programs.

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And then me, we're all buddies.

Speaker: 00:30:10

So about a year ago, we formed a company called RSU, RACFUS Sports at University.

Speaker: 00:30:17

And our first material, basically, coaches education, our first material, we don't want

Speaker: 00:30:22

to certify.

Speaker: 00:30:23

We're not USPTA, we're not PCR.

Speaker: 00:30:25

We want to educate.

Speaker: 00:30:27

So the very first dashboard, of course, is, if you will, is one for newer coaches for trying

Speaker: 00:30:35

to get people.

Speaker: 00:30:36

And inside that dashboard of like 13 courses, the very first one, the most powerful one, is

Speaker: 00:30:43

assisting with kids' classes.

Speaker: 00:30:45

And it was literally me with five high schoolers and five moms training them, like, hey, here's

Speaker: 00:30:54

the course.

Speaker: 00:30:57

But you can use that course and send it to all your members.

Speaker: 00:31:01

Hey, members, adults, whatever.

Speaker: 00:31:03

If you're interested, that's the other market, by the way.

Speaker: 00:31:06

There's a lot of adults.

Speaker: 00:31:07

I know tons, but I know several guys who are 55, they made all the money they'll ever

Speaker: 00:31:13

need.

Speaker: 00:31:14

They're tennis nuts, and they're like, can I laugh?

Speaker: 00:31:16

Maybe I can just hang up my business thing.

Speaker: 00:31:18

I'm still going to be fine financially.

Speaker: 00:31:20

And I'm going to start working out at the club, and maybe I can teach this or that,

Speaker: 00:31:23

and that's the other.

Speaker: 00:31:24

And those guys are rock stars.

Speaker: 00:31:25

I have a couple of my club that had been volunteering.

Speaker: 00:31:29

I don't think you consider it a low-stress gig, right?

Speaker: 00:31:31

Yeah, they're like, this is great.

Speaker: 00:31:32

I get to wear shorts and go to work.

Speaker: 00:31:34

And, you know, I'm already a millionaire, so what's it?

Speaker: 00:31:37

You know, even more low-stress, that's great.

Speaker: 00:31:40

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:31:41

So, we're really close.

Speaker: 00:31:43

We have a verbal agreement with the USDA, so to put that material out.

Speaker: 00:31:49

So, worst case scenario, I could always help coaches through tennisreal.tv.

Speaker: 00:31:56

But our bigger thing is, like, if I do that, you know, I have bills to pay.

Speaker: 00:31:59

I got to pay a couple of employees and all this stuff to run the website.

Speaker: 00:32:03

But we're asking the USDA, guys, don't make this a barrier.

Speaker: 00:32:07

Take this content, which is going to potentially grow all these.

Speaker: 00:32:11

I'm not aiming at 28 euros.

Speaker: 00:32:13

I'm aiming at wreck players, like, literally every wreck player in America.

Speaker: 00:32:19

It could be ass.

Speaker: 00:32:21

Are you having any interest?

Speaker: 00:32:22

You probably never saw it.

Speaker: 00:32:23

We've got a few of those here in Atlanta.

Speaker: 00:32:25

Here's the thing.

Speaker: 00:32:26

Watch this video.

Speaker: 00:32:27

We can show you how you can actually maybe do this pretty well and take away the fear.

Speaker: 00:32:32

And then get them out into the clubs and then all the local clubs, all you would have to

Speaker: 00:32:37

do is just send out the email.

Speaker: 00:32:38

Hey, guys, new opportunity, really clever idea.

Speaker: 00:32:41

We need help.

Speaker: 00:32:42

Tennis needs help.

Speaker: 00:32:44

You play tennis.

Speaker: 00:32:45

You might think you need to be a rock star.

Speaker: 00:32:46

You don't.

Speaker: 00:32:47

But you need certain skills.

Speaker: 00:32:48

We'll teach you these skills right here.

Speaker: 00:32:51

It may be a certain club.

Speaker: 00:32:52

It's a local further.

Speaker: 00:32:53

We'll meet face to face on top of that.

Speaker: 00:32:57

But it has to be done for you.

Speaker: 00:32:58

And not that many clubs, to be honest, are looking in their own garden.

Speaker: 00:33:02

They're kind of like nine times out of 10.

Speaker: 00:33:05

When a pro calls me or text me, I literally have one this week.

Speaker: 00:33:09

So I had to get a new pro, as a pro in Florida calling about, hey, one of my guys is leaving.

Speaker: 00:33:14

I need, he was a rock star.

Speaker: 00:33:15

I need somebody good.

Speaker: 00:33:17

They can make a lot of money.

Speaker: 00:33:19

And I'm like, is there anybody in your membership or in your orbit and call it, look around.

Speaker: 00:33:26

Is there anybody?

Speaker: 00:33:27

Because they always think they got to come from somewhere.

Speaker: 00:33:30

And I'm just telling you, they're not beating down the planet to come and join the industry.

Speaker: 00:33:34

So a lot of people are just like me.

Speaker: 00:33:37

It's good.

Speaker: 00:33:38

I got to just build my own day in garden because the harvest isn't there.

Speaker: 00:33:43

No one's around that wants to do this.

Speaker: 00:33:45

I got to make it.

Speaker: 00:33:47

It makes a lot of sense.

