Fiend at Court Unplugged
Heading into New Year’s Eve last year, I shared 12 “Gifts” that people can give themselves to jumpstart their tennis life. Each item on that list is essentially a tennis related life hack shamelessly adapted from a cybersecurity career development webinar that I once delivered. In 2022, I am taking an in depth look at each one of those items on first Friday of each month. The “Gift” for March is relationships in tennis.
Tennis builds communities. When I resumed playing as an adult, I was astonished at how rapidly contact information is exchanged. After I attended my first drop-in drill, I received an immediate invitation to join a USTA League team. While my experience was enhanced by the fact that my junior background made me “turn-key” ready for competitive play, I have observed the same thing happen to the Trophy Husband. He didn’t even play his first sanctioned tennis match until 2015.
I used to believe that the Trophy Husband started playing tennis when our youngest got her drivers license. Sometimes he claims his interest in playing tennis was sparked by a desire to hang out with me at tennis tournaments. Both stories correlate with the basic timeline, but correlation isn’t causation.
Recently I have come to realize that the most significant contributing factor to the Trophy Husband’s competitive tennis fanaticism is the fact that he was invited to join a USTA 3.0 league team. What makes that story more fantastic is that league play at that level had stopped happening in Fort Worth. The teams that formed that year were captained by players at higher NTRP levels who were ineligible to even play.
Captaining a team is a labor of love. Captaining a team exclusively for other people is next level. Those heroes didn’t just captain teams; They had to go out and find enough guys to fill out the rosters. One of the those players recruited was the Trophy Husband.
It takes special people to recognize that without leagues at lower tiers, the pipeline of players rising through the NTRP levels would run dry. They recognized the problem and long term impacts on the tennis ecosystem. The hope was that if they could get a league kickstarted that some of the players would catch fire and keep it going.
They hit a home run with the Trophy Husband. He has captained an insane number of teams since that initial invitation to play.
I am going to be contemplating relationships in tennis all weekend. It is easier for people who live in vibrant tennis communities to build and sustain those relationships. For players (or prospective players) in tennis wastelands, it is a lot harder. I appreciate the challenge, but the charge is still the same.
The “Gift” we are considering for March is relationships in tennis. The challenge for this month is to find a way to expand your tennis circle. One way to do that is to introduce the sport you love to a non-tennis playing friend.
