Resources

Inspiration vs. Motivation

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1 day ago
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Last week, David Benzel of Growing Champions for Life offered a free webinar entitled Solve the Mystery of Your Child’s Motivation and Distraction Issues.

During the 40 minutes or so that David spoke, he focused on the fact that inspiration and motivation are two very different animals – inspiration comes from the outside – for example, we might be inspired by reading a book about Nelson Mandela or watching the Olympics – while motivation is created internally as the pursuit to satisfy an unmet need.

Listening to David’s words took such a load off my mind!  I finally heard and understood why all my nagging and reminding and pushing falls on deaf ears.  There is nothing – not one thing – I can do to make my son take care of his More >

Growing Pains!

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3 weeks ago
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For those who don’t follow the ParentingAces Facebook page or Twitter feed, you might not know that I recently moved the blog to a new server or that I recently started showing ads on the site.

ParentingAces has been a true labor of love for the past 18 months or so, but when I was approached by a fellow tennis cohort about advertising on the blog, I figured it was worth looking into.  So, now you see an ad at the top of each page as well as on the right sidebar – these are randomly generated by the agency that I’ve contracted with and will, hopefully, provide y’all with an introduction to some tennis-related companies that can offer your junior player(s) information or products that will prove helpful in their tennis More >

Alternatives to USTA Tournaments

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3 weeks ago
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I was having a phone conversation with another tennis parent yesterday – we were discussing all the stuff going on with USTA (2014 changes, 10-and-under mandate, cost of competition, issues with wildcards, cheating, etc.) and what we could do as parents of junior players to get away from it all. We both agreed that our goal as Tennis Parents is to keep our kids playing as long as possible while maintaining their love of the game (and not going broke in the process!) – a huge challenge, to be sure.

Then, this morning, I read an article on 11-year-old Florida player, Adam Neff, and the resources that his parents have provided for him at their home – 3 tennis courts in the backyard, one with imported Italian red clay, a hyperbaric chamber, a More >

Summer Tennis Camps

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4 weeks ago
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Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know I’m a big fan of summer tennis camp for junior players.  For younger players, a few intensive days on a college campus or at an academy with a group of amazing guys or gals can be incredibly inspiring and motivating.  For older players, camp can serve as a reminder of what’s around the bend if they stick with tennis throughout high school and decide to play in college.

Since summer is just a few weeks away, I figure now is as good a time as any to put together a list of some of the camps being offered across the country.  This is just a sampling – please post any additional camps in the Comments box below.  I only have direct experience with UGA’s camp – it’s the only one my More >

Links to Online Articles

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3 months ago
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I often include links to online articles in my blog posts or Facebook posts or Tweets then forget which post contains which link, so I decided to compile a list of them here in case any of you are looking for something in particular!

10 and Under Tennis Dashboard & TIA Research Tracking Success of Initiative

10 Facts You Need to Know Before Becoming a Pro Tennis Player

500 Sets a Year – USC Women’s coach West Nott discusses the importance of playing sets

Active.com Guide to Tennis Scholarships

Active Tennis Watching

Anxiety High – article about Walton High School and student pressure

Are You Listening? – Frank Giampaolo’s article on being a better tennis parent

Call To Action – Tom Walker’s piece regarding the proposed changes to the More >

The Ins & Outs of TennisRecruiting.Net Redux

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4 months ago
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Below is a re-print of my June 13, 2012, article on TennisRecruiting.net.  Twice a year, TennisRecruiting.net updates its Top Prospect ratings – sometimes known as “The Stars”. The next update to the Top Prospects comes in March, and those ratings will be based on players’ highest rankings during the eight-week period starting with the rankings on January 15 and 16 – from the week of January 14 to the week of March 4, 2013. TRN invites players and parents to review their records to ensure accurate ratings.  Be sure to take a look at TRN’s new National Showcase Series of tournaments – these events may not count toward a player’s USTA ranking but will count toward his/her TRN ranking and rating.

By now, most of my readers are probably very More >

The ParentingAces 2012 Holiday Gift Guide

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5 months ago
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Whichever holiday (or holidays, in our case!) you celebrate this winter, I thought I would offer up a few suggestions for some tennis-related gifts for your junior player. If you have more ideas to add to the list, please put them in the Comments box below!

  • For the Agassi fan, you can’t do any better than a piece of original jewelry from Nick Zimmer who created the famous Trinity earring and pendant gifted to Andre by Nick Bollettieri and his former wife. The pieces come in gold and silver (or a mixture of the two) and start right around $100. Click here to go to Nick’s website, LoveMyMetal.com.
  • Brad Gilbert’s Tennis Nation store has all sorts of tennis equipment and fun accessories, too. One of my favorites is a wireless tennis ball More >

ParentingAces Radio Show

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5 months ago
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For my long-time readers, you probably already know that I’m now hosting a weekly call-in radio show on the UR10S network.  It airs every Monday at Noon Eastern time, and you can tune in online or listen to the recorded podcast on iTunes or on BlogTalkRadio’s website.  (For more info on the details of the show and how to tune in, click on the Radio Show tab above.)

The cool thing about hosting the show is that I now get to put voices to people with whom my only prior communication has been Facebook or Twitter or email. I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of our sport’s greats, like Allen Fox and Johan Kriek and Mark Kovacs.  I’ve gotten to interview lesser-known but no-less-important contributors to our sport like Ross Greenstein, More >

If This Doesn’t Convince You . . .

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5 months ago
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Spreadsheet Links

2014 National comparison with 2009 and 2012 -with teams

2014 National comparison with 2009 and 2012 -Individual entries-No Teams

The two spreadsheets above were created by Robert Sasseville, a member of the group that met with the USTA folks in Chicago in October.  Robert has run the Girls 14s Nationals for the past 30 years and has been involved in junior tennis in some way, shape, or form for over 40 years, so he’s seen the evolution of the competition calendar and ranking system over a long enough period of time to understand clearly how the 2014 changes will impact our junior players.

The first link shows a comparison between the 2014 national competition opportunities and those in 2012 and 2009, including the new More >

2013 USTA Section Presidents & Contact Info

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6 months ago
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Caribbean: Humberto Torres brodriguez@cta.usta.com

Eastern: Gerry Cuva schoell@eastern.usta.com

Florida: Bob Pfaender tennismaster@florida.usta.com

Hawaii-Pacific: Russell Lum tennis@hawaii.usta.com

Intermountain: Angela Emery platteriver@wyoming.com

Mid-Atlantic: John Raker vaprotennis@me.com

Middle States: Gina Pileggi servingtennis@ms.usta.com

Midwest: Jonelle Smith feedback@midwest.usta.com

Missouri Valley: Scott Hanover ptcguy@yahoo.com

New England: R. Gary Pina info@newengland.usta.com

Northern: Jeff Baill jbaill@yostbaill.com

Northern California: Michael Cooke michael@cookefamily.org

Pacific-Northwest: Mike Temple mike.temple@comcast.net

Southern: Bud Spencer jspen61@comcast.net

Southern California: Gregory Hickey More >

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