This spring I completed the second season of coaching a
boy’s junior varsity team for a local Catholic high school. Although I haven’t
coached a high school sport before I have coached town and club soccer teams
from Under 12 up to U18 teams. However, as you can imagine none of the drills
and exercises I used for coaching soccer helped with coaching tennis. The only
commonalities shared by both centers on my general preference for coaching. This
includes finding ways to set up practices so that the players aren’t standing
around in lines waiting for their turn, keeping instructions short and to the
point rather than long lectures, and not having the players run laps. (No
lines, lectures or laps.) Fortunately for me, the varsity coach (who started at
the same time as me) has coached high school tennis for 15 years and designed
most practices for both varsity and JV.
In any case, I’m glad to say that the JV record for the two
seasons I’ve coached was 6 wins and 6 losses in 2017 and 7 wins and 4 losses in
2018. For what it’s worth here are some conclusions and lessons I learned from
these two seasons.
1.
Relative
coaching pressures between varsity and JV. While varsity plays to have a
good enough record to qualify for the end of season state tournament, JV
doesn’t have the same tournament. (At least that’s true here in Massachusetts.
I don’t know if this is true in other states.) That doesn’t mean I don’t care
about the win-loss record. I know the boys (and their parents) do keep track of
how they’re doing. This gave me the freedom to experiment with different
lineups without being unduly concerned about the results.
2.
Statistics.
I use a spreadsheet to track the win-loss match record of each player as well
as the number of sets won or lost and total number of games won or lost. I also
tracked how many times each boy played an exhibition match. (Exhibition matches
are those that we play after the initial three singles and two doubles matches
that determine which school won that day. With 11 players on my roster and 7
playing official matches I had 4 extra players who would play exhibition
matches with the extra players of the other team.) I also tracked the win-loss
record of the different doubles teams so that I knew which teams were stronger.
3.
Coaching
technique. You’d think the fact that we worked with the boys five days a
week for ten weeks that the varsity coach and I could work on their technique.
However, we usually had 2 or 3 matches a week, leaving only 2 or 3 days a week
for practices. Plus it was difficult spending too much time with any one player
when you have 11 or 12 at the practice. So the best we could do is make some
suggestions. (I liken it to the difference in what you can learn in taking a
tennis clinic versus a private lesson.) We had a couple players who asked for
specific help on a specific stroke like their backhand or serve. For them we’d
have the player stay after practice so we could work with them. The bottom
line: we spent more time working on singles and doubles tactics.
4.
Chalk
talk sessions. We started try-outs and practices in the third week of
March. However, New England weather often forced us to cancel practice or run
them in a basketball gym, which limits the amount of tennis-like activities you
can run. When forced indoors the varsity coach and I would use foam balls or low-pressure
balls to work on technique. Sometimes I would have JV meet in a conference room
where I could go over some of the info I shared with them in emails and to
explain handouts showing positioning in singles and doubles.
5.
Designing
practices. I mentioned above that I was lucky to have an experienced
varsity coach (who also instructs at a local tennis club) who designed the
practices. Still, there were times when I was on my own because varsity had a
match while JV didn’t. I was frustrated when looking for ideas on designing
practices in the various books I have as well as coaching web sites. Most of
the drills and games offered in these sources involve only 1 to 4 players. I
wanted to create practices that involved everyone, if possible. One of my
solutions was to use a game-based approach in which the boys played singles or
doubles games but with conditions I imposed to get the boys to play in a certain
way. For example, I set a condition where all of the players had to be inside
the lines of the court after the serve. This encouraged them to play a bit more
aggressively instead of retreating behind the baseline and playing defensively
all of the time.
6.
Pre-match
talks. While I tracked individual win-loss record in addition to the team’s
win-loss record I never talked about winning or losing during the pre-match
team talk. Why? Because I know that the players can’t control whether they win
or lose. They can only control how the thought and effort they put into their
play. I came up with a mantra that I repeated before each match: Give 100%
effort (or take no points off), act strong and poised regardless of the score,
enjoy the competition (because it shows where you can improve and what you do
well), and learn from every mistake and every match.
7.
Between
the points ritual. I told the boys that they spend more time getting ready
to play the next point than they do actually playing the point. To help the
boys focus between points I recommended a three-step process: Review, Rehearse,
Relax. When the point ended I recommend that the player review what happened,
especially if it was an error. Then rehearse what you wanted to happen by
taking a couple shadow swings while visualizing the shot they wanted to make.
Relax by taking a couple deep breaths while looking at their string dampener.
8.
Importance
of team captain. The team elected the same team captain in both seasons. He
turned out to be a great asset. I had him introduce the players to the opposing
teams but also had him organize getting parents to volunteer providing drinks
and snacks for our home matches. He also ran the warm ups before practices and
matches. He also told me if he knew certain guys would not be able to attend a
practice or match due to illness, school commitments, etc.
9.
Team
emails. In addition to using the school email system to inform the boys of
the upcoming practice and match schedule I’d also use the email to share
important information on technique and tactics from a variety of sources such
as web sites or email newsletters from a variety of online coaches. I’d also
print out key diagrams as handouts.
10.
Parent
emails. From talking with the parents who would come to watch their son
play at home matches I learned that the amount of information the boys shared
with their parents varied wildly. Some parents had no idea how the team was
doing or what we worked on during practices. While I know I don’t need to cater
to the parents I also know they’re more likely to complain to the Athletic
Director if they don’t know what is going on with the team (in general terms).
I’m not talking about giving parents a blow-by-blow accounting of everything we
do. But I figure it helps to explain my coaching philosophy and provide some
key information on tactics and techniques to make them feel a bit more
comfortable. It appears I struck the right balance because all of the input
received from the parents has been positive.
11. Cheat sheet. I’m not sure why I saved
this for the final point but I distilled key points for singles, doubles and
general tips into one double-sided sheet. We covered this sheet during our
chalk talk sessions and referred to it sometimes during the pre-match talks. It
was an interesting process whittling the tons of info I have into what I think
are the most important.
That’s it!
