Coaching High School Tennis Year 1

This week my inaugural season of coaching high school girls' tennis ended. It started with a good group of 8 returning players and 3 girls who had never played tennis competitively at all. We came in second in our league and had all 7 of our varsity players receiving league honors (including a doubles team that were part of that group of 3 beginners). If you would have offered me that result when I started this journey, I would have happily taken it and viewed it as a resounding success.

But that really undersells the way I feel about coaching these girls. This season taught me that many of the coaching clichés I’ve heard over the years are, in fact, true. I actually enjoyed the process more than I enjoyed the wins. I altered softball players swings and taught them doubles strategy. I used a girl's experience as a volleyball player to make her a FORCE at the net. I identified that a couple of girls just needed to upgrade their equipment, and their games were instantly transformed. And these girls constantly paid me back for coaching by using my tactics in their matches. This rewarded me in a way I just didn't see coming. I welled up with pride every time I saw one of my players successfully implement something I taught them in practice to win in a match.

I also learned a component of coaching that I didn't anticipate. I have coached many youth teams in multiple sports, but they always involved my own kids and their friends. Those kids all knew me. This team did not know me at all. I realized pretty quickly that I had to prove myself to them before they would "trust" me. I had to show them that I knew tennis and I could help them develop their game. Maybe that is intuitive to other coaches, but it wasn't to me. Once I gained their trust that way, I got to see another side of coaching... the emotional support side. When a match would start going bad (tennis matches tend to ebb and flow), my players would call me over to ask for my input. I learned early that they didn't need to hear strategy like "serve to her backhand, it is her weaker side". They just need to hear "you are ok", or "you lost focus a bit, let's get this next game", or my personal favorite... "you are the better player, you are going to win". Because tennis is as much mental as it is physical, they just needed some positive talk to erase their self-doubt and get back on track.

The bottom line is, I had a blast coaching high school tennis and I found it rewarding far beyond my expectations. 6 of these girls will graduate this year, so next year will bring a new set of challenges (including recruiting new players, we are a small school). 1 year from now I hope to share a new story filled with personal and professional victories. Stay tuned.