Speaker: 00:33:48

And we'd love to take a look at that because that's one of the things we're looking to do here

Speaker: 00:33:52

in Atlanta is improve the interaction.

Speaker: 00:33:56

We want to make it better.

Speaker: 00:33:57

We want to make it.

Speaker: 00:33:58

Everybody talks about tennis being more accessible and more affordable.

Speaker: 00:34:01

And it's like, okay, well, is that, what is, first of all, what does that even mean?

Speaker: 00:34:06

We go back and forth on defining accessible and those kinds of things.

Speaker: 00:34:10

But also are there coaches out there that are affordable?

Speaker: 00:34:13

And do we have an eye on them?

Speaker: 00:34:14

Are they background checked?

Speaker: 00:34:15

Are they safe, sport trained?

Speaker: 00:34:17

Are they, I mean, even if they're not certified, did you run a background check just to say,

Speaker: 00:34:22

look, I'm good to play with kids.

Speaker: 00:34:25

And we've looked at these, what we would call coaches, and we've got a lot of them here

Speaker: 00:34:31

in the Atlanta area where we're not all looking for the country club job.

Speaker: 00:34:36

We're not all looking for that rock star.

Speaker: 00:34:38

Some people just need a guy to feed some balls to their team and they don't necessarily

Speaker: 00:34:43

want to pay $100 an hour.

Speaker: 00:34:45

So we've got to figure out, all right, where is that coach that we can give them a little

Speaker: 00:34:49

bit of support, give them some training, give them some affiliate relationships and some

Speaker: 00:34:54

potential pro shop relationships and we can help them with the business of what they're

Speaker: 00:34:58

doing.

Speaker: 00:35:00

But we need to find them first.

Speaker: 00:35:01

And that's one of the things Bobby and I talk about a lot.

Speaker: 00:35:04

Where are they?

Speaker: 00:35:05

Where do we recruit?

Speaker: 00:35:06

How do we train them?

Speaker: 00:35:07

Because obviously we can only be in one place at one time.

Speaker: 00:35:11

But with online content, we can do a heck of a lot more.

Speaker: 00:35:14

Yeah, one thing I would do, I would even advise just to friends or maybe you guys can do it,

Speaker: 00:35:20

but the ones I'm interested in are the two living two places.

Speaker: 00:35:26

So they're either in high school teams.

Speaker: 00:35:28

So everybody in a high school team is a potential PTM student for me.

Speaker: 00:35:32

So I make real damn sure that I got a great relationship with all the high school coaches.

Speaker: 00:35:37

They pretty much all recommend their kids to come and train with us in the Aussies.

Speaker: 00:35:41

There's a couple coaches that are ambitious and they got their own things in the program

Speaker: 00:35:45

in the summer and we're like, boom, do that then.

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No harm.

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There's enough tennis bodies.

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We have weightless anyway.

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So it's not like we need every single kid to come.

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But just having a free clinic for high school, a ton of kids together, 36 kids and they get

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a free couple of, maybe they spend an hour drilling and then they have an hour to listen

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to an expert.

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Every day they have an hour of someone else talking about, this is what it could be.

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There's PTM programs.

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There's this, to do even know.

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I can guarantee you, if I go up to 100 people, families at my club and say, have you thought

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about your kid is really good at tennis?

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Or he's really loves tennis and he's got the right personality.

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I think he could be a teaching pro and get out of a hundred of a lot.

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What is that thing?

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Yeah, it's a thing.

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You know me, right?

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I'm a tennis broadman doing it.

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There's six of us that work here.

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Yes, it exists.

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You do know we're capable of paying our mortgages, right?

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And they don't, man, they don't think of it.

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So just an introduction.

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We do stuff, you know, Zoom meeting.

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Adam and I, Adam Ford is my co-director with me at the Hope PTM program.

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And we have a PowerPoint that we present at Deep Boom Wall.

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We call a Zoom meeting when we invite 500 families.

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We have a 20 of them who have available, show our Zoom thing.

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Here's all the cool things you get to do.

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Here's us at the US Open.

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Here's us talking to Martin Blackman.

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Here's us at this place and they're like, this is a thing.

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But that'd be one thing.

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The other thing is they also live on your USDA teams.

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And I think, so if I needed more help, I'm looking at the parents of my kids and my USDA teams.

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And our women and say, guys, interesting opportunity.

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We need some extra help.

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I know a lot of you love tennis and probably never thought of yourselves as coaches or you

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qualified, but we can train you.

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If any of you have an interest and maybe sniffing around and seeing what that would look

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like and what perks you can get out of it, check out this quick video that we made because

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I'd love to have that YouTube issue.

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And if they reply, I'm interested.

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You set them up with a course.

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Does that, do you get a decent response when you try to point out to someone you don't

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have to have played college tennis?

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You don't need to be a former professional player to coach at a certain level in the same

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way that you don't need to be a math major to teach second grade math.

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Right.

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Yeah, that's a big part of my field.

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One of the biggest hurdles when I talk to PTM prospects in their families, the number

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one fear they have is that they're not good tennis players or not good enough.

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And my club is a great example.

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So at my club, I have four full time pros, all certified pros.

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It just happens to be that they all were at the 5.0 level at one point.

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They all happen to be really damn good tennis players.

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So our kids look at pros and they go, oh, they incorrectly assume, oh, you have to be a

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5/0 or higher player to be a tennis pro.

