When they presented me with the 1990 National “Coach of the Year” for NAIA Tennis, I tried to give it to Coach Fred Kniffen of the University of Texas at Tyler.

Fred had a firm rule in 1990 that no one rode in the van without their seat belts on. No exceptions.

En route from Tyler to Kansas City, one of the two team vans ran off a 35-foot embankment.

All belted, there was one minor injury.

I know I gave one player above a thousand career points or more. It had a strange origin. I taught badminton in PE classes. Soon, thinking myself a pretty good player, I encountered one Anand Jaggi, Professor of Economics. Anand was ranked 13th in the world of badminton. And was his “State Champion” in his native India.

Rarely did I get a point. He won the singles, doubles and mixed doubles state badminton championships, held annually at Duke University. And I soon noticed an “uncanny” ability he had. He never played the shuttle-cock when it would land out of bounds. It was “dropped” or let alone.

While my badminton ego suffered, I took this logic to my tennis team. We need to “learn the court”, or like Dr. Jaggi, not hit out of bounds points. We adopted this policy:

1) In practice, if you have any doubt let it go and lets see if you are right

 

2) In a match, with any doubt, go ahead and play it

Soon I could see our players use better and better judgement. We would occasionally let one drop in, but our percentage grew drastically.

The player that benefited most from this was Chai Navawongse, a Thai left-hander who came in on “everything”. Chai had played doubles with Pandorn Schriciphan, so he came in “with game”. Soon, however, I noticed he was playing anything close. There may be 10-20 points a match he played that would have been out. Some, way out.

I explained the “Jaggi” or “learn the court” theory. A bright youngster, and fine player, you could see the light click in his head. Before long he was close to Jaggi in judgement, rarely playing an out ball, simply pointing “out” with the left hand.

In the mid-eighties I began writing a coaching manual. Maybe I’ll add the next twenty years experience to that in a “tennis coaching book” later. If I do, one person will be responsible.   Coach Jim Leighton of Wake Forest University.

North Carolina had, for years, featured the East-West High School All-Star Games. The state added more sports, then girl’s all-stars, and the games progressed. My team had just won a trip to the NAIA Nationals. Hell, we finished fifteenth in the nation.   The first tennis clinic being held in Greensboro was an afterthought.   Coach Norfolk was going to the Basketball Game and I figured I’d pile in with him.   My running buddy, Jack Hussey, was at the clinic, as always, and we were off.   We were all over Guilford County, and Greensboro as well.   Norfolk was in the bed when I sneaked in the shared motel room, very late.   The tennis clinic was the next morning.   I knew Norfolk was awake because he smoked 11 “Viceroys” before taking a morning leak.

I drug my ass out of bed just in time to make the 9:00 clinic at Latham Park in Greensboro.   There were four coaches there including me.    Coach Leighton rolled up with racquets & balls.   He wore traditional white and it matched his hair. He looked just like “Colonel Sanders”.   After pleasantries and introductions he began speaking in a new language.   Two puzzled coaches left in ten minutes.   The other at noon.

Coach Leighton was a master teacher, and my first introduction to someone that knowledgeable about the game.   I was fascinated.   One of his players, Paul Caldwell, was with him.    When the other guy left, leaving only me, I was embarrassed, both by how much Leighton knew, and my own misjudgment about my greatness.   I offered to abandon the afternoon session.   I was delighted, and impressed, as Coach responded, “Tom, we’ve agreed to stay until 4:00. I can tell you are interested in learning.   As long as you’ll stay, we’ll stay.”

Our college offered two hundred dollars per year for “professional growth” at convention trips.   I never again spent mine on anything but my new mentor, Coach Jim Leighton  . He would try to refuse my money, but I’d have paid triple.   I was in his home, at his club, at his varsity practices, watching tapes on everything from his current players to sequential pictures of Ellsworth Vines. He had just completed “Inside Tennis: Techniques of Winning.”   This book, much of the information by Leighton himself, also included contributions by Dennis Van Der Meer, Welby Van Horn, Chet and Bill Murphy, Wayne Sabin, Pauline Betz Addie and others.   I loved Leighton and the book.   I had so many questions.  I’d book time in his Buena Vista Road home in Winston-Salem.   We’d talk about the book, and with explanations by Coach Leighton, I felt like Moses on the Mount.

