The change from recreational Tennis coaching to performance Tennis coaching 2009
I hope you are all keeping well in these strange times. Our thoughts are of course still with everybody who continues to be affected by Coronavirus.
So, leading on from my previous blog where I talked a little about my experiences with County Cup I thought I would talk a bit about the decision I made in 2002 to change direction from large participation group coaching to focus on developing performance players in North Wales.
I mentioned towards the end of the last blog that Captaining a team at County Cup is a good introduction to how working with Performance players works and it was true for me. Over the years at these events I had made connections with coaches from all over the country and from talking to them and from the experience I had gained I made the decision that I wanted to work with the best!
From that decision came the beginnings of the idea that would become First Advantage Tennis Academy. I wasn’t naïve – I knew it would be hard work and that there would be many obstacles in my way.
I don’t mean to make a blanket statement but in my experience I think it’s true of 99% of young coaches that they also want to work with the best and have aspirations of producing the next Pete Sampras or Maria Sharipova (showing my age with those examples!) so pretty much all of the other coaches in North Wales had the same idea! Not that competition is a bad thing – I’ve always thought that if you’re confident that you’re providing the best service you should have nothing to worry about if another coach shows up but I knew that it meant I would have to be the best to attract the best.
Cost and commitment could also possibly be a boundary to some players in an area that had historically been more used to a relatively cheap pay and play session once a week! I had worked out a programme based on the elite player attending 5 sessions a week and paying £45 a week – add that to the cost of equipment and travel and I knew I had made it hard for myself!
All of that considered I was still determined to make a success of the programme and knew that I had the ability and experience to make it happen. Being 21 years old probably helped with the confidence too! So, I rolled up my sleeves and got to it – a long period of Open Days and local promotions started at the same time as running my established group and club coaching programme. I pulled some of the more talented and committed players from the group sessions to start off the First Advantage sessions and added to the numbers with the players I had found from the open days and school visits. After about a year I had a pretty decent performance programme going with a core group of players who were committed to improving their game and a route into those sessions from the group and club coaching programme. Some of the players I remember from those early First Advantage sessions were Danny Hawker, Steve Billington, Kirsty Jones-Williams, Elin Anderson and Rhydian Morgan. This core group started to make an impact and were known in the area as the ones to beat! They also made up a good proportion of the County Cup teams representing North Wales which I was still captaining so some nice symmetry there from the inspiration of the programme to returning a year or so later with my own players representing the county!
That’s not to gloss over how hard it was to get there. At this point it was only me coaching every session – First Advantage and the other groups – so I was working ALL the time! 7 days a week sometimes from 9am to 9pm! Then there was the time away from home with County Cup and attending other competitions with my players. Looking back it’s difficult to know how I did it – I suppose being 21 also helped with this!! That and my determination to make the programme a success and make a name for myself, it was always in the back of my head that if I wanted to be the best and attract the best then hard work was the way to do it – I could rest when I was 40 (spoiler alert – I don’t!).
This was also my first experience of dealing with – how shall I put it nicely? – ‘enthusiastic’ parents! Until this point most parents I had dealt with had been happy to drop their kids off for an hour while they did the shopping and as long as they were in one piece when they picked them up they’d come back next week! £45 a week and obviously talented players with the potential to be great meant that they wanted a little more than that! It meant phone calls at 10pm and long (LONG!) meetings on a Sunday to discuss their kids’ progress and how they thought that maybe if I had spent a little more time working on their backhand they definitely wouldn’t have lost that one match 4 months ago! As far as they were concerned they owned me! To be fair to them as I’m now older myself and have my own children – if I was paying £45 a week and travelling all over the country every weekend I’d probably be the same but at the time it was not my favourite part of the job!
Looking back, I’m very proud of what the players achieved through their determination and commitment and what I achieved from all the hard work I put in. The First Advantage Tennis Academy programme carried on growing and became well known and respected.
That time is a very positive memory which I remember fondly. It was also a time when things were much simpler – I only had myself to answer to and was in full control of my own programme. I could work in the way I knew would produce results and maintain my high standards of professionalism and my strong work ethic.
And then I went to work for someone else …..