For Tennis Parents by a Tennis Parent

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to [virtually] talk with Bill Kerig, the founder of Great Coach. The video recording of that conversation is below.

Great Coach is, according to its website, an app that offers an enterprise solution to help youth sports organizations comply with new and emerging standards, manage operations safely, and provide a public-facing record of transparency and accountability. As next-generation sport management platform, Great Coach will guide you through a three-step process:

1. Audit organizations and recommend solutions.
2. Provision and manage:
   • SafeSport training 
   • NCSI background checks
   • Certification and roster verification
   • Communication and other compliance
   • Coach credentials
3. Provide app-based coaching, communication, and administrative tools to ensure organizations are transparent, compliant, and safe. Our cutting-edge technological platform delivers safe, transparent, efficient, proactive, and effective communications, education, and coaching tools,, including:
   • Athlete, Coach, Parent, Medical Personnel Profiles
   • Training Certificate validation and tracking 
   • Safe Sport compliant SafeMessaging among adults and minors
   • In-app Athlete Self-Assessment
   • In-app Parent and Athlete Surveys
   • Events and availability scheduling tool
   • Branded Team Page
   • Roster Validation
   • Background screen provisioning and tracking
   • SafeSport training and tracking
   • Portable and secure document management (for releases and consents)

Please watch my talk with Bill Kerig and consider adding Great Coach to your club or academy’s offerings. If you are the parent of a junior tennis player, share this article with your child’s coach or Tennis Director of the facility. Let’s continue working together to keep ALL KIDS safe!

Bill mentions in our conversation that all National Governing Bodies (NGBs) are required to post a list of banned coaches that is forward-facing for the public. I have done several searches on USTA.com and have been unable to find a list of banned tennis coaches on the website. I did, however, find the following information: https://www.usta.com/en/home/safe-play/usta-safe-play-conduct-policies-guidelines.html. I followed up with an email to the address listed, and here is the reply I received: 

Hi Lisa – 

 

Thank you for reaching out to Safe Play.  Pursuant to the U.S. Center for SafeSport Code which governs all athlete safeguarding programs across the Olympic movement, the U.S. Center for SafeSport maintains a publically-available searchable database of all individuals who have been sanctioned by or whose eligibility has in some way been restricted by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a national governing body, including the USTA, or the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee.  As some individuals who have been sanctioned by another national governing body also participate in tennis, we direct our community to the master database maintained by the U.S. Center for SafeSport on their website www.uscenterforsafesport.org.  The centralized disciplinary database on the U.S. Center for SafeSport’s website is found here: https://uscenterforsafesport.org/response-and-resolution/disciplinary-database/.     

 

Best,

Safe Play

 

Meanwhile, here’s a list of banned tennis coaches as published on the Great Coach website:

For the How to Coach Kids information that Bill references, go to https://howtocoachkids.org/list/. To search the SafeSport Disciplinary Database for a particular coach’s name, go to https://uscenterforsafesport.org/response-and-resolution/disciplinary-database/.

Here’s my conversation with Bill: