THE CULTURE WAR THE USTA CATAPULTS TO. By Javier Palenque

This is article number 298 in year six, and the USTA board still refuses to be held accountable to non-USTA people ( in other words the tennis community) while lying about participation, ball sales, and the state of tennis. Too bad the sponsors do not realize this yet, as they are being fooled as well. Imagine paying to be fooled, this is absurd.

Last week I wrote an article downloaded 1000 times in the first few hours, so I wanted to expand on it by mentioning the cultural war that the USTA is losing. You see, when there is no backbone in mediocre leadership, the board and the organization take the position of doing what is perceived as correct and not doing what is right. Appealing to the cultural war and being perceived as progressive in their little minds is in tune with the times, yet when you look at the board, progressive they are not when the board chooses to celebrate sexual choice, races, or cultural themes in general, well that is giving into the cultural wars, while the board itself is the most retrograde organization in sports history, this makes no sense. A simple look at their finances tells you the real story, they could care less about anything other than the show in September. You see one cannot have two stands on one issue, or convenient stands as the USTA leadership does. The USTA is simply pandering to the cultural themes of the moment and losing its only obligation that they have, which is to grow the game. To me this is unacceptable, when I see only old coaches, no young people playing, empty courts, and foolish sponsors who know nothing of the truth.

With leaders and executives who say what they don't believe, act doing things they do not support, and pretend to care for a sport they do not, you have indeed come to terms with what is a living fraud of leadership. This is why the resignation of the board and the executives makes so much sense. Those people play for themselves with the game, not for the game, and give the best of themselves. Read below and enjoy a little bit of Monday's brilliance, you will find the article relatable and so on the money that even if you dislike my tone, you will come to accept the truth.

Publix is a Florida-based supermarket chain, last night I went to get some dog food for my purebred German Shepard and Schnauzer, and I saw something I never had seen before, a pickleball magazine in the cashier’s aisle. Of course, at first, this seems irrelevant, but the reality is that the magazine is another nail in the coffin of our sport. How does this happen?

Tennis is led by the most incompetent board and executives that have ever existed. Let me explain what I saw last night.

The picture above shows what I saw, a Pickleball magazine next to People magazine, a dog magazine, and a woman’s magazine. This isle of course represents the “culture” of the nation. So, the logical conclusion is, how is it that Pickleball is now “in” the culture and tennis is “out”? with $500M per year to do stuff?

A few days ago, a friend sent me pictures of Lake Nona where the Pickleball courts are full and the tennis courts empty. Yet the USTA, with all the money in the world, is simply watching the destruction of the sport. The board rather than getting rid of the people that got the sport to this level, is, as always, looking the other way, pretending to care, collecting a director's fee, and acting as if they lost their hearing. What a joke!

Tennis magazine has closed, and the one or two other magazines left have changed their names to “racquet sports magazines”, also killing tennis in the process. This you will not believe, the USTA new email banner states “It is more than just Tennis”. Meaning that the $500M per year show has succumbed to the takeover of Pickleball. Remember I have for 6 years been trying to show the light to the board and was rejected each time. I knew this was coming and yet the board still loves the failed status quo. This is called ICU by choice. Who goes to the ICU by choice? no one that is intelligent or I know for sure.

Tennis courts in parks are not used enough, and it is where 70% of tennis playing occurs, these courts are being taken over by pickleball. Why?

• They are not being used.
• They cost resources to maintain.
• Tennis has been made so competitive and expensive that all it has done is scare people away. Thank you, executives.
• The USTA executives can no longer lie about the megafund they get yearly from the US Open, and how they only care about the show for Wall Street types, I demonstrated that long ago, imagine the USTA asking for non-profit status to the government to put a 13-day show for Wall Street. Granted our government is not very smart. I would reject that application in all of four seconds.
• The board is as useless as a phone charger in the middle of the desert. All are happy to claim they help tennis but all are unhappy to be held accountable. These people are so unqualified to do anything of value for the sport, yet they run the sport.

When the leadership of an organization is blind and deaf to dissenting voices, it is effectively committing treason to the sport. Yet the board, chooses a CEO who does not play the game, pays people who destroy the game, and solidifies a culture that has only brought low participation and disengagement and when taken to the task of explaining their failures, they all collectively shy away and hope no one is listening. This is called cowardice of values and moral standing.

This is my friends what I see when I see a Pickleball magazine encroaching on our culture, what do you see that I do not?

Do you even wonder what the USTA executives and board members see? Let me tell you, they do not see anything because, in their little minds, they believe that the US Open is a way to grow the sport when ratings and cable cord-cutting tell the opposite story. This is the level of intelligence it takes to have millions of dollars in funds and never make them grow the game.

This is when you realize that the only solution is to get rid of the bums and allow intelligent and committed people to the mission of growing the game to take over the best game in the world for the benefit of all not a few deaf, blind, and intelligence deprived Ol' boys.

Of course, this will never happen, the expense accounts these people use are at the expense of the game, the free trips to the Grand Slams and NY yearly and they feel entitled to the funds for some unknown reason. Pathetic is a kind word to describe this level of bankruptcy of morals and ethics. I hope that by now you know what welfare in a suit looks like, if you want to see it in person, check who is at the president's box at the next US Open in a few weeks and think they have staff to look after the box (all female by the way), this is simply called retrograde and sad no wonder the sport is going nowhere, its brain dead at the top.

I say NO to ineptitude and YES to growing the game.

I can be reached at [email protected]

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