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So a big part of what I do is to look.

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That won't hurt, but that's not a requirement.

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No, that adds an ego that we got to deal with as director of tennis.

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Maybe we want the 3/0 or 4/0 instead.

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Yeah.

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I have some of the most solid kids, our three, five to four role players that we have.

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And yeah, they're probably not going to go to work for Sanchez, the car, your academy,

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nor what I want them to.

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But they can go down to one of your clubs and they will be rock stars that running little

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kids and they'll be rock stars that take in a 2.5 middle schooler and get into 4.5.

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That's how you become famous in tennis.

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We need a billion people that can take a 2/5 in tournaments or 4/5.

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We don't need a crap load of people.

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I don't care if I ever see another pro that can take a 4/5 to a 7-0.

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Whatever dude, those three are my life.

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But that doesn't build tennis, right?

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That's what we talk about all the time.

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We want the game to grow and taking somebody who already plays tennis and making them better

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isn't always the target.

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Even though it's fun and that feels good, you can say, yeah, my kid went to college and

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played division one.

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We love that.

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That feels good and that looks good on a resume, but it doesn't grow the game.

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Yeah.

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So that analogy of just kind of thinking of the NTPR scale, that's what we need.

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A lot of people, especially young, they think, well, I really want to work with 4/5 enough.

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I want to be a coach in national ranked kids and I go, listen, that was me for a while.

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I lived that for 15 years and I went to national tournaments and I remember the stress and

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the craziness of those parents generally, not all of them.

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If I had to do it again, if my daughter went into tennis teaching, I would say, don't worry

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about that.

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When I was a young pro, I had a girl, Kim Gates, I was working with her.

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She won the girl's 16th hard courts on San Diego when she was 13 years old.

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Everybody was like, oh my gosh, this girl is the next hot as saying she's going to be famous.

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She can be a top 10 or she's a USA came in and try to help.

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At that time, if you would ask me, I was the same way.

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I go, and unless I get fired here, I'm going to be sitting at the box of the US Open when

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she's in the semis against whoever.

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Nothing can be far better than true.

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Even that, the number one ranked junior in America, like 100 times out of 101 doesn't get

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to be famous.

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It's full school that you're chasing that.

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I tell all our key timbers, my wish for you is that you become insanely good at taking

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a 2-5 and bringing it in a 4-5.

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You will have, the world will beat down a path to you for lessons because that's 99%

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of the club.

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Absolutely.

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If you would have everything you're saying, but how much of what Sean's saying is the barriers,

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the cultural, systemic, just the portrayal, whether it be the director is calling you and

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say, oh, give me a rock star.

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Then the first thing out of their mouth says, well, they had to play college dance.

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Well, you just limit, we just lesson the pool.

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How do we perception across the board with the industry and the support itself?

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We always use the Bill Bellichek example.

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Bill Bellichek didn't play football.

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His dad was a football coach.

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He played across.

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He's going to go down, said and done is the greatest coach you ever played football.

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A man who never took a snap.

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How do we change that perception and tennis to make it more?

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Hey, the door is open.

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There's an opportunity here.

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If you have the skills that you're talking about.

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Yeah, so I think there's two pathways for that.

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The slow grinding pathway is that all of us need to be able to communicate that to the

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people in our garden, our own juniors, our own families, our own members.

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But I think on a national level, the USPTAPTR or hopefully USDA because they got money, they

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have the dough, and they can put out a lot of good stuff for sure.

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I haven't seen a video ever out of any of them organizations.

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Let's just put the own assigned to the USTA because they got a lot of money.

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Say, I've seen a few years ago in the Papyrus Hall, a really cool video that they put out

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promoting and it was shot in a core.

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It looked all dark.

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They hit it and the ball would spray a bunch of talcum powder.

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It was really high death, cool looking.

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And if my high school kids saw that, they wouldn't go, "Oh, I can teach tennis?"

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Never thought about that.

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That's a made for Madison Avenue video.

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They need to have videos of famous people, is there?

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People that, "Hey, do you know that you can teach tennis?"

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You might think this.

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Here's what your next step, just sniff this out and something like that where I can send

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it to 500 families.

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Right now it's Jorge and they trust me, but still they don't.

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He's selling me a PTM program.

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In a lot of need-proels, I always look and I said, "Have you ever tried to get some volunteer

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or some of your own club?"

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I'm like, "No, I don't want that.

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I want someone to walk in my front door that's damn good and I want to hire them.

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Why?

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I'm complaining."

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That's the immature junior.

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I can't believe it.

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Why can't I hit winners all the time?

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Well, wake up, dude.

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They don't exist.

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You're not going to have a 6-0 player show up to your club magically and say, "You know what?

Speaker: 00:44:52

I'm currently a lawyer, but I'm 6-0 and I wanted to use tennis and I'll do it for not that

Speaker: 00:44:57

much and I want to work here for you."

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Does it happen?

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You got to go make them.

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I'd love to see something like that that all of us could forward that.

Speaker: 00:45:09

Hey, guys, check out this video.

Speaker: 00:45:11

The USDA came up with and it's totally true.

Speaker: 00:45:13

You can get started right here at your home club.

Speaker: 00:45:15

Please watch this and if you have any questions, reply to this email.

Speaker: 00:45:19

This is, I think, low-hanging true.

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But right now, all these potential people that could be turned into pros, no one's even

Speaker: 00:45:27

telling them there's no system for it.

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I do it in my little neighborhood and I have a pretty good email list of followers.

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Probably about 30,000 people have an email too, who I've sent stuff to over the years.

Speaker: 00:45:43

That's pretty powerful, but your average club probe doesn't have that.

Speaker: 00:45:47

I can send out any email.

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Now I can't send that out every week because people start getting all this.

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I don't want to buy this guy's program, but I can at least create some awareness.

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You got a big email list starting to wrap up.

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Is that Michigan specific?

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Is that nationally?

Speaker: 00:46:05

No, it's global.

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It's international.

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Okay.

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From years of people getting free courses, if you want to, here's a free amount of toughness

Speaker: 00:46:14

force, get me your email and I'll send it to you.

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It was the list that Bobby and I are on also.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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So on that list, I happen to have a unique mixture.

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My other online friends, they have way bigger lists than I do, but most of them are club

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players.

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My list because of tennisville.tv has a lot of coaches on it.

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Coaching market, right?

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Yeah.

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So it's probably, I'm saying is half a half in my list.

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Okay.

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Yeah, because that'd be interesting.

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As we build out our project here in Atlanta, as we're building out, go tennis, it would be

Speaker: 00:46:50

fun to figure out what kind of deals we can make.

Speaker: 00:46:52

What kind of promotion are you looking for that you would send out to your email list?

Speaker: 00:46:57

And like you said, your online friends, you've got some guys you're working with.

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Who's the guy that does the world conference, Maribon or whatever's name is?

Speaker: 00:47:05

Oh, yeah.

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Maribon, uh, 10,000 will have.

Speaker: 00:47:08

Yeah.

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There are quite a few people out there.

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They're going to have, gonna have big lists and big followings and play your court guys

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and you got guys with, with giant email lists and it's what we're doing is trying to make

Speaker: 00:47:19

friends with everybody and say, okay, we're only focused on Atlanta.

Speaker: 00:47:22

So we're not trying to compete with anybody.

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We're not also doing online lessons.

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We're not also doing online videos.

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We want to take what you're already doing and make it better and try to make tennis in Atlanta

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better.

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So I love hearing, I love hearing your ideas to say, hey, this is, this is how we could do

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this.

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And in that case, Bobby and I can spend some time working with our team and say, okay, how

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do we do it in Atlanta specifically?

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What's our culture here?

Speaker: 00:47:48

Can we find somebody in Atlanta to say, we don't just need more players.

Speaker: 00:47:54

We need more coaches to get the players.

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We need more positive advocates in the area and we love doing that by making friends and

Speaker: 00:48:01

say, hey, how do you think we could get more positive advocates and how would you help?

Speaker: 00:48:06

>> Yeah, I mean, if I, let's say the city of Atlanta said, okay, we're going to hire Jorge.

Speaker: 00:48:11

We want you to help us.

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I'm not asking for that, by the way.

Speaker: 00:48:15

But here's what I would say.

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I'd say let's have a coach's conference.

Speaker: 00:48:18

Let's do a Zoom one because that way, lots of people can show up.

Speaker: 00:48:22

And then we'll brainstorm ideas and I'll say, here's what's worked for me.

Speaker: 00:48:26

Imagine, just imagine that inside your club, you all have two in your programs and you all

Speaker: 00:48:31

have, you know, adult league program players and wrecked players and club players.

Speaker: 00:48:37

What if we could, what if each of you could pick off just five out of the hundreds you probably

Speaker: 00:48:41

have just five that would be willing to step up, get a little training and start volunteering

Speaker: 00:48:46

with some stuff.

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Would that be helpful?

Speaker: 00:48:48

And 100% of the pros, yeah, that'd be a freaking helpful.

Speaker: 00:48:51

Okay, so here, how do you do it?

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So I have emails that you can swipe the copy and send it out.

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I have an intro video that talks about the idea, talking directly to high scores and three

Speaker: 00:49:02

old ladies and like, hey, relax.

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You don't have to be good.

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I'm going to change it.

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And just to get interest, okay, that's the next level.

Speaker: 00:49:10

And then the next thing that, and they don't, they won't have a video like that probably.

Speaker: 00:49:15

Not many people do and that's why we, that's why we would lean on you and say, okay,

Speaker: 00:49:18

obviously that's promotional for your other businesses and you benefit from that.

Speaker: 00:49:22

We would lean on who's the best at doing that.

Speaker: 00:49:25

Say, hey, you know what, Jorge is the best at this.

Speaker: 00:49:29

We're using his product to promote what's going on and everybody wins.

Speaker: 00:49:33

Yep.

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And then the final phase, which I think was huge, because for years, what I would do guys

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is I talk to a high school, you know, I see a high school.

Speaker: 00:49:43

Here's Sean is in my high school class and I think he has outgoing personality.

Speaker: 00:49:47

So I can go up to one at one.

Speaker: 00:49:48

Hey, Sean, you have, you, are you on NTS?

Speaker: 00:49:52

You need national honors, NHS.

Speaker: 00:49:54

You need a volunteer hour?

Speaker: 00:49:55

Yep.

Speaker: 00:49:56

Would you consider volunteering with a junior kids?

Speaker: 00:49:59

You know, you can help with how little kids kind of fun.

Speaker: 00:50:01

You can get your volunteer hours.

Speaker: 00:50:03

Yep.

Speaker: 00:50:04

Okay, I'll do it.

Speaker: 00:50:05

All right, show up next Tuesday.

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That was the training.

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So what would happen is they show up on Tuesday and Adam Ford is running 16 kids and, you

Speaker: 00:50:13

know, big bunch of little mini courts and Adam's demonstrating.

Speaker: 00:50:17

And then he says, Sean, Sean, take those three kids and go do on that court, what I just

Speaker: 00:50:20

showed you.

Speaker: 00:50:21

Okay, so it's really, it wasn't very good training, but at least most of these kids could mimic,

Speaker: 00:50:27

right?

Speaker: 00:50:28

Now, I already have, through RSU, this course, assisting with kids class.

Speaker: 00:50:33

So I could really take the stress down and say, look, I'm going to hold your hand, dude.

Speaker: 00:50:38

I'm going to show you videos.

Speaker: 00:50:39

You're going to see what a five-year-old runs like and how they trip over themselves and

Speaker: 00:50:43

how there's no way they're going to be rattling over the net.

Speaker: 00:50:46

Racket to racket with another five-year-old.

Speaker: 00:50:48

As Bobby says, you're complaining about his forehand, but the kid can hardly walk, right?

Speaker: 00:50:53

And then I'm going to show you the specs.

Speaker: 00:50:55

I'm going to show you the court size.

Speaker: 00:50:56

I'm going to show you the different types of balls.

Speaker: 00:50:57

I'm going to show you what rallying expectations would be.

Speaker: 00:51:00

I'm going to teach you a couple of little quick things how you can fix so many technically.

Speaker: 00:51:03

Because you probably don't feel like you're going to be able to say anything technically.

Speaker: 00:51:07

And I'm going to teach you all these skills about how you talk to these kids and trust me,

Speaker: 00:51:11

you're going to walk out there first day.

Speaker: 00:51:14

And I'm still, I'm not going to even ask you to lead.

Speaker: 00:51:16

You're just going to basically mimic.

Speaker: 00:51:17

And then what happens is each club gets five.

Speaker: 00:51:20

So now across Atlanta, there's 150 people trying it out for the first time.

Speaker: 00:51:24

Then you at your club, me and my club, we look at our five and say these four, but this

Speaker: 00:51:29

one here.

Speaker: 00:51:30

I'm going to follow that up with this guy.

Speaker: 00:51:33

Hey, listen, you're killing it out there.

Speaker: 00:51:35

How about you do another day?

Speaker: 00:51:36

I might actually, I don't maybe need you to volunteer.

Speaker: 00:51:39

I'd like to add you to our staff.

Speaker: 00:51:41

And this is, you know, you just stir it up.

Speaker: 00:51:44

You get some next people you train in.

Speaker: 00:51:46

They show up, you can pick a few more.

Speaker: 00:51:48

And every year you do it next, next cycle.

Speaker: 00:51:52

I made that course basically because I realize that some of these kids are walking in.

Speaker: 00:51:59

I can see the nervousness in their eyes, you know, like, "Oh, I see him here.

Speaker: 00:52:04

I'm doing this.

Speaker: 00:52:05

This kid's a five year old.

Speaker: 00:52:06

No, he's not going to be judging you too much.

Speaker: 00:52:08

He thinks you're a fucking rock star already, right?"

Speaker: 00:52:10

They assume you're, yeah, they assume you're not.

Speaker: 00:52:13

Yeah, they don't worry about five of them.

Speaker: 00:52:16

What if I say some soup and coach Adam thinks I'm done?

Speaker: 00:52:19

No, we're just going to show you everything.

Speaker: 00:52:21

So, you will, it's okay.

Speaker: 00:52:23

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:52:24

It's kind of our system.

Speaker: 00:52:25

I seem fairly logical to me that the old way of just kind of pros will come knocking

Speaker: 00:52:33

at your door and it's going to be plenty of them around.

Speaker: 00:52:36

That hasn't worked for years.

Speaker: 00:52:39

What I hear from my friends at PTR, you know, as PTA is, you know, they've been stagnant

Speaker: 00:52:44

for years, you know, thousands of people in, a thousand people out, a thousand people in,

Speaker: 00:52:47

a thousand people out.

Speaker: 00:52:48

Hey, we'd eat more pros, huh?

Speaker: 00:52:51

We still got X, thousand then.

Speaker: 00:52:53

Well, let's figure out how to create that culture where a pro thinks they're appreciated,

Speaker: 00:52:59

whatever that means, whether it's financially or in response from the culture because at

Speaker: 00:53:05

some point I look up and Bobby talk, Bobby and I talk about it a lot, which is, okay,

Speaker: 00:53:09

what is the USPTA done for me?

Speaker: 00:53:13

And that's a question, okay, well, yeah, we've got the benefits and we go through those things,

Speaker: 00:53:16

but there's more that can be done to keep the coaches that are already certified or previously

Speaker: 00:53:24

certified because there's got to be a list of coach, of potential coaches that have left

Speaker: 00:53:29

because they either couldn't find a job, they weren't paid well enough.

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I mean, whatever all the reasons are.

