Hey, this is Shaun with the award-winning GoTennis! Podcast, powered by Signature Tennis.
Check us out at LetsGoTennis.com, and we invite you to learn more about the award
in this special episode where we talk to the USTA Georgia Executive Director and learn
more about the Marc Kaplan Media Excellence Award that the GoTennis! Podcast won for 2025.
Have a listen and let us know what you think.
So, I don't have to ask our first typical question, Darren, because we know who you are
and why we care.
Yeah, right.
Because we've talked previously.
But in this case, kind of a special edition podcast episode where we want to talk about
the award that we want, not to mention, that we want an award, but in the Georgia world,
there is USTA plan, there's USTA Georgia, and then outside of that, we don't care.
So there's Georgia and Atlanta.
So Darren, you are the Executive Director of USTA Georgia, which means you had some hand
in the fact that the GoTennis! Podcast got an award this year, 2025.
We won the Marc Kaplan Award.
I want to talk about who was Marc Kaplan.
Actually, I want to learn about who was Marc Kaplan, and then potentially why we won this
award, but I want to start with the awards in general.
Can you tell us about the USTA Georgia awards from this past year?
Sure.
Well, thanks for being here, guys, and congrats on.
I had to take my glasses off.
It's legitimate.
You are on this piece of paper.
It's a way to go.
But no, USTA Georgia, at the State Organization, we have annual awards every year.
They tend to vary between 25 and 28 a lot, various categories, you know, junior term of the year,
captain awards, JTT, high school, in your case, the media excellence.
We actually have a couple of awards that we announced.
Later, we'll be announcing, and a few weeks, our major awards, the Ruth Reiner Lay Award
for Lifetime Achievement, which is the highest on our organization, the Stowe's upon anyone.
So that will be coming out shortly.
And then unfortunately, when John Callan passed, one of the many ways we've tried to honor
him is with the John Callan Excellence and Leadership Award, which goes to a community staff
leader around the state.
So those are still coming.
But these awards, we have a volunteer awards committee led by Shannon Roe, who is the chair,
not only of our awards committee, but she's actually now the chair of USTA Southern Awards
Committee, so she's busy.
We have a group of volunteers across the state that take a look at all the nominations that
are done and select the winners in each category.
And obviously, whoever nominated you felt, wrote it up very nicely.
I'm sure completely truthful.
And you were selected in the Marc Kaplan, media excellence award category.
So congratulations on that recognition.
Thank you.
Yeah, we like following up with the awards.
We usually do more of talking about other people winning an award than we get to talk about
ourselves winning the award.
And like I said, this is going to kind of be a special episode.
It won't be that long.
Just want to focus on this.
But from an award standpoint, how does that selection happen?
Meaning, this also is what's the word?
It grows into USTA Southern, meaning we have a chance to potentially win a larger award.
You would have had it.
Unfortunately, they've already announced it.
And you aren't at this Southern winner.
I apologize that I had nothing to do with that, of course.
But no, there are some of our awards are what we call advancing awards, which means they
go advanced to Southern.
And then Southern Committee looks at those and decides basically they're pulling from
the nine state winners if every state offers that category.
Some of the states, you know, sometimes they don't offer a certain category.
We actually don't offer every single category that Southern has as well.
That's just a state decision.
So yeah, there are certain awards, including this one you advanced to Southern.
There are some that aren't that just stay within the state, but still great, great accomplishment
for you all.
I'm not sure who won the media.
Oh, excellent.
So word for Southern.
I probably should know that I'll just hop in my head.
But certainly, I'm sure you were considered.
But, you know, let's not minimize the importance of winning at the state level.
That's what really matters.
Exactly.
That's what we're talking about.
And Bobby and I, so I do have a question for Bobby, which is unscripted a bit here.
We certainly didn't get into this for awards.
I'm not sure why we got into this.
Why did we start this podcast in the first place?
I don't know.
We just talked around.
So we should do a podcast.
We know each other forever.
We have these conversations about how we're going to save the world.
And let's try to save at least tennis.
Our goal is to make it cool again, make tennis cool again.
So that's that was the big motivation behind this.
It was and it was kind of interesting.
It didn't really start out journalistic in any way.
And just the fact that it was media was itself.
But in this case, it was kind of interesting to see that we won an award because it isn't
anything we expected.
And this isn't the humble brag.
You know, this isn't us saying we're humbled and honored by winning.
It really isn't anything on our radar, as you can tell by our audio quality.
We're not really working too hard to try to win any quality gold words either.
But Darren, tell us about Mark Kaplan because most of these awards have names based on somebody
they're honored.
Sometimes yes.
And this is one of them.
Marc Kaplan was a longtime director of communications at USTA Southern.
