SEAN HANNITY vs. USTA...Part I

SEAN HANNITY vs. USTA

I was hard at work this afternoon - preparing Performance Analysis video clips for basketball campers since we've now shifted our focus to include other sports via our new "division" (HIGH-TECH SPORTS VIDEO).

What a pleasant surprise to pick up the ringing phone and find Julie from Tennis Recruiting Network on the other end! She quickly asked whether I was near a computer - I said no, but I could be - so she said to pull up Sean Hannity's website. 

Sean Hannity? EWWWW! Each of us has a right to our views but I know for sure that he and I don't share ANY. She said this isn't about politics...It's about something much more important. Turns out, she was right and, as was pointed out to me today by a FB friend and tennis enthusiast, "somewhere on some level we all have common ground."

This is quite lengthy but if it sounds familiar, it's because WE'VE ALL SAID THE SAME THING...MANY TIMES. I know for sure that HIGH-TECH TENNIS has said it, that WAYNE BRYAN has said it, that TOM WALKER (high performance pro in Kalamazoo) has said it via his Call to Action that he wrote and we distributed to 3000 tennis enthusiasts in our database back in March of this year-remember when he was and we were literally begging folks to contact their sections??? I have not met one person - not a single one - who supports these changes. Not a player, parent, coach, tournament director, NO ONE. And I can promise you that the masses are ANGRY. When 2013-14 rolls around, I think it's gonna get really ugly out there. Maybe I'm wrong - but I doubt it.

Remember that the Southern Section cast the ONLY "no" vote when these massive changes were voted on by the USTA. For whatever the reason, all the remaining sections just went along with it. It certainly doesn't appear that anyone in authority is in the mood to listen - so I doubt the addition of Sean Hannity's voice to the choir will have any significant effect...but I'll copy the first part of his lengthy article here for your info (and I'll include a link so you can read the rest, if you haven't gone insane yet).
Will it change anything?
We can only hope...but nothing else has. :(
Cheers!

As many people know, my main passion in life is politics. I basically eat, breathe and sleep politics. In my private life, one of my main passions is sports. As a kid, I played ice hockey and roller hockey. I was a pitcher in baseball. I played basketball and stickball, both for endless hours. I also developed a love for tennis, which I have to this day.

After a stint as a hockey and snow-skiing dad, I have now become a full-time tennis dad. I have two junior tennis players and I, like so many other sports parents, spend all of my free time watching practices, matches, and driving around to different tournaments.



Tennis mirrors life in so many ways. I love the lessons in sportsmanship that tennis teaches my kids every day. They learn about winning and losing. They learn that the harder you work, the more likely you are to succeed. They learn to play fair. They also learn that sometimes life is not fair and there are those who do not "play by the rules." They are put in situations like being down 2-5, 15-40 in the 3rd set and then find out they can fight their way back. You can’t get that kind of education in a classroom. All of these are GREAT lessons for life.

I am intrigued with every aspect of the game, whether it involves tactics, strategy, conditioning, or technique. My great escape in life is entering the "tennis world” on weekends. My wife and children and I have developed great friendships. We have also had to deal with those few “insane” tennis parents we come across, which, frankly, is rather amusing.

With all of this as backdrop, let me now state up front that my reason for writing this letter is NOT about me or my kids. My top priority for my children is their education. They will not likely be professional tennis players. Our main goal is to keep them busy with tennis (by competing, exercising and having fun) as they develop. If they work hard enough, they will be able to choose whether they want to play tennis in college.

In fact, my reason for writing this letter is as follows: The deeper I have gotten into the tennis world over the last several years, I have come to see that there appears to be a destructive bureaucratic/political elite within the USTA that, frankly, is in the process of hurting junior tennis and, consequently, the future of American tennis.

As a parent of two junior players, I had been hearing rumors for months that the USTA was planning changes in its National Junior Competitive Schedule. Because the USTA had already reduced national opens by 50 percent and eliminated some of the Level 3 events in 2011, I couldn't imagine it would ever reduce opportunities to play national level events even more. But how wrong I was!

As you may or may not know, the USTA Board of Directors approved a proposal at its annual meeting in March to radically change the competitive structure for American junior players, beginning in 2014. Compared to the 2011 schedule, this new structure will reduce the total number of competitive opportunities for junior players at the national level by about 50 percent. The reduction in opportunities for national play outside of one’s region will be over 75 percent. These changes will most radically adversely affect those players ranked below the top 30 or so nationally.

If you are as frustrated as I am that American tennis has been on a steady decline, both professionally and at the college level, with more and more colleges giving scholarships to foreign students because American players are falling behind, as well as, the loss of college teams, the loss of high school teams, and the significant loss of tennis courts in major metropolitan areas, then I hope you will join me in urging the immediate reversal of the USTA’s "new rules" for juniors competition.

Time is short. These “new rules” have been approved by the USTA but not yet implemented. Therefore, this letter is a direct appeal to the members of all USTA sections to work to reverse these changes before it is too late. Using the specifics of the USTA’s own proposal I would now like to discuss how these changes will negatively affect junior tennis.

Click HERE to read the remainder.

What Are They Being Taught?