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Or is it a pandemic related scenario where we probably have a lot of people out there looking

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for some part time work that are perfectly willing to learn a little bit, play some tennis

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in Atlanta.

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It's tough because tennis here is mostly free.

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So it's a, it's a different culture.

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It is people going out on their tennis court, playing for free, paying for lessons is an

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intolerable hundred dollars.

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It's, it's difficult to come up with.

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Other areas, tennis is expensive.

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We read a lot of articles, Bobby and I send them back and forth every once in a while, but

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it's all this thing of golf and tennis are so expensive and they're elite sports and you

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can only be a member of a country club.

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And that's just not how it is here in Atlanta.

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Tennis courts are free.

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Access to tennis is pretty much free.

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You can spend what, twenty dollars at a Walmart, have a couple of rackets and some tennis balls,

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go out to your local neighborhood courts or the local club, spend two dollars and go play

Speaker: 00:54:32

some tennis.

Speaker: 00:54:34

And how do we get those kinds of people into it, which is exciting, get those new people

Speaker: 00:54:40

in, but then also be able to have a guy like you that says, Hey, I can help you train those

Speaker: 00:54:46

people and get them excited about it because you're capable of creating the videos.

Speaker: 00:54:50

You already have the content.

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There's thousands of drills there.

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If there's a package available, we want it and we want to promote it because hey, you

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know what, you don't have to come in being that six out former five oh six oh player rock

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star coach.

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Everybody knows it takes time to evolve into a great coach.

Speaker: 00:55:10

Yeah.

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So one thing I want your listeners to know about so this iris using rackets for you, I'm

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pretty sure we're going to be able to get that out through the USDA, which means it'll be

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free.

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It'll probably live on their LMS, but in there getting that finalized.

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So obviously I'll let you know about that because free is better for everybody.

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And honestly, I'd rather have the USDA pay me and then we make it free of the whole of

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the coaches.

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I don't need, I don't think for this particular product, which is then trying to grow

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the sport and the people that you're going to need to do it, don't put a bunch of money

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barriers in front of that.

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Just make it free and get it out to as many people as possible.

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So I think that's coming.

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But also on tennis trails that TV, so about maybe two months ago.

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So I have obviously 2000 tennis trails, all of them you can print a diagram and those 80

Speaker: 00:56:03

courses, like this is not just a drill, but actual courses in 25 to 30 of those courses.

Speaker: 00:56:10

Any one of us could take a quiz or optional, but if you take the quiz and pass it, you get

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automatic PTR and US PTA credit.

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But what you may not know is for years, the only thing you can do there is go and join

Speaker: 00:56:23

it or do a one dollar trial.

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But now on that site, I have 15 totally free drills.

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You can see them without doing anything.

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You don't need to opt in, you don't need an email, you don't need a credit card.

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And I even put three full courses free on the site.

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Because I'm a tennis guy.

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I mean, sure, I want tennis drills to make millions and millions is not going to do that.

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But I also want to help coaches.

Speaker: 00:56:51

OK, I know I'm never going to have 100,000 subscribers on tennis drills.

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It's not going to happen, but I can still help coaches.

Speaker: 00:56:57

So just having 15 drills is probably more than most coaches having their arsenal and their

Speaker: 00:57:02

rotation right now, and they're totally free.

Speaker: 00:57:05

And then you can take those courses, there's three of them in there.

Speaker: 00:57:10

And I think one of them even has a quiz.

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You can get PTR, US PTA credit on it.

Speaker: 00:57:14

So I would direct people that want to expand their drills and just a tennis drills.tv

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And without spending anything, you know, they can get a whole bunch of free stuff today that

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they can use.

Speaker: 00:57:27

Part of what you're talking about is you as a person, you as the story, what you've done

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to get into the field the way your archipelago, that spirit translates into some of the other

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areas.

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And I'll be creating that part of a curriculum or an understanding to a potential applicant

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that it's not you're going to be sitting around hitting a tennis ball to a person who's

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going to be two-hour out.

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And if that's just if you're looking at getting to the Wimbledon box, hey, you're wrong for

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better.

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What you're looking at to is create experiences, lifetime moments, that they're going to

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look back and someday say, hey, remember that crazy tennis coach, I really learned a lot

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more than just tennis.

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Yeah, I think we all have that.

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One of the things that we do for PTM recruitment, a lot of almost every PTM prospect that comes

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in is sniffing around the idea of PTM.

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Their number one concern is, what if I don't like it?

Speaker: 00:58:27

And I'm stuck.

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I'm going to be a teaching pro and I have to be on the court doing it.

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So the way we come back then is we take an annual trip down to the national campus in Orlando.

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When I line up people over a three-day period, I line up John Embry, Scott Schoels, Martin

Speaker: 00:58:45

Black and Paul Rower, Chris Mikalowski, Craig Jones, they meet everybody, Leah when she was

Speaker: 00:58:52

there, some of their pros, Rita, the expert with little kids, they go over and they meet Satoshi

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over with a high performance.

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And they're going to meet probably 17 people who are doing tennis, they're in the tennis industry,

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and two of the 17 are currently tennis pros.

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The rest are people that were tennis pros that are now working for NJTL or they're working

Speaker: 00:59:15

with a high performance in fitness or they're working with, maybe they're still teaching

Speaker: 00:59:20

tennis because they're the path that they chose to stay on.

