Where are all the good coaches?

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that for us. We would love to earn your five-star reviews. And now let's get into our recent

conversation with Jim Harp. Jim is a high-performance coach as well as a coach developer for the PTR.

We ask Jim where are all the good coaches and what does high-performance even mean?

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

Who are you and why do we care?

Yeah, I don't think you care. We'll start with the second question first. But the first one is

Jim Harp, high-performance coach here in Georgia.

Been coaching for a really long time actually even when I was before college. So you know,

I think I was first certified in the late 80s from Danson Torham himself,

a former CEO at PTR. And so he had been doing it a long time unique-wise. I don't know, maybe because

we really kind of focus on the high-performing side. And you know, in high-performance tennis and

in the U.S., even for a lot of the coaches that are working a lot with professional players.

The majority of our work are with junior aspiring players who are really not yet high-performance.

So is there a unique thing about it? Our stated goal is that you come to our program to my program

because you want to play at least at the collegiate level, right? But again, we still have a good

many developmental players, college, for sure everybody goes to college, who wants to go to college.

And then we have a handful of professionals that will come through at any given time.

And we've had a lot of guests and worked with a few good players as well.

Okay, so we talk with a lot of coaches in this setting and many of them are country club types,

many of them are independence, they travel around, many have a specialty. So in this case,

what you're talking about is you handle really good players who want to be great tennis players,

you're in that range. Yeah, I mean, it comes down to development, right? It's a holistic model of

development, which means we're going to try to cover everything. The easiest way to say it, I think,

was said by Melanie Molotor that was Martina Hinges' mom. At least, she's quoted as the one who said

it was every shot from every spot with every spin. And that's both specific, but it's also

analogous a little bit in terms of, we want to cover the string thing conditioning, what it takes to

be an athlete, waking up the right way in the morning, eating right, living right. All of the

things that again, it is part of a holistic development model. And we try hard to stick to it,

you know, and it's got to be fun. So got to be fun. It's a game. People want to enjoy it.

So the idea is you can work hard and still have fun. That's a thing.

It can be a thing. I didn't say it was a bad thing. That's that's depending on the coach, right?

Yeah, absolutely. The environment sets the tone for sure in the culture. Absolutely.

Okay, and we talk with a lot of certified coaches, a lot of them either RSPA or PTR, you're not just

PTR certified. You're a guy who certifies coaches, right? Yeah, so, you know, certifications, I've

got some initials, I've done a lot of different things and we don't need to get all heavily into that.

But, you know, certain period of my life, I started jumping into coach education after being

in a lot of education myself. So I travel around the country and certify coaches as part of a

coach development program for PTR, both level ones and twos and have been doing that a good bit for

the last 10 years. And we had a conversation recently and I want to ask about this. I say we only

have limited number of questions, but I like to poke and prod a little bit. But we mentioned the other

day that you've certified maybe a thousand or maybe you said thousands of coaches. I was guessing at

it because we were in some other discussions doing some stuff with PTR and we're going to about

to have a big announcement with that. And I was like, you know, at least a thousand coaches.

It's got to be somewhere near there by now. I mean, in so many states, so many tennis facilities.

That is a lot. And that's fantastic. And I think all the coach types, especially those front

clubs and do hiring, might be calling you at some point and saying, where the hell are these coaches?

Yeah. And you and I are having a little bit of that discussion yesterday.

Wouldn't we? The opportunity for career advancement, the opportunity for opportunity in the industry

and getting these younger coaches. And I think that's one of the things and I'm not trying to plug

the PTR. But with PTR's approach being a research and science based approach to development,

it goes back a lot of the age and stage of a player. Now that could be a 40 year old,

you know, retired banker who wants to play tennis and you understand who that is and what their

capabilities are from a physical standpoint, cognitive standpoint. Or in the world, I'm in, you

know, you start with some early childhood education and skill acquisition and what ages are best to

learn what things are, you know, like speed, for instance, if you don't learn to run fast by 10,

you're going to have a limited ability to run fast. That's just, you know, there's some,

there's a couple other windows that pop up. But in terms of speed and certain athletic skills,

if you don't learn them early, it's going to be really, you're not going to have as good a

window as later on. And language is one of those things too. I think there's been some pretty good

studies on birth to three years old. If you teach your start teaching kids languages, then ways

you're to get. If you try to teach me French, I'm still struggling, but I can usually get a bag at

in the glass of wine and that's good enough at that point. As adults, we have minimums. And I'm

pretty sure my two and a half year old knows a lot more Spanish than I do, even though we're pretty

much learning at the same rate. And in this case, I know Bobby has been around you much more than I

have. And I am sure he's got questions that has been looking forward to getting you in this setting

for a while. So Bobby, I want to step back for a second and let you talk to Jim. Oh, I spoke to him

yesterday. I mean, I speak to Jim all the time. Jim and I go back a long way. Go back. We know where

the bodies are buried. That's right. We didn't have gray in our beard when we first met. So that's

but in at all, I see Jim obviously, being a witness is the longest going for the ride. One thing I

admired, you always did the work. I mean, when you got into the high performance area, you

traveled, you did the film work, you did everything. I mean, how much of all the grind do you think,

you know, makes it where today you're in the position you're in? Yeah, I know a lot of it. In the

mentoring and the coaches, you know, people like Mark Kovacs and Anne Pankers and some of these industry

titans, not to mention just coaches at some of the conference people like, oh, there's a waste of time

to go here, a waste of time to go there. I'm like, I just sat with Tom Gullickson down at PTR,

sitting on the front row, listening to Mark's presentation. You're cracking a joke or two and

listening to some really interesting things on on RPM and who generates what RPM. But, you know,

those guys with a snack and a beer or snack and a drink, all of a sudden, you're having

discussions about how this one learned to do that, how Tommy Paul was doing such and such, and who

changed coaches and opening your mind. So for me, yeah, I was a modest player as okay college player,

nothing outrageously special there underachiever probably. So when I jumped in on the certification run,

it seemed to be the right thing to do. And, you know, just spent a lot of time and a lot of money

to be around really intelligent people who are successful. And like my early years, I mean,

clear up high performance, we rarely get to coach a true high performance player, right? That

doesn't happen a lot. So real high performance, you know, these are your world beaters, these are

your top 10s in the country at older ages. These are your professional tennis players. Until then,

you're just learning to train and you're on a development pathway. So people love to use high

performance because look, it's social media is very well, you know, to those who don't know. But I

mean, you know, if I take my card to the shop, I don't know what their work. I mean, I know where

the transmission is, but they could tell me anything about it. I believe them and give them $5,000.

So high performance is overused. It really is. But for me, it was, it's been a great pathway to

learn from other people I was going to say early on in my career, I'm getting going and I really

think I know what I'm doing. I got all the answers. We're going to do yoga, got all these great

ideas. My guys are going to be the best. We're going to be so good. And we go down the Georgia

qualifier and just get wrapped like every one of my kids out in first round. I'm like, oh, I suck at

coaching. This is horrible. I'm the worst coach of all time. These guys are producing kids all the

time. And you know, how the industry can be where often coaches are, oh, I could fix that. If I

have that kid, I'd do this. This kid, I'd do that. No, you can't. No, you don't. And you can't fix it.

Most of the time you can't. That's a whole other conversation. But there are occasions where it

happens. However, it was humbling. Those are good coaches. They are, they know something. They're

doing something. They're not just producing one or two. They're producing one after another after

another. You got to be open. And I have found that the best coaches are often the most open and

the most talkative. There's no secrets. You know, and I appreciate you saying that the hard work,

because I did. I put in real time, got up real early, worked real late, taught everybody. You know,

I taught everybody. I was a director of tennis as a head pro. My niche seemed to be more on the

performance model side and working through, you know, development. I was working with a player yesterday.

And there's a very specific timing issue, something that would appear very, very simple. Right?

Take the racket back at this point. When the ball hits the ground, you got to be at this place.

Truly a really simple concept. But due to what's probably mostly neuroplasticity, right? Her ability to

override a movement pattern that's already there in a timing pattern, it was a big struggle. Takes a

lot of patience, takes a lot of years. And, you know, in the club world, I never use the world

neuroplasticity. And I don't use it with the kids either. But it sounds cool and it's neat. But there's

a great video, by the way, the backwards bicycle on that. And it's really cool thing to see. And it

helps you understand how difficult it is. So getting on that road back then really humbled me up.

