Posts tagged tennis story

New Coke & 2014

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2 months ago
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Today’s post courtesy of Antonio Mora . . .

In 1985, before all our junior players were born and when many of their parents were young enough to be junior players themselves, the Coca-Cola Company took what has been referred to as the greatest marketing risk in consumer goods history.  The company changed the formula for Coca-Cola, the world’s most popular soft drink, the first significant change in its formula in 99 years.

The development of what everyone ended up calling “New Coke” was a long and secret process that even had a code name, “Project Kansas.”  The company’s most senior executives launched the effort, hoping to find a new “champion” for the company and reverse years of decline in Coke’s market share.  By the early 1980s, More >

The Things That Really Matter

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3 months ago
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The following was emailed to me by Tom Walker.  . .

Changes were passed by a small number of misguided bureaucrats to the National Junior Tournament schedule. Unchallenged these will go into effect in 2014. Developmental coaches predict that these measures will negatively diminish junior tennis. Why are we so enlightened? What do we understand that they do not? Today, I was reminded in the briefest of moments why reversing this course is so imperative. Please indulge me and read on….

I was out on a marathon training run. Dusk was bleak and the temperature was a bone chilling 18 degrees. My course skirted by the local university. Wearily on mile twelve I fought with myself whether to push and continue onward. It was at that moment a More >

I Dream of Genie

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4 months ago
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Since my home-base of Atlanta is the next stop on the USTA Listening Meeting Tour this coming Sunday, I figured I’d better brush up on my junior competition history.  Who better to contact than veteran junior tournament director, Robert Sasseville?  You’ll recognize his name as one of the folks who met with USTA in Chicago in the Fall to discuss pushing the pause button on the 2014 junior comp changes.  Robert has been around the junior tennis world for several decades and is always very gracious about sharing his knowledge and experience.  Here is what I learned from Robert (the info below is a reprint of a document that Robert composed and emailed to me last week) . . .

The year was 1862 and the American Civil War had just begun.  More >

3rd Listening Meeting at ITA Coaches Convention

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5 months ago
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ITA Coaches Convention handout

The link above is to the handout given to attendees at yesterday’s “listening” meeting at the ITA Coaches Convention in Naples, Florida.  The pages are reversed – my apologies for not being able to figure out how to edit them in Adobe – so be sure to scroll to Page 2 for the details.  NOTE: Lew Brewer just emailed me a cleaner version of the handout which I’ve linked to above.

The meeting was led by outgoing USTA president, Jon Vegosen, and incoming USTA staff liaison to the Junior Competition Committee, Bill Mountford.  Lew Brewer was also in attendance.  For more information on the meeting, please see today’s ZooTennis post by clicking here – Colette was there and gives a very thorough analysis.

One thing I More >

Quota Insanity

134
5 months ago
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More unintended consequences?  Thank you to Antonio Mora, Emmy-winning journalist and tennis parent, for sharing the following information with all of us:

In the boys’ 14s of the upcoming Winter Nationals, the boy ranked 211 in the country on the day entries closed, did not make the cut. But the player ranked 955 (!!!!) was selected, even though almost 90 higher-ranked players were excluded. In the girls’ 18s, the player ranked 333 didn’t get in, but #965 did. In the boys’ 16s, the player ranked 204 didn’t make the cut, but #442 did. Boys 18s, 288 out, 713 in. Girls’ 16s, 250 is out, 731 in.

How does this happen? Kids who aren’t highly ranked managed to squeeze in under their section’s quota. Under current rules, only sixty kids out of More >

My Sit-Down with USTA’s Bill Mountford

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5 months ago
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Earlier this week, I received an email from Bill Mountford, currently USTA’s Market Development Specialist and one of the guys present at the 2nd listening meeting in Rocky Hill, CT.  He was coming to town for the USPTA’s 10-and-under coaching workshop and wanted to meet me.  He said he had no proposed agenda for this meeting but simply wanted to sit down and chat.  I figured it would be a great opportunity to ask him some very pointed questions about the 2014 junior comp changes and where things were heading.  I was right.

The main point that came out of our 2 1/2+ hour conversation is that many of the parents and coaches who came to the first two listening meetings seemed either uninformed or confused over exactly what the 2014 junior More >

Unintended Consequences

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5 months ago
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When I first started blogging a little over a year ago, it was with the intention of sharing my son’s and my experiences in junior tennis with those coming up behind us.  I had been so frustrated trying to navigate the tournament structure and ranking structure that I figured maybe I could save others from going through that same frustration.

For the first few months, I wrote about our personal journey and the roadblocks we encountered.  Some of my posts generated feedback from readers, but, mostly, I was writing from the heart thinking it might be nice for my son to one day go back and read how his tennis truly impacted his mom.  Some of my posts were how-tos and were more fact-based than feeling-based, but overall I tried to keep it More >

Community

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6 months ago
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The tennis community is truly something special.  If you haven’t experienced it yet, just wait . . . you will.  Whether it’s a coach inviting your child to join his academy’s warmup at a tournament or a parent offering a protein bar to your child when he forgot to pack one or a child comforting your child after a tough loss, the community is there and it’s there en force.

And, when a challenge or a tragedy strikes our tennis community, we rally.  We speak out.  We show up.  We stand together in support.

Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the support coming out for one of our top junior players, Sean Karl.  I wrote about Sean‘s recent diagnosis of Ewings Sarcoma a couple of weeks ago.  Since then, the Facebook group created by a More >

Hug Your Kids

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6 months ago
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In the past week, I have learned of two families dealing with devastating issues involving their teenage sons:  one a tennis family, the other a football family.  In both cases, the issue surfaced seemingly from nowhere to turn the families upside down and inside out.  The road to recovery will be long for both of them.  It will involve anger, frustration, perseverance, and, above all, belief.  My heart is breaking for both of them.

First the football story . . . At a prominent private school here in Atlanta, a 17-year-old member of the high school’s varsity football team was arrested and is being held without bail for sexually assaulting a classmate in the gym shower.  He is from a “good” family.  I have friends who are friends with his More >

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