Speaker: 00:59:24

But that's the number one thing and we convert, that trip really converts for us because

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kids come back and like, oh, okay, I freaking get it.

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And we always tell the kids, even if you don't think you want it right now, there's probably

Speaker: 00:59:37

a good 50% of the kids in my PTN program that if they had to be honest, right now today,

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college kids, they would say, I don't envision myself being an on-court pro for that many years.

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But which kind of is a bummer because that's what we need to laugh, but what I always tell

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them and all my friends tell them, that's fine.

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But my strong recommendation is do that for a couple of years, minimal.

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The skills you learn, the people ask that you'll build up because people love it when

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you work.

Speaker: 01:00:08

There's nothing like it.

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Teach tennis for a little while.

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All those people you've met, Scott shows, you know, a ton of them.

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They used to be teaching pros and now they move down and they're still in the tennis industry

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because the tennis industry is big.

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This isn't you teaching, you know, women's teams and little kids for the next 50 years, you

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can go have lots of options.

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We know plenty of people that have done, oh, yeah, I taught for a few years, you know,

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out of college.

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But all the time.

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Yeah.

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And so when I can show them that, look, it's not just, PTN doesn't just mean, PTN means professional

Speaker: 01:00:45

tennis management means you're, you're getting the tennis industry.

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The most common thing to do in the tennis industry and where those are the biggest need right

Speaker: 01:00:53

now is tennis teaching professionals.

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But beyond that, you can do this and this and this and this and this.

Speaker: 01:00:58

And they just meet all these people.

Speaker: 01:01:00

They meet Jason Gobert, taking over to Florida, US, Florida, USTA, which is like right next

Speaker: 01:01:06

to the campus and they meet all those people.

Speaker: 01:01:08

Wow, there are 18 people working here for the Florida section of the USDA.

Speaker: 01:01:13

What do you do?

Speaker: 01:01:14

You do digital marketing.

Speaker: 01:01:15

What do you do?

Speaker: 01:01:16

And they're like, man, this is like an industry here.

Speaker: 01:01:18

I can maybe do, if I don't, I won't be stuck is what I want them to take away from them.

Speaker: 01:01:24

Yeah.

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Well, and you're, and that's one of the things I like that.

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We have a lot of conversations amongst ourselves, obviously, but also in the podcast and it's

Speaker: 01:01:35

fun to talk to guys like you that we don't usually have somebody on here that we look at and

Speaker: 01:01:40

say, oh my gosh, we completely disagree.

Speaker: 01:01:43

Like that happens so rarely with it.

Speaker: 01:01:45

The people that get to the point that where we are in our careers, that we've seen enough

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that we get what's going on.

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We see the pain points in the industry and try to figure out, how do we get together

Speaker: 01:01:57

with the people that we know and the people that are interested in tennis for tennis is

Speaker: 01:02:01

sake.

Speaker: 01:02:03

Tennis itself, not just my career or how do I get the next thing?

Speaker: 01:02:07

And there's a time for that.

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But for tennis, tennis for tennis sake and to make it better.

Speaker: 01:02:13

And I think that's a great scenario that we've had plenty of ways to talk to people.

Speaker: 01:02:18

And this podcast specifically gives us a chance to do that, to talk to people like you

Speaker: 01:02:22

and say, okay, what would you do?

Speaker: 01:02:24

And that leads me into kind of typically my last question that I ask before I let you talk

Speaker: 01:02:30

about whatever you want if you had anything specific other than yourself or us to talk about

Speaker: 01:02:35

is my king of tennis question because it's, we've got some experience.

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We're not asking, we're not asking a starting out pro.

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We're not asking somebody that doesn't know what's going on.

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You've got a global reach.

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You've got a global understanding and you've got your credentials are impeccable.

Speaker: 01:02:52

So if there was someone other than John McEnroe that we might actually pick for king of tennis

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and that's just my personal choice.

Speaker: 01:03:00

But if you were king of tennis, is there, do you have any ideas?

Speaker: 01:03:04

Is there anything one thing you would change?

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Is there a direction you would go?

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I have two thoughts I've come to.

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I think the first one is just because this is the space I live in.

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I'm a coach developer.

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I used to do that for the USDA.

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I don't do that anymore.

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But I've been a coach developer.

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I've got thousands of people that subscribe to tennis.

Speaker: 01:03:25

I TV and I have my own little army of customers.

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And I love hearing from them when they get through Sunday.

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Every Sunday we put out new content and they go, hey, I love that.

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So I would put a lot of energy into coach education and increasing the base, which is a lot

Speaker: 01:03:42

of what we talked about in this podcast so far.

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So I would keep doing all that.

Speaker: 01:03:46

I would probably, if I had the USDA's budget, I would literally create programs that go

Speaker: 01:03:51

after all these high school players and help high school coaches.

Speaker: 01:03:57

There's a lot of high school coaches that are pretty, you know, it's a weird mix in Michigan.

Speaker: 01:04:02

There's high school coaches that don't play tennis, but a lot of school is in Michigan.

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If you want to be the high school tennis coach in your teacher, you get first right in refusal.

Speaker: 01:04:11

So even if Jorge Capacini comes in, I'll give it to a total beginner, which is fine.

Speaker: 01:04:19

We have coaches that need a lot of help because they don't even know tennis.