Unfortunately, he passed before I got here to Georgia.
I had yet to hear anybody speak negatively about Marc Kaplan.
I mean, if you talk to the folks that are in the communications world, people like Ron
Choffee at Southern, those types, Doug Walker, who's won this award a few times, one of the
great writers in our state and the Rome area.
They remember Marc very fondly for his passion of trying to promote the message of tennis
and all sorts of different forms.
Obviously, when he was probably on staff at Southern, there really wasn't anything like
a podcast.
There might not have been a lot of YouTube or internet, so it was more of a written promotion
in marketing.
But that's who our awards named after and as well as Southern, just because it makes sense,
he worked for Southern as a way to honor him.
A lot of some of the awards are named after folks that we've honored.
Some of them have naming rights.
We have naming rights for some of our awards.
People like to name certain awards for various reasons.
Sometimes to honor a family member, honor someone in an organization.
We have some sponsor awards like First Horizon.
Thank you, it's a big sponsor of our sponsors.
A big signature tennis court, you know Mike for tennis directors.
A lot of the awards are named, but this one, this was one of them that is very intentionally
named to honor Mark and his name will never come off this award.
It will always be in his honor.
And it's also, do you have to be dead to be named or can we have the Bobby Schindler award
like before?
You know, I'm looking at our awards.
There are a few names that you guys know that I hope or that I know are still alive.
Randy Stevens, Jerry Baskin, are two of them.
Al Parker, there's another one.
I mean, Al Parker, I mean, clearly makes sense.
You should be our junior player of the year, right?
He's a junior, he's a junior in history of our sports.
So that was an easy one.
So, you don't have to be.
There are a few living names on this list.
Hopefully, it'll be around for quite some time.
But unfortunately, there are a few that are in memory as well.
This would be one.
There we go.
We got hope, Bobby.
Well, Mike's on it.
So Mike doesn't want to be.
He's still above ground.
So that's a good thing.
You would bring him back.
Yeah.
I'm going to have to show him why I haven't been nominated.
I just gave him more business.
So Mike, we're going to have to talk.
Yeah.
There's signature courts affiliate of the year.
You got to love that.
Well, you guys can fit into a few categories.
But obviously, media excellence is the right one.
I mean, you know, things have evolved over the years.
And I applaud you for doing this.
This is keeping the good word of the sport.
And I think you created a decent following.
I know I watch your stuff.
Critiquit, of course.
No, I'm just kidding.
You guys do a great job.
So, obviously, somebody noticed that nominated.
The committee felt you were worthy.
And hence why we're talking today.
So congrats.
Love it.
Well, whoever it was, we say thank you.
Because it's one of those things that we might never
know who actually nominated us.
Because I will admit, we didn't self-nominate.
I will also say we're not above self-nominating.
In this case, it wasn't.
First thing I thought of was because I have a--
look at these.
I'm like, oh, you actually didn't self-nominate.
Way to go.
I don't know how to self-nominate.
So I wouldn't--
we know it's not Bobby self-nominating, right?
But like we said, we weren't in it for that.
And we definitely don't feel like we're worried about quality
in the award.
So thankfully, in this case, hopefully it's content.
And that's what we're going for.
It's great content.
Having great conversations.
Moving tennis forward, making it cool again, as Bobby says.
But also, even all the other records for us,
there's a lot we're trying to do.
Trying to talk to as many people as we can.
We've expanded outside.
We started as the Atlanta tennis podcast.
It's funny, Bobby, that was less than a year ago
that we were still saying Atlanta tennis podcast.
And now we've explained it out.
So maybe next year, Southerns in play, Bobby, we'll go for it.
Well, we've been very fortunate to get
some great guests and trying to continue to raise the bar on that.
But it helps to have a good conversation with good folks.
So everybody who's been a guest, thank you for being a part of this
and getting us to where we're doing this and having a good time doing it.
And do it without our guests.
Like the Atlanta tennis podcast, that's ATP, right?
Did you create that?
We do that.
Yeah, we do.
We weren't sure if that was helping or hurting
in the grand scheme of things, but the trademark on that.
But that's what we're thinking.
That's as far as we're taking it.
Exactly.
We weren't picking that fight.
All right, Darren, I appreciate your time.
Thank you so much.
We just wanted to say thank you to you specifically
and then talk about the awards itself and share
with everyone without saying we think we're great.
But in this case, it's we are humbled and honored.
We will say it.
So we're going to see you.
We give out all of our awards at our Community Tennis
Development Workshop in early February.
I assume we're going to see.
And hopefully both of you there.
In this case, at least one of us will be there.
If I can't talk Bobby to show it up, I'm sure my wife and I
will be there.
Well, there you have it.
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