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Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

Every episode is titled, It Starts With Tennis and Goes From There.

We talk with coaches, club managers, industry business professionals,

technology experts, and anyone else we find interesting.

We want to have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.

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Hey, hey, this is Sean with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

We are in the Rejovenate studio in Buford, Georgia, and in this episode,

Bobby and I talk to Jorge Capastani.

Jorge is one of only 11 people worldwide that has the distinction of being a master

professional with the US PTA and an international master professional with the PTR.

Jorge has been named the National Pro of the Year by both the US PTA and PTR.

He is an internationally recognized speaker and a member of the US PTA Midwest Division Hall of Fame.

Jorge may be best known for developing two leading tennis industry websites,

one for tennis coaches and one for tennis players.

Both websites can be found at capastanitennis.com.

Let us know what you think, and in this case, if you're interested in getting involved.

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First of all, I want to say thank you for making time.

>> No problem, guys.

Thanks for having me.

>> And it's good to talk to you live.

Both Bobby and I have been to a lot of the webinars where you've spoken and

paid attention to some of the conferences and things.

So we know a lot about you.

I don't know how much you know about us.

>> Where are your podcasts?

>> I knew about that.

>> Okay, so the podcast is start.

That's good.

I run tennisforchildren.com here in Atlanta.

So I focus on 10 and under beginners and Bobby runs a club in coming,

which is North Metro, Georgia, or North Metro Atlanta, excuse me.