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And then we have other coaches who are master professionals working in the club, but they also

Speaker: 01:04:26

coach, you know, so is a huge discrepancy.

Speaker: 01:04:29

You don't see quite as much discrepancy in the teaching profession.

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That's already at a club, but you do at the high school level.

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So that's one thing I would do a lot, everything I could to help out high school coaches.

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At the pro level, okay?

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You know, everybody talks about, you know, what's going on?

Speaker: 01:04:51

American tennis and the men's tennis.

Speaker: 01:04:53

I wouldn't have, I wouldn't even be that interested in that.

Speaker: 01:04:56

I'd probably assign someone else to do that thing because that's not what floats my boat.

Speaker: 01:05:01

Sure, I wanted to have an American Grand Slam champion.

Speaker: 01:05:05

I'd love to have that.

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I have a history way back in high performance.

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Again, kids pretty high.

Speaker: 01:05:13

I'm not an expert at what it takes to get in the top 50, frankly, even if I was, I wouldn't

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want to spend my energy in that because that's what I'm going to do.

Speaker: 01:05:22

Travel the world and not be with my wife.

Speaker: 01:05:24

You know, so I want to have a job where I go home every night.

Speaker: 01:05:27

We call that rule number five.

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Well done.

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It's a tough nut to crack, but I think, you know, the number one concern, if I was to

Speaker: 01:05:37

Zarr, the king is, I think there's a real problem that tennis.

Speaker: 01:05:43

We had this tennis, COVID boom, right?

Speaker: 01:05:46

Where all these clubs have, a ton of people have entered the club and the data shows at all

Speaker: 01:05:49

usage and stuff like that.

Speaker: 01:05:52

I had that too.

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So I talked to a lot of friends.

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We had definitely an injuries.

Speaker: 01:05:55

Our budget went up the year of COVID, even though we were close for three months.

Speaker: 01:06:00

We have more people.

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So I talked to coaches, pro-friends of mine from all over the world and they said, yeah,

Speaker: 01:06:06

we all had that.

Speaker: 01:06:07

Not everybody maintained those people.

Speaker: 01:06:10

So some club A did and club B didn't.

Speaker: 01:06:13

You know, I talked to club B.

Speaker: 01:06:14

What happened?

Speaker: 01:06:15

We're back to normal.

Speaker: 01:06:16

We're back to pre-COVID numbers.

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I'm not.

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I'm still at post-COVID numbers, even though hopefully COVID is gone out of our hair for a

Speaker: 01:06:23

while because when you go into club A, you might have had a crappy experience.

Speaker: 01:06:29

You know, lessons that aren't that good, a lot of standing around, a lot of coach talking

Speaker: 01:06:33

the whole time, not enough ball hitting.

Speaker: 01:06:35

And if that's the club you happen to live by, you went and tested it out.

Speaker: 01:06:40

Chances are you kind of slid out of there and you didn't love it.

Speaker: 01:06:43

But hopefully you went to Holland, Michigan and you went to my club and you experienced

Speaker: 01:06:46

great all these new COVID people.

Speaker: 01:06:49

And there was great lessons and there was lots of options and you would play opportunities

Speaker: 01:06:52

and the coaches were fun and you're like, hey, that's it.

Speaker: 01:06:56

And they're still there.

Speaker: 01:06:57

So even though most clubs experience the COVID boom, about 50% of them is what I'm gathering

Speaker: 01:07:04

and maintaining it and the other 50% are kind of like all those people are falling off.

Speaker: 01:07:07

We didn't impress them enough to keep them in the game.

Speaker: 01:07:12

And no surprise is the clubs with the most educated pros and the most, you know, it's

Speaker: 01:07:17

really the pros.

Speaker: 01:07:18

No one said, well, I'm sorry, but they really like the towels and the locker rooms, so that's

Speaker: 01:07:24

what kept them.

Speaker: 01:07:25

No, it's all about the instructor.

Speaker: 01:07:27

Yeah.

Speaker: 01:07:28

So, you know, if I'm a club owner, man, this is what's so paradoxically pros probably don't

Speaker: 01:07:36

get paid but they're worth overall.

Speaker: 01:07:38

I'm sure some do and some areas very regional and all that.

Speaker: 01:07:43

But yeah, that's the thing I would consider myself with is trying to grow the number of coaches

Speaker: 01:07:48

and make them good.

Speaker: 01:07:50

You know, when I say I make someone good, I'm not saying make them good so they know all

Speaker: 01:07:56

the sports science stuff it gets at the next standpoint.

Speaker: 01:08:00

Screw that, dude.

Speaker: 01:08:01

I'm saying right here, get good from two, five to four, five.

Speaker: 01:08:04

You do that.

Speaker: 01:08:05

You'll be a well-paid pro.

Speaker: 01:08:09

And that's what our country needs, frankly.

Speaker: 01:08:14

Well, there you have it.

Speaker: 01:08:17

We want to thank Rejovenate for the use of the studio.

Speaker: 01:08:20

Be sure to check out the Rejovenate Wellness is a journey podcast at rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

Speaker: 01:08:26

And then we'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

Speaker: 01:08:31

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

Speaker: 01:08:33

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

Speaker: 01:08:36

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

Speaker: 01:08:41

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

Speaker: 01:08:45

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

Speaker: 01:08:50

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