Posts tagged college coaches

High School Tennis Revisited

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1 week ago
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Last year, about this time, I was writing regularly about my son’s experience on his high school tennis team – the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

However, due to some ridiculous eligibility rule changes by the Georgia High School Association (GHSA), my son did not play for his school team this year.  It was HIS choice, don’t get me wrong, but, basically, our state governing body made it very unattractive for any high-level players to join their high school teams this year – to summarize, the rule said that a player lost eligibility if he or she trained for his/her sport during stated school hours.  For my son and many other tennis players, their school hours are modified in such a way as to include “zero period” and online classes so they More >

“If You Don’t Like Us, Find A Way To Get Rid Of Us!”

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1 month ago
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“If you don’t like us, find a way to get rid of us!”  That was Patrick McEnroe’s response to a parent’s question regarding the 2014 Junior Competition Changes at last summer’s Girls 12 Nationals in Atlanta, and it was really the beginning of my extensive coverage of the new calendar that USTA was planning to implement beginning January 1, 2014.

Now that the calendar changes have been finalized and approved at the National Board level, I figured I should do a sort-of recap of the process around the changes and how they came to be . . .

  • Some time in 2011: Jon Vegosen, then president of USTA, charged his Junior Competition Committee (JCC) to devise a new national tournament schedule.  Please note that the JCC was chaired by Tim Russell, a More >

2014: What Are Our Options?

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2 months ago
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There seems to be some (a lot!) confusion about USTA’s governance procedure as it relates to the 2014 changes.  After reading through the USTA by-laws in their entirety, I can tell you that I’m not any closer to understanding the intricacies of how this terribly complicated organization operates.  I have asked some people who have been involved with USTA for way longer than I have to please explain to me what our options are moving forward.  Here’s what they have told me.

At next week’s meeting (see my email exchange with Lew Brewer for more info), the Sections will discuss then vote on whether to approve the Proposed Changes to the already-approved 2014 Junior Competition Calendar.

  1. If approved, the Board will vote on the Proposed Changes More >

Quota Comparison Between 2012 & 2014

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2 months ago
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The link below is to an Excel spreadsheet comparing Boys 18 entries by section between the actual 2012 Winter Nationals tournament and what the numbers will look like if the proposed 2014 changes are approved.  The numbers for SoCal and NorCal may be off by one or two as there was some confusion as to which of the two sections certain players were from.  Please take some time to read and understand the differences and feel free to comment below.

2012 Winter National Boys 18 Compared to Proposed New Quotas

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Amended 2014 Changes – Just A Proposal At This Point

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2 months ago
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Please refer to my post from earlier today to understand how the process will work going forward.  In the meantime, here’s the 28-page document outlining the changes to the 2014 Junior Competition Schedule as well as the shorter 5-page summary version along with the new proposed national schedule.  I haven’t taken the time yet to analyze it fully but I plan to do so over the next couple of days.  If any of you would like to offer your opinion, the Comments box below is open!

Changes to 2014 Jr Comp Structure

Summary of 2014 National Jr Comp Structure

2014 Proposed National Schedule By Month

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March 6th Official Statement from USTA

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2 months ago
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Today is March 6th, the day USTA said we would hear something from the work done by the Junior Competition & Sportsmanship Committee last week in Dallas.  I emailed Lew Brewer this morning for an update.  The following is my email to him along with his reply.  I hope it lends clarity about the process. . .

Lisa to Lew:

“Good morning, Lew! From previous communications, it seems like today’s the day for USTA to reveal publicly the changes made to the 2014 schedule during last week’s JCSC meeting. If that’s the case, can you please include me on any releases sent out? Thank you.”

Lew to Lisa:

“Thanks for the email.  Yes, today is the day of days.

I’m sorry that I could not tell you more earlier but we really had to inform our USTA leadership More >

Official Statement from USTA

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2 months ago
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I just received the following via email from Lew Brewer:

The Junior Competition & Sportsmanship Committee of the USTA had a positive and productive meeting in Dallas from February 26 to February 28 regarding the 2014 National Junior Competitive Structure.   During this meeting the committee reviewed feedback received at the Listening Sessions and the Letusknow.com e-mail address. This included comments from key stakeholders including parents, coaches and players, tournament directors, teaching professionals, college coaches, USTA sections and other tennis constituents.   The proposed changes developed during this meeting were unanimously approved by the committee and will be presented to USTA National and Section Leadership on or about 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 >

4th & 5th Listening Meetings at Winter Nationals

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4 months ago
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Two listening meetings were held over the past two days during the Winter Nationals in Arizona, a tournament that will, ironically, disappear from the schedule if the 2014 changes remain as is.

I received emails from attendees at both meetings, each of which had 40-50 people in attendance.  It seems that the parents, players, and industry folks (Brad Stine, Jack Sharpe, Mark Bey, Steve Bellamy, Kevin Kempin, Gordon Bellis, Timon Corwin, Tim Mayotte, Antonio Mora) who were in attendance were well-versed in the changes and had no qualms about speaking their minds to Tim Russell, Kurt Kamperman, and Dave Haggerty.  Several parents and players spoke out about how they would NOT have gotten a college scholarship under the new system.  One More >

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