The USTA held our annual Teacher’s Convention just prior to the US Open in Flushing Meadow.   One year Jim and I made almost every session.   Every coach seemed to want to use his session to further his tennis standing.   At one session Leighton’s bullshit detector kicked in.   A coach was trying to sell a lame idea as the end of all tennis instruction; Leighton politely questioned the man’s premise.   The clinician sloughed off this old white-haired guy’s puzzlement. Again coach queried, “I want to make sure I’m understanding what you’re saying.”   An abrupt, “Am I not speaking plainly enough?” was his answer.   Selling the same lame premise, the clinician was startled when Leighton rose and stated, “Sir, you are addressing the tennis teachers of America and beyond.   Never have I heard such a crock of baloney.”   He turned to me and said “Get up Tom, we’re getting out here!”   I followed beside him.

One day at the New York host hotel he asked, “Do you want to hear someone who knows tennis?”   My immediate response was “Sure!”   Coach said,“Meet me in the lobby at 6:30 AM for breakfast.”   I joined Coach and Chet Murphy in a downtown café.   Chet and Bill Murphy were Californians who knew the biomechanics of tennis.   I’d heard Chet Murphy as a clinician.   He seemed nervous, my having heard so much about him, but once the first technical question was asked, he was off and running.   This morning Leighton did something I’d never seen him do.   He deferred to Murphy, asking questions the way I’d asked of him.   And while there was great mutual respect, I’ve got to say Murphy was impressive.   I was all ears  . This was a time when all kinds of research was being done in tennis. I was pleased with the next question asked by Coach Leighton, “Chet, how do you feel about what we’ve done?”   (Meaning the old time proponents of “classic” tennis instruction.)   Chet thought a moment and said, “We should have let them hit more western grip forehands. Other than that everything was right.”

Coach Leighton was buried the day the “Jimmy Powell Tennis Center” was dedicated at Elon in 1988.   It was in Wait Chapel on the campus that had named their stadium after this fine man, coach and friend.   People say you don’t have to play to be a coach.   Or that you don’t have to have much other than good players (“You can’t make chicken salad, ‘till you get the chicken.”)   My feeling is I became a much better coach after meeting my mentor.   I know it made me money. I taught everyone in Wilson and the surrounding area for years.   I took Leighton’s advice and sought out private sessions with Dennis Van Der Meer and Welby Van Horn.   They couldn’t have been nicer to me.

There are three main “parts” you have to coach: Physical, Mental and Emotional. The emotional part is the toughest to deal with. However, there are really only two villainous emotions; fear and anger. And they are both self-directed.

Macky Carden, our Elon football coach, told me, “When they get that old sinking feeling, you’ve got to change their minds.”

That “old sinking feeling” exists in a lot of places, one is on the tennis court. “Frozen elbows” cause practice to be worthless. Few people can play when angry at themselves. Maybe McEnroe was “actually nervous” when he created those incidences. Angry, maybe, was better than scared for Mac. Only he knows.

One freshman player’s father accompanied him to my office upon reporting to Elon. He brought a bag that contained thirteen broken racquets. The father wanted to know if I would appeal to Wilson Sporting Goods to replace the “faulty” $100.00 racquets.

The fault wasn’t the racquet, it was the anger with which they were being thrown or banged. I attempted to fix the real flaw, the self-directed anger that ruled the boy’s game.

No one would practice harder. But to no avail. Within moments this young man would go into a tantrum, chastising himself in a hopelessly damaging tirade. He didn’t get angry much with others. It was self-directed and a killer. It took a long time to change this attitude, but without changing, I wouldn’t allow him to represent us. It took a lot of patience for him to learn to quit “beating yourself up.”

Here are several comments about the emotional part of coaching:

1. Some players don’t have the “nervous system” of a tennis player. Sorry.
2. The only ones that do you any good as a team player are those who can handle pressure. It’s in college tennis. Either you can handle it or lose. You can learn to deal with it.
3. Blood flow, more specifically “venous return,” causes “butterflies.” Proper warm up can help get rid of the “jitters”. For many they go away once you exercise.
4. There is a psychological “proper level of arousal” for athletes. Not too “torqued-up” but you do need your game face. Different strokes for different folks.
5. Psychologically tough people make the best college tennis players.
6. What pressure does to the “one piston” player is amazing. I saw a lot of #1 seeds lose in the National tournament due to early round “nerves”.
7. If you “hang in there” it is truly amazing what can happen. Some call it “momentum” but “pressure” is a more influencing variable. Tennis is truly unique in that “one point can turn the match around.” This is a “core” belief.

Perhaps one of my premier coaching attempts centered around pressure and playing “ahead”. You are either Tied, Ahead or Behind. Behind and tied are motivators enough. Playing while ahead is a critical emotional moment.