Had to work harder. Realized I wasn't good at what I did. And one of the best things I ever did

was start learning about early childhood development, how people learn and how to coach how to teach.

Not just have a coach with good ideas, what you think are good ideas. The truth is, it's hard to

learn and it's hard to be a great teacher. So anybody who thinks they're a really good teacher,

a really good coach, go take a look at a kindergarten teacher who's got 32 kids in there. And she controls

that class all day and they learn and they get out of kindergarten. That's a great teacher. Great coach.

Bobby, I hope you don't mind. I know I handed it off to you. I'm taking it back over because I've got

a question that's been bugging me recently and I think Jim has some thoughts on this. But my first

question comes out of the conference idea of why would someone go to these conferences. And in my

opinion, you just answered that. You got a chance to sit next to Tom Gullickson and watch more of

X give a presentation. And that's incredible as a coach. It isn't, it doesn't have to be that much

more than that right there. I'm sure there is more. But more specifically, from a coaching standpoint,

you've got a resume and results. And you can say, I'm a coach, I've developed these players.

And that can be a bit of proof as to your ability as a coach. How does that compare with the guys

that are certified and their members of this association and they go to all the conferences.

But they haven't necessarily developed a player in the same way because we've got plenty of coaches

out there that are like, I don't need to be certified. All I got to do is develop these players.

And that is my resume. Is that question make sense? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think you got a

couple of different ones. You definitely have some coaches who were the people we stand on the

shoulders of. You know, Dennis van der Mirz, a good one again. It sounds like I'm plugging PTR,

but I'm not. I mean, I think he was just revolutionary in coach education. He was out there really early.

So was, oh gosh, I'm going to forget his name now. I'll come back to it. But like Frank Chiampolo worked

with him out west. Can't think of his name, but he was doing research on mental skills really,

really early. There are coaches who worked for these coaches that may not have gone down like a

traditional certification pathway, but they learned things like walking on a balance beam will

help you create balance skills, movement skills, potential coordination skills. So if you grew

up in a program like that, and that was your coach, and you worked for that person, you were probably

mentored. I was mentored heavily. Gary Grohlman was my coach here in town. He's great coach.

And he was mentored by Dick Gould at Stanford. So that that pedigree, you hear it, you listen to it,

you're rounded a lot. I think it helps. But that's why certifications are a different thing. And

certification by itself is like anything. Knowledge is great, but how to use the knowledge is more

important. And then you never stop learning. It's not, it doesn't come to an end, you know, it's for

life. And you don't know what you don't know. Even the game now attends us that we're in, changes,

you know, daily, you know, I just saw the spin rates. I made a comment to Mark, Dr. Kovak, Dr.

Mark Kovak is like, like we're noticing the takeaway shortening again. He's like, yeah, the game

speeding up again. Things are faster than ever. The takeaways are not jumping around the big loops.

There's still some of the ladies in the WTA who are still breaking plain a little bit on the

forehand, but we're seeing a little bit less and less of it. More of the Shriatex and Center.

You know, so that's an evolution of the game. And you get around there and you can do two things. You

can learn it by listening to it. Or you can maybe validate something. You know, I've gone to these.

And you know, I think that's what becomes important about the conferences you build relationships

with coaches, you build relationships with people. But not everybody is going to do and go down my

pathway with it. The presentation I gave at PTR last week was on integrating high performance

kind of modalities and environments into club tennis. Club tennis is not doing a lot of high

performance and in the past, it's been of the can be polarizing. Oh, they go over to that club for

the high performance. We do this kind of tennis. I was like, so you don't have high performance coaches.

Like, yeah, so you have low performance coaches. So I'm pretty sure that's how we got pickleball.

So, you know, I think that's a huge fail, right? So there's no such thing as low performance. There's

just, you know, maybe you add 30 minutes to the end of a kid's class that goes, you know, three to four

with, you know, younger kids five to seven in that fitness class, right? Fitness is running, jumping,

catching, throwing, playing tag. So you got 30 more minutes. It integrates in the club model really,

really well. Is it high performance? Everything's high performance. If you go that, if you end up in

that model, but if you don't have educated coaches who understand skill acquisition and age development

early childhood education, I can promise you this, you're going to have more pickleball.

Got too much of that now. Sorry, pickleball.

I believe in you. That's all right. No, I appreciate that because we've got plenty of different

types of coaches, especially in the Atlanta area. It's a fairly unique market where we've got everything

from guys that only run major academies and only work with high high performance. I'll use that

with high level junior players to guys that run country clubs to guys that run neighborhoods.

You know, the director of tennis isn't much different in a large neighborhood with 10 to 12 courts

and a bunch of pickleball courts than it is from running a club with 10 to 12 courts and a bunch of

pickleball courts. It's still a similar job, but to find a good coach, I think that's one of the hard

things that people are struggling with right now is to say, okay, who do I call? And as a parent,

I'm not a professional coach interviewer. So how am I going to go find somebody for my kid at

whatever level is one of the things we've been struggling with recently? Yeah, I think, you know,

also defining good coach. If I'm 58 years old, so if I'm 58 years old and I never played tennis,

and I want to go and I go take a lesson and this person is fun, they teach me how to play.

I really enjoy my conversations with them. We're exercising at a level. I'm getting out of it what I

need. I don't need somebody who has the skills to take me from junior tennis to college tennis.

I'm really happy. That's a great coach for me. The ability to take a kid from eight years old

to college and professional, and I've done that now a few times because that doesn't happen a lot,

by the way, not many unicorns in the world that you're going to get somebody all the way there.

And what level of that there, you know, even exist, but that's a different skill set.

Being a manager of a director of a country club is a different skill set. I have to manage and

be a business owner. And that's a different hat has nothing to do with the stuff I like to geek out

about, like, normal plasticity or movement patterns or understanding abduction on a serve or something

like that, right? So that tennis director is wearing a set of, wearing a hat and understands

a set of skills that are integral to being a good coach. Now, if you're in junior development,

then it's a different ball game. You know, your first coach is introduce you to fun depending on

the age. If you are lined up in a row of six kids and the coach is feeding out of his hand and you're

hitting two balls and going to the back of the line, I would much prefer the kids just play tag for

that hour. So let them play tag. We're going to get a lot further down the line of creating movement

skills, balance coordination, catching, stopping, tracking, send receiving skills. So there's a ton of

that and I've been battling that forever as a coach developer. You know, and I'm not opposed to hand

feeding as long as you get in space. Just me saying that by itself though, if you don't have those

skills and you don't get the child started at the right time in the right way, you're going to miss

things and that's going to that's going to have repercussions down the line. I can always tell

somebody who's been hand fed a lot or been fed a lot. And, you know, it's usually pretty easy to see.

And remember, you know, it all comes back down to conversations, Bobby and I have had a million time.

We grew up in a generation where he played all the sports. So if you jumped into tennis, you'd

already played it. You played everything. So teaching movement skills like stopping or changing

direction, agility, and we just did that because we played tag outside till midnight or something.

You know, played soccer or, you know, football or baseball or whatever. So I don't know if that

answers the question, but you know, defining a good coach is what's good for you. Defining a good

coach in junior tennis. Okay, well, there's not as many. Then now you're down to handfuls.

Yeah. And Bobby talks about the specialty isn't the right thing because I've got a specialty, but

that doesn't mean I can't run a club. I might not have that skill set. But Bobby talks about the big

difference between a director and a head pro, the very different skill set. But also there's a

personality type in there that you like to talk about, right, Bobby? Well, I mean, again,

there's the theme and you heard Jim say it and I had a very similar experience with Billie Jean

King back in the day when world team tennis came to Atlanta and did the finals and you know,

it was Billie Jean King and we were sitting there. I wasn't, you know, I was fortunate enough to sit next

to Billie Jean King where I was within a year shot and to listen to her, the passion that she still

had. I mean, first she still had the bum knees and she was out there teaching Chandler Rubin at the

time who was the 16 year old wonder kid coming up through then she's at the finals watching Jimmy

Connors. And so you could just see the passion and you know, kids are tough because you know,

you think that they're naive, but they know they know what they're capable of and they want to be

with somebody that shares their passion and wants to go for the ride. And if you don't have that

passion and you don't want to go for the ride with them, understandable don't get into it. That's all,

you know, and that's one thing I think we're trying to do is, you know, help people realize this is

what I'm good at, stay in the lane, but if you want high performance and you understand what it's

all about, well then there's a few people you go see in the city and and do that and there's nothing

wrong with that. You're not, you're not hurting my feelings that wind him here if you go see Jim

because Jim is far more qualified to do it than I am because as Jim said, I can do it all because

I played football and I played basketball, but that doesn't mean I can't even say neuroplasticity.

So, you know, I'm not going to be able to throw that word at you. And yeah, and we came from Jim and I

also have another mutual friend who who go nameless who used to drop a little geometry and

architecture into his lessons and people would look at him cross-side and you'd be like, all right,

dude, this is not the right audience for that. So, you know, it's a tough gig. It's a tough gig,

but again, what you appreciate with Jim and I still he's close enough right and go over and see two

weeks ago, freezing outside, his kids were out there without shirts on because they're just,

this is this the mentality, you know, they're coming to work. And I was like, I was like,

violating something there without, and I don't know, I was like, was the guys by the way, what the guys,

it was like, it was like 35 degrees and they were trying to out up each other. I'm like, yeah,

you got to put your shirts on. I'm getting trouble for this one. But I mean, you know, again,

but you think about a football or, you know, that's part of the machoness of it. You know, I'm going to

play in 20 below in Buffalo and I'm not going to be wearing any sleeves. So, you know, I think there's

such a mentality that beat into it. And again, we're not even getting into the other side. How do you

manage the parent when you tell them or you suggest, let's play tag for the first hour because these

kids just got to get far more coordinated. And what the, you know, the parent has an understanding

or a little bit of tennis background because of what they've come from. But guys, we're not trying to,

you know, you said you wanted to be high performance. This is where we're at in the journey if you

want your child to be high performance. Sometimes you got to be prepared to take what you think is a

step back. And that's a whole different cell. And, you know, that's a whole different person as the

patients to be able to communicate that message and make people understand that this journey is going

to take a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think you got to convince Mrs. Johnson the reason she's on a

three five alter teams because she didn't play enough tag. So, you know, just trust me with this. But

there is some education that you do have to help understand because remember the parents, the only

people they have are the other parents. And, you know, you look at how many people in Atlanta played

professional tennis and virtually no other kids are going to play tennis by the way because it's tough,

but they don't have a background in professional athletics, much less collegiate athletics. So the idea

of a holistic athletic skill creating environment, it's not something they would understand. So it has

to be explained. And some people don't listen. There's nothing you do about that. I mean, you got 1%

the 2% that are going to jump around. They've been at every academy in Atlanta. They're going to go try

to find the answers that have been in their closet the whole time until we get to the right place, you know.

And they often could have stayed right where they were the whole time because they didn't become

world beaters. You know, the ones who become who get to that level, if they're going to do something

remarkable, they go somewhere that's producing top world class players because they're already at that

level or pushing up against that level. If you're not top 20 in the country, not top 10 in the world,

and even if you are, I mean, there's plenty of tennis in Atlanta and there's plenty of really good

programs that can get you there. So yeah, I mean, but explaining it, you're right. The parents are

always, look, they're the sponsors. These are the check writers. This is their F1 team, you know,

I'm not. I'm hired. And you know, there's been plenty of times in my career where a kid was losing

a lot. One of my best players ever lost all through the 14s was really not good and had to, they

had to really trust me. And then it just happened again with another young man that we just sent off

to college where we were waiting on some growth stuff and some some weights and strengthening conditioning

to get to the next level when we got there. But it's hard. It's, it's, it's why there's one percenters

out there because they're 1% of the population. And we don't have only seen a few 1%ers here,

have been on court with a few, but it's not common. A lot of us are in the top 10% like as an athlete,

those are your really hard workers and modestly talented. You rarely see extremely talented and

extremely hard working. You know, those are your run all those of the world and, you know, you're

running backs in the NFL and things like that, right? Yeah, agreed. And Jim, you got a whole lot going

on right now. We've talked about a bunch of what we've been working on and things we want to talk

about and we could probably talk forever. But in this case, what do you have that you can share?

I know you got some ideas that may not come out yet. You got some things going on with PTR.

You're one of those guys that always has an idea and the question is, what's actually going to happen?

Do you have anything at this point that you can talk about that's the touch? Yeah, we can. By the time

this air's PTR will announce us as the Regional Education Center for Atlanta. So we'll, we'll run all

of our education. Most of Atlanta's education will come through here and that'll be in a couple of

few things. It's going to be in the form of the level one, level two, sorts that we have. But there's

also going to be a lot of specialty programming that we do for coaches. Some very

specifically minded things like drill programs, things that we've done with the GPTN. We've been

discussing that a little bit. But like we want to do a drill share. I had a conversations with Jorge

Capastani about helping us out with that. He's the drill master, you know, and getting people together

on things like, hey, I want to know how to teach a serve to a three oh person. You know, how should

I an adult? How should I go about that versus, you know, how I would do that with a 10 or 11 year old?

It's going to be completely different. We're not going to be nearly as techy. You most of the time,

you know, so we'll try to bottom line is I'm going to put a little group together. We're going to have a

a round table discussion of what coaches would like to have. And then we're going to try to program

specifically for that as well as the regular, you know, what you'd call the the ladder of coach

education that's going to go on here anyway. And there'll be some regional workshops that PTR

does here that'll have some special guests and stuff too. So we're really excited about that launching.

And that's coming soon. I think we're running a level one here on the 28 looking at my calendar.

In a level two, I think in April again, and we'll have those going on monthly. And then most recently,

I started a foundation called Roots to Rackets. And we're beginning a lot of community outreach to

bring tennis to underserved communities and just really into the schools and the places that don't

have it at a more affordable rate. The key is that tennis is expensive to become a, you know, to get

to college, I think it's going to cost you half a million dollars to get a hundred thousand dollars

scholarship. That's being facetious. But it's going to cost you, you know, it's very expensive. And

it's just really not accessible to a lot of people, especially right now. Economies, you know, a little

bit of a struggle. I'm seeing some signs of some pulling back on how much investment's happening,

especially at the developmental levels. Elite players who are tracking to college are pretty

locked in. We always find a way. But for me, there were too many that just didn't have access to

the sport and are not getting, you know, competent coaching where they're at as a result, you know,

because I tell people all the time, you're probably not coming to me because you want to make a

high school team. That's we're too expensive. Like that's that's not that hard to do. Don't tell them

that they're trying to get their kid on the high school team, but it's not that hard to do. But from

high school, high school is not, you know, it's not a national track, right? This is not going to

get you to to Virginia Tech or or Duke, you know, that nobody's going to care. We want you to play

high school tennis because it's fun. It's social. And we want we want kids who are participating in

school activities. I think it's huge for that. I love the social part of it and the team part of it

is so fun. But, you know, there's a lot of schools that are that are not very high level. And they also

don't have professional coaches. They have teachers and those teachers have very little backgrounds. So

it's a different, it's a different track. But anyway, it's not where people come. So I started the

foundation that is also an innovation project where we are populating health and nutrition onto the

website now. What to eat, how to eat, how much water you should drink, just a lot of fundamentals

and eventually that'll spin off into more more specific, you know, daily nutrition requirements,

like how much fruit should you have a day? How many calories should you be eating a day? If you're

an athlete, understanding your BMR, for instance, like basal metabolic rate, a lot of people don't know

that one. That sounds fancy too. But basically it says if you're playing soccer and you're playing tennis

And then on the flip side, you know, I was inspired when I was in a Starbucks with a young man who had a

huge drink. It looked like probably enough calories for my week and that one drink and he was, you know,

he was not fit. And I think he had a very loving mom who wanted him to have this really cool drink.

And I'm glad he had it in a way, but he shouldn't be drinking that. There's maybe there's some other

alternatives that would be, you know, less of a caloric thing. So we're going to we're going to target

a little bit of going out to eat, for instance, is one of the things I'm talking with my builder on.

And like if you go to Starbucks and your friends get the paint drink, but you want to be a little

healthier, what would what could you choose? Here's some other alternatives because you're going to

go to Starbucks. Have fun with your friends. Buy a drink. You won't buy a drink by a drink, but

instead of this one, how about that one? If you go to Chick-fil-A, I know this is going to sound terrible.

Eat the grilled chicken sandwich or get the salad, right? Which is no fun. Nobody wants that. But

anyway, that's that's kind of an overview and a lot coming down the pipeline on that one.

I love it. Bobby, you got anything else before I hit him with King of Tennis? No, I'm very impressed

about how mature we've been through this entire thing. I haven't degraded yet, have I?

We have not gone down any spirals. So I'm very we've taken the high road so far. I'm very excited.

What happens when we do these things with friends, right? And I will not forget because when

Jim and I spoke about asking him the King of Tennis, he kind of had a bad taste in his mouth about the

word King and he wanted something a little more, maybe Star Wars related and I will yes reference

my shirt if May the Courts be with you. But I will change the question a little bit, Jim, because we

usually ask if you were King of Tennis. And in this case, I will ask if you were the dark lord

of tennis and could snap your fingers and change anything. Is there anything you would do or change?

Yes, I like it. The emperor, the dark lord, all the more. Any of those are great with me.

I thought about this and I really I didn't like the question at first. I think I sent Bobby

thinking I like that question, but now I like the question better because I have an answer that I want

kids to want to be pro tennis players again. I want kids and communities to say I want to be

like that person. I want to be Serena Williams. I want to be Francis Tiafo. I want to be Ben

Shelton. I want to be Madison Keys. What a great story. Madison is my goodness. What an incredible

story that is. And I'm seeing less and less evidence and I don't know what it's like in other sports.

But the world's too pragmatic sometimes. As a 10, 11, 12 year old, you want to be the best in the

world. I can't tell you how many Wimblelands I won on the wall in a third set or five set

type rate. It all against the wall. I mean, I imagine myself in that position every time. I don't think

you can get great greatness without that kind of ambition. So for us to continue to and to get back

and I think in a lot of ways, USDA has done a really good job. I know I'm touting USDA. You guys hear

that, USDA, that a really good job through the high performance program and we seeing all the results

of the Americans and the top again. But I want to see more of these junior players not being

pragmatic and saying, oh, you know, I'm 12, but by the time I'm 18, I want to play college tennis.

How about you want to play on the pro tour and travel around, go to Paris and go to England and stuff.

We've got to create a culture and an environment and a character set for these kids that they

realize that's possible. And it's not only that, it's fun. It's an amazing journey. And frankly,

you know, as coaches, the destination is never the most important thing. It's always the road.

It's always the path they take. You're married to the road as a coach. You hope the kids married to

their destination, but it's your job, my job, to make sure the road is the key. What they learn on the

way, how they wake up. The favorite question is, how do you get up in the morning and the kids laugh

at me because I'm old mostly and fat. But at the end of the day, the answer is you tie your shoes

like an athlete. That's how you get up in the morning, tie your shoes like an athlete. And I just

don't know that our kids are waking up like that anymore, like we used to. And I want them to know

that that's a possibility. You can get there. Quit making your kid pragmatic at 12 years old.

Let's go for the dreamers. Bobby, you know I'm going to push back. Go. What do I do? How do you do it?

There you go. I'm like, dark, dark, Lord. How are you going to get kids to do this? How are you going

to make tennis cool again? How do you, as the dark Lord of tennis, inject some ambition into these kids?

Yeah, you know, and it's it's it's it's not up to any one dark Lord is it? I think it's up to our

industry in a lot of a lot of ways. And everybody wants to be critical of the industry, right? So change

always happens at home. Be a good example. Set a good example. Teach, teach things the right way.

Quit using those those those catchy cliches, you know, it's it's chestnut checkers. Hit it where

they ain't just be quiet. Teach it right. Give them an environment where kids want to show up every

day and compete. Show them how it is to get better. Show them things are possible. ATP players,

WTA players, ITF players doing a better, better job of getting in front of the kids and making

things accessible. Western Southern, US open, you know, we got to make sure in the industry that

these kids have access to these players more like F1 where you walk around in the compounds or

or NASCAR you walk around in the compounds and things like that. You get to see that the paddocks and

you know, talk with the players is pretty neat. We need to make sure that the industry is helping us

do that, but it starts at home starts with academies like, Hey, let's go to I think we took a group of

kids down to see Georgia Tech last month. It was really cold. Like I'm not going to hit outside. It was

we actually didn't hit outside that day, Bobby. I think it was miserable. And I'm like, we'd be

better served and the kids loved it. Watch it. A bunch of them had never seen a college tennis match.

We have to quit pointing the fingers at the industry and be individual, individual versions of

the change. Personal advocates of what needs to happen instead of looking at USDA or ATP or WTA

or PTRRs, PA and tell them they have to do this, they have to do that. It's not a they thing. It's a

we thing. And if you know, that's if the problem is getting kids to believe they can do it and be a

part of that, we have to collectively be on the same page. Quit competing with other people,

start competing with yourself and try a little harder. So he's not the dark lord. He's the Gandhi

of tennis. Redneck Gandhi. We want you to be the change you want to see in the industry. Start

it starts at home. I like that a lot Jim. Thanks. I started home. It's just it's a societal thing

right now. I mean, you know, I deal with a lot of high school kids. I yell at them when they talk

about grades. I'm like, you can sit here. I would love to have a debate on any topic. I don't want to

hear about the grade. I want to hear about, as Jim said, the process. Tell me what you learned today.

Don't tell me what you made. I'm not interested because ultimately you're going to run up against

the guy who's making the same grade. What's going to be the differentiator? And that's the part,

like Jim said, I think we the last, lessening the creativity when they're young, the freedom when

they're young, starting them on these paths so soon. It's tough. It's a different world than which we grew up.

But I think the big is the opening. I used to let, you know, I'd go out my front door

and I'd play because the kids were all in neighborhood and you'd go a mile and you were in your best

friends neighborhood. Now that his mom became your mom. Today, my daughter grew up, I wouldn't let her

go a mile away from the house. You know, it's just it's different. And that's a lot of things that we

have to overcome. And that's a lot of it is the great part. You know, that's went a little bit of

empirical data helps to say what is the best way to choose. Don't let it be your only guy, but

it certainly got to be a factor in whatever you do. Well, and that's, you know, there's part of that too

where the metrics, we have more metrics now than we've ever had. I mean, when I go to metrics,

it's usually a pretty high level player. I don't need to see a charted match of a 12 year old.

I mean, just keep it. I already know what's happening there. We don't need to chart that.

Most of the time, maybe a super national 12 year old, it might be some things we want to see, but

the metrics like the one, the big one is UTR, you know, and it's crazy to me. And it shows where

we're out as an industry that we're just not doing enough to get information to the new tennis players.

But somebody will call me with a low UTR of a certain age group, right? Let's say it's a four,

right? So, you know, if you're, if you're seven, that's an incredible UTR. If you're 16, you're,

you're going to struggle to make a college team, but they give me three decimal points after the four.

Hey, my player is a 4.372. I'm like, I don't even know what that is. I could not compute.

I don't even know what hundreds we've gotten to. Are we in the thousands column? I don't know what

just happened. But, you know, I can tell you this, we've got to work harder to get folks out of

some of those metrics. All the kids, the parents are, you know, it's hard on them. My kids

are four. That kid over there is a six. But these are the conversations we have in the performance model

all the time. Again, if I say, you know, the dark lord version of it is, let's get back to being dreamers.

That's how we got here. That's how we got Andy Roddicks. That's how we got Serena Williams. I mean,

and Venus, I mean, the entire 70s in our dominance in tennis. Kids wanted to be like those people.

Parents wanted their kids to be like that. Now they're saying, oh, well, you don't have much of a

chance to do that. Let's just focus on going to college. How about playing in eastern somewhere,

Louisiana State University of Transmission Repair in tennis and go there and play two or three

years of college tennis? I don't care what your UTR is. Play hard, work hard. I mean, how many stories

do we see a player making the NFL teams of random division three, random division two schools you've

never heard of and all of a sudden, they're playing professional tennis. And I think Eric Butterac

speaks to that in a TED Talk he gave division three tennis players don't go pro. I want to say he might

have been number one of the world in doubles. Certainly top five. So we got to get those stories out

more. It is possible. You can do this and you know, quit saying you're just going to go straight,

straight to college. Maybe you're going to play pro tennis. 12 years old, I want you to dream.

By 16, we'll we'll define that pathway a little more. But we got to kid kids, young and parents and

families loving the game again. And the only way we're going to do that is all of us being on the same page.

Well, there you have it. We want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio and signature tennis for

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