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Hey, this is Shaun with the award-winning GoTennis! Podcast, powered by Signature Tennis.

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Check us out at LetsGoTennis.com, and we invite you to learn more about the award

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in this special episode where we talk to the USTA Georgia Executive Director and learn

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more about the Marc Kaplan Media Excellence Award that the GoTennis! Podcast won for 2025.

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Have a listen and let us know what you think.

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So, I don't have to ask our first typical question, Darren, because we know who you are

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and why we care.

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Yeah, right.

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Because we've talked previously.

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But in this case, kind of a special edition podcast episode where we want to talk about

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the award that we want, not to mention, that we want an award, but in the Georgia world,

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there is USTA plan, there's USTA Georgia, and then outside of that, we don't care.

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So there's Georgia and Atlanta.

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So Darren, you are the Executive Director of USTA Georgia, which means you had some hand

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in the fact that the GoTennis! Podcast got an award this year, 2025.

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We won the Marc Kaplan Award.

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I want to talk about who was Marc Kaplan.

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Actually, I want to learn about who was Marc Kaplan, and then potentially why we won this

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award, but I want to start with the awards in general.

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Can you tell us about the USTA Georgia awards from this past year?

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Sure.

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Well, thanks for being here, guys, and congrats on.

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I had to take my glasses off.

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It's legitimate.

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You are on this piece of paper.

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It's a way to go.

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But no, USTA Georgia, at the State Organization, we have annual awards every year.

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They tend to vary between 25 and 28 a lot, various categories, you know, junior term of the year,

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captain awards, JTT, high school, in your case, the media excellence.

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We actually have a couple of awards that we announced.

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Later, we'll be announcing, and a few weeks, our major awards, the Ruth Reiner Lay Award

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for Lifetime Achievement, which is the highest on our organization, the Stowe's upon anyone.

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So that will be coming out shortly.

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And then unfortunately, when John Callan passed, one of the many ways we've tried to honor

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him is with the John Callan Excellence and Leadership Award, which goes to a community staff

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leader around the state.

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So those are still coming.

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But these awards, we have a volunteer awards committee led by Shannon Roe, who is the chair,

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not only of our awards committee, but she's actually now the chair of USTA Southern Awards

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Committee, so she's busy.

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We have a group of volunteers across the state that take a look at all the nominations that

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are done and select the winners in each category.

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And obviously, whoever nominated you felt, wrote it up very nicely.

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I'm sure completely truthful.

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And you were selected in the Marc Kaplan, media excellence award category.

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So congratulations on that recognition.

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Thank you.

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Yeah, we like following up with the awards.

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We usually do more of talking about other people winning an award than we get to talk about

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ourselves winning the award.

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And like I said, this is going to kind of be a special episode.

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It won't be that long.

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Just want to focus on this.

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But from an award standpoint, how does that selection happen?

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Meaning, this also is what's the word?

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It grows into USTA Southern, meaning we have a chance to potentially win a larger award.

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You would have had it.

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Unfortunately, they've already announced it.

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And you aren't at this Southern winner.

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I apologize that I had nothing to do with that, of course.

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But no, there are some of our awards are what we call advancing awards, which means they

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go advanced to Southern.

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And then Southern Committee looks at those and decides basically they're pulling from

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the nine state winners if every state offers that category.

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Some of the states, you know, sometimes they don't offer a certain category.

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We actually don't offer every single category that Southern has as well.

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That's just a state decision.

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So yeah, there are certain awards, including this one you advanced to Southern.

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There are some that aren't that just stay within the state, but still great, great accomplishment

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for you all.

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I'm not sure who won the media.

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Oh, excellent.

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So word for Southern.

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I probably should know that I'll just hop in my head.

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But certainly, I'm sure you were considered.

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But, you know, let's not minimize the importance of winning at the state level.

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That's what really matters.

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Exactly.

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That's what we're talking about.

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And Bobby and I, so I do have a question for Bobby, which is unscripted a bit here.

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We certainly didn't get into this for awards.

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I'm not sure why we got into this.

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Why did we start this podcast in the first place?

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I don't know.

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We just talked around.

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So we should do a podcast.

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We know each other forever.

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We have these conversations about how we're going to save the world.

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And let's try to save at least tennis.

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Our goal is to make it cool again, make tennis cool again.

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So that's that was the big motivation behind this.

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It was and it was kind of interesting.

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It didn't really start out journalistic in any way.

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And just the fact that it was media was itself.

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But in this case, it was kind of interesting to see that we won an award because it isn't

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anything we expected.

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And this isn't the humble brag.

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You know, this isn't us saying we're humbled and honored by winning.

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It really isn't anything on our radar, as you can tell by our audio quality.

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We're not really working too hard to try to win any quality gold words either.

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But Darren, tell us about Mark Kaplan because most of these awards have names based on somebody

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they're honored.

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Sometimes yes.

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And this is one of them.

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Marc Kaplan was a longtime director of communications at USTA Southern.

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Unfortunately, he passed before I got here to Georgia.

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I had yet to hear anybody speak negatively about Marc Kaplan.