I don’t know how many matches I saw unfold like this:

Player A is ahead 5-3 in the third set. His opponent is serving. In the back of Player A’s head drifts this dangerous thought: “Even if I lose this game, I can serve out the match.”

All this results in a lackluster effort at another, and match winning, service break. The opponent breaks for 5-5 and the “momentum” has reversed itself. Now the pressure, and it’s power, has shifted dramatically.

Teaching “killer instinct” is key. Ahead a service break? Get a second.

I think that the most vulnerable points are “ahead points”, 40-15 and 30-0. These are the ones that twenty year olds lose concentration on, thus allowing that “old sinking feeling” to re-enter.

When ahead, keep the pressure off yourself by staying ahead.

Borg taught a magnificent lesson one day on TV. Having just beaten McEnroe in “the greatest match ever,” I watched commentator Bud Collins interview the Wimbledon Champ.

Collins asked Borg, “How did you do it?”

Borg, stoic as ever, said simply, “Legs.” Nothing more.

Collins had several minutes on his hands and rambled on in a commentary I don’t remember.

Then, Borg, having thought some, took the mic from Bud. His comments were:

1. I was very nervous inside…
2. I thought, surely I will lose…
3. I told myself, I must put these thoughts out of my mind.
4. I will not quit under any circumstances!

End of clinic. Pretty good advice for a lot of areas.

Young coaches-Reread ten times.

If my knowledge about coaching college tennis were judged on what two topics I was most often asked to speak on, it would be (1) How to get on a college team and (2) Doubles.

The United States Tennis Association produces a document for prospective student atheletes. I’d like to emphasize a few points:

1) If you really want to play, go where you can play.

2) Its been said that many athletes gravitate to one level beyond their ability. There’s never been a “happy substitute.”

3) In college tennis if you don’t get to play your first year, you probably won’t get to play. This is not always true but do you want to gamble?

4) When tryouts were allowed, I’d have my #4 player play a set with the prospect. If the prospect played closely with #4, he had a chance at our school. It was amazing to me how many times a prospect, having just lost 6-1, would tell a parent, “I’m better than that guy.”

5) Transferring, if you make a mistake, is not always easy to do.

6) The single most important issue in college tennis is the international issue.

I would like to state firmly that I believe tennis players who want to play college tennis should play high school tennis. Many talented players (and their parents) think this is a waste of time. I disagree. “Prima Donnas” sometimes haven’t learned the team concept, and don’t function well in college tennis. College tennis requires personal sacrifice. You can learn a lot about that on even a limited high school team. Plus you are playing for your school.

Having coached fifty plus international tennis players, I have this strong comparison to make with American junior tennis: the American player can fire the American teaching pro! If the pro makes the player work too hard the junior will tell the parent, “I don’t like him/her.” New Pro! Internationals beat these kids like a “borrowed mule.”

Nowhere is this more evident than in junior girls. The pro hits easy balls left to right and collects the check from a happy client. That girl, confronted with an awkward mis-hit or a good drop shot has no clue. Most act if some tennis etiquette has been broached. The girl’s national 14’s was held in neighboring Greensboro, NC for several years. I can tell you that the winner almost always: (1) had the best drop shot and (2) had done a lot of work defending against the drop shot.

A strong piece of advice I have for freshmen, once they have selected a school, is to be match ready on day one of September. Many players take the summer after graduation off, having fought the junior tennis and high school wars for years. They assume they’ll go to college, get in shape again, and work their way in the lineup. Wrong.

College tennis today is essentially year round — it often features individual tournaments in the fall, team matches in the spring, and personal competition in the summer. Some schools play in tournaments as early as the second week of September. Very often challenge matches for positions on the team happen almost immediately upon arrival.

Challenge matches are perhaps the most important college matches you will play. Early fall and cold February matches can determine your college career. Challenge match policies are also extremely important. My essential guidelines were:
1) Challenge matches earn you a spot in the lineup, match play preserves the spot. These are perhaps the most grim matches in college tennis.

2) The two most important challenge matches were between: #6 and #7, as this determines if a player starts; and #8 and #9, as this determines if a player travels with the team. The coach should always witness these matches.

I always felt eight players was the ideal number for a team. This does vary. Two seasons in my 35 year career, I played the same lineup every match with no subs on the team. One of these years we were undefeated — pure luck. Girls teams need more players. But too many gets “testy.” I never cut any team I had until NCAA rules on squad size and gender equality forced me too. Many kids will come out just to hit with a good player. Those kids don’t get much help with a win-oriented coach who’s working with the top kids. Regardless, many subs go on to teach tennis. They love the game. I tried to keep them around, for the games sake.