"Unless you are the 1/10^th of 1% who actually earn a living from playing tennis, remember that tennis is a game, a game that you can play your entire life." SC Tennis Pro Jerry Albrikes

Clearly, Coach Jerry sees the big picture and we totally agree with him - guess it's no coincidence that he's a good friend and supporter of HIGH-TECH TENNIS! This might be familiar to you since we post it all the time:

Tennis is a GAME, not brain surgery,
and junior players are CHILDREN, not mini-professionals.
Junior tennis is a JOURNEY, not a DESTINATION...
YOU MIGHT AS WELL ENJOY IT!

Tennis is certainly a game, but to us, it's also our J-O-B because we've been supporting tennis players with video services and virtually living, sleeping, and breathing tennis for the past 7 years. For a variety of reasons, we've now changed our primary focus to include other sports (via our new "division" HIGH-TECH SPORTS VIDEO) and we'll only pursue HIGH-TECH TENNIS activities when and where it makes sense. It'll be interesting to see how similar or different those other worlds might be. So far, the differences seem to be significant...we shall see.

During the month of June, we're always excited to visit several terrific SUMMER CAMPS and I've been noticing that the campers learn a LOT more than just how to play tennis. So, aside from just having someone to basically "babysit" your kids while they're on summer vacation, I started thinking about what the kids are actually being taught. Tennis is such a great disguise for learning life lessons (kind of like adding sugar to medicine to make it easier to swallow).

For instance, we recently observed a coach who was still very, very unhappy with a player because that player had thrown her racquet the previous day. He talked about how much money her parents had paid for that racquet and she definitely got the message that racquet abuse just would not be tolerated in any way, shape, or form. That lesson was much more important than which grip to use.

That same coach also couldn't believe that so many players withdraw from tournaments after losing in the main draw. He felt it was important to always finish something once you start it and when you don't get your way, you cannot be permitted to just quit and walk away. Again, what a lesson for those players to learn.

While waiting for campers to warm up the other day, I overhead another coach say words to this effect: We're a team and we do everything together so let's GO! Such a great lesson for players to learn, especially in such an individual sport like tennis.

Of course there are many, many coaches out there who provide a variety of lessons for children and the vast majority are doing the very best they can. HOWEVER, recent news concerning religious and educational figures of authority is incredibly upsetting. It's even more startling to realize that one out of every six boys and one out of every four girls will experience some form of sexual abuse before the age of 18.
(Child Sexual Abuse Fact Sheet)

Parents, please don't miss this very clear reminder: You absolutely MUST carefully select the people with whom your children spend their time. Protect your precious children from the creeps out there who look just like someone's grampa or as harmless as you and me while they're destroying human spirits every single day.

A Lesson from My Man ROGER

A Lesson from My Man ROGER

What do you do when you're looking for your A game and Plan A is not working? That's easy...You just go to Plan B... but then it fails.
Hello, Plan C... and then - well, there's always Plan D... but ... uh-oh.
"I was just trying to figure out how to play a guy
who returns from so far back on a slow court.
Do you try to serve through him?
Which I tried - didn't work."-ROGER FEDERER

WHAT DO YOU DO?
Today at the French Open, Roger played a quarterfinal match against Juan Martin del Potro and he demonstrated exactly what you do:

You keep your head down, you keep giving it all you've got,
and you remember that it's not over until it's over.

The tide could turn - things could start going your way - but you have to stick around long enough for that to happen...
so you better keep fighting until the end.

DISCLAIMER: I'm sure you must know two things about me by now so let's put them out there. 1) I've NEVER played tennis and 2) I'm quite obsessed with Roger Federer. I make no apologies for either of those things, LOL.

By the way, I'm not the tiniest bit interested in debating who's the GOAT because to me, there's just NO contest - so don't even go there. You might prefer one of those other guys (?!@?!) but the point is this:
even if you're not a FED FAN, you can't deny that he is and has been an extraordinary ambassador for our sport!

We all know that tennis is about so much more than just a series of backhands and forehands, with the occasional serve mixed in for good measure. It’s about valuable life lessons and the game of tennis is really just a disguise. It’s kind of like mixing a little sugar with medicine to make it easier for kids to swallow. Players are learning life lessons that are much, much more important than how to hit the perfect cross-court whatever.

 

Tennis is awesome for lots of reasons…but a big one is because it’s one of the only sports that offers the opportunity for players to develop strategy, solve problems, and succeed (or fail) with no assistance from a team, coach, or any other source. Maybe that’s why a high percentage of CEOs and successful executives were tennis players in their youth. Wish we could cite the source for that info but we definitely read it along the way…and never forgot it.

So even though I'll NEVER play tennis, I learned a really important life lesson from my man ROGER today. Of course I already knew it but a reminder never hurts (and watching Roger in all black? ooh la la)! Nobody ever said life was easy - and gosh, nothing worth having ever comes easy - but if you stick around long enough, something good might happen. That's not a bad lesson for the juniors to learn either...Just sayin' THANKS, Roger, and LONG LIVE THE FED!

BTW, have you seen his new commercial for Credit Suisse?
O..M..G.. ROCK STAR!
Mirka is one lucky woman!