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I mean, if you talk to the folks that are in the communications world, people like Ron

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Choffee at Southern, those types, Doug Walker, who's won this award a few times, one of the

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great writers in our state and the Rome area.

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They remember Marc very fondly for his passion of trying to promote the message of tennis

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and all sorts of different forms.

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Obviously, when he was probably on staff at Southern, there really wasn't anything like

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a podcast.

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There might not have been a lot of YouTube or internet, so it was more of a written promotion

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in marketing.

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But that's who our awards named after and as well as Southern, just because it makes sense,

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he worked for Southern as a way to honor him.

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A lot of some of the awards are named after folks that we've honored.

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Some of them have naming rights.

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We have naming rights for some of our awards.

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People like to name certain awards for various reasons.

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Sometimes to honor a family member, honor someone in an organization.

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We have some sponsor awards like First Horizon.

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Thank you, it's a big sponsor of our sponsors.

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A big signature tennis court, you know Mike for tennis directors.

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A lot of the awards are named, but this one, this was one of them that is very intentionally

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named to honor Mark and his name will never come off this award.

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It will always be in his honor.

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And it's also, do you have to be dead to be named or can we have the Bobby Schindler award

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like before?

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You know, I'm looking at our awards.

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There are a few names that you guys know that I hope or that I know are still alive.

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Randy Stevens, Jerry Baskin, are two of them.

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Al Parker, there's another one.

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I mean, Al Parker, I mean, clearly makes sense.

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You should be our junior player of the year, right?

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He's a junior, he's a junior in history of our sports.

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So that was an easy one.

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So, you don't have to be.

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There are a few living names on this list.

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Hopefully, it'll be around for quite some time.

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But unfortunately, there are a few that are in memory as well.

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This would be one.

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There we go.

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We got hope, Bobby.

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Well, Mike's on it.

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So Mike doesn't want to be.

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He's still above ground.

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So that's a good thing.

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You would bring him back.

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Yeah.

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I'm going to have to show him why I haven't been nominated.

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I just gave him more business.

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So Mike, we're going to have to talk.

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Yeah.

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There's signature courts affiliate of the year.

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You got to love that.

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Well, you guys can fit into a few categories.

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But obviously, media excellence is the right one.

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I mean, you know, things have evolved over the years.

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And I applaud you for doing this.

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This is keeping the good word of the sport.

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And I think you created a decent following.

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I know I watch your stuff.

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Critiquit, of course.

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No, I'm just kidding.

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You guys do a great job.

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So, obviously, somebody noticed that nominated.

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The committee felt you were worthy.

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And hence why we're talking today.

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So congrats.

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Love it.

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Well, whoever it was, we say thank you.

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Because it's one of those things that we might never

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know who actually nominated us.

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Because I will admit, we didn't self-nominate.

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I will also say we're not above self-nominating.

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In this case, it wasn't.

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First thing I thought of was because I have a--

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look at these.

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I'm like, oh, you actually didn't self-nominate.

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Way to go.

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I don't know how to self-nominate.

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So I wouldn't--

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we know it's not Bobby self-nominating, right?

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But like we said, we weren't in it for that.

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And we definitely don't feel like we're worried about quality

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in the award.

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So thankfully, in this case, hopefully it's content.

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And that's what we're going for.

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It's great content.

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Having great conversations.

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Moving tennis forward, making it cool again, as Bobby says.

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But also, even all the other records for us,

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there's a lot we're trying to do.

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Trying to talk to as many people as we can.

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We've expanded outside.

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We started as the Atlanta tennis podcast.

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It's funny, Bobby, that was less than a year ago

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that we were still saying Atlanta tennis podcast.

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And now we've explained it out.

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So maybe next year, Southerns in play, Bobby, we'll go for it.

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Well, we've been very fortunate to get

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some great guests and trying to continue to raise the bar on that.

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But it helps to have a good conversation with good folks.

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So everybody who's been a guest, thank you for being a part of this

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and getting us to where we're doing this and having a good time doing it.

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And do it without our guests.

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Like the Atlanta tennis podcast, that's ATP, right?

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Did you create that?

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We do that.

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Yeah, we do.

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We weren't sure if that was helping or hurting

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in the grand scheme of things, but the trademark on that.

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But that's what we're thinking.

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That's as far as we're taking it.

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Exactly.

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We weren't picking that fight.

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All right, Darren, I appreciate your time.

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Thank you so much.

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We just wanted to say thank you to you specifically

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and then talk about the awards itself and share

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with everyone without saying we think we're great.

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But in this case, it's we are humbled and honored.

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We will say it.

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So we're going to see you.

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We give out all of our awards at our Community Tennis

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Development Workshop in early February.

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I assume we're going to see.

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And hopefully both of you there.

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In this case, at least one of us will be there.

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If I can't talk Bobby to show it up, I'm sure my wife and I

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will be there.

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Well, there you have it.

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We want to thank rejuvenate.com for use of the studio

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and signature tennis for their support.

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And be sure to hit that follow button.

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For more Racket Sports content, you

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can go to Let'sGoTennis.com.

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And while you're there, check out our calendar of events,

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And with that, we're out.

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See you next time.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

252
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(upbeat music)

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[Music]