Last week, I attended the USTA High Performance Coaching Symposium during the Qualifying week at the US Open. There was an abundance of information to digest, with technology, biomechanics, and performance teams, but it was Jose Higueras who was able to bring it all together and make it relevant to what we do on the court every day as coaches. Jose Higueras is widely known as one of the greatest coaching minds of all time. In his playing career, Jose won 16 ATP singles titles and was ranked as high as No. 6 in the world. Following his retirement, he…
What To Do When Your Athlete/Child Wants to Quit? As parents, we can be creative and try to keep competitive sports fun and social for our kids. But what do you do when this doesn’t work? When you can see they are unhappy, and you start to doubt this is the right path for your child? I had this exact situation with one of my boys. My middle son had a goal to play golf at Stanford from a young age. He set his goals, did the work, day in and day out without question. He loved it…
Do we need to use online schooling? Does my child have a chance to make it in tennis, if she doesn’t do online schooling? In all my work with junior tennis, this is probably the question I get most often from parents. I am thinking back, and I honestly can’t remember one parent presentation or workshop, where the question wasn’t asked. The answers are no, and yes. Having said that, it is a family decision and what works for one family, doesn’t always work for another family. So, how do you like…
School is back in session, and that means many of our athletes are back on the courts or playing fields. I have two children playing football, one in high school and one in college. I will be honest that having my children play football scares me. (I am the one silently saying her “Hail Mary’s” that no one gets injured during the games.) I am also the coach who is nervous having young players on the tennis courts all day in extreme heat. Unfortunately, we all know that things can go wrong, very wrong. Let’…
We are continuing some pieces on the joys of being a tennis parent. Are you all having fun yet? I will admit to not having the courage that most of you have, in that my children don’t play competitive tennis. Not that watching your son play football doesn’t have its own challenges, but at least I have the company of other parents all rooting for the same team. This week’s article is from Debbie Graham Shaffer. Luckily for us, Debbie will be contributing a lot of articles on her tennis wisdom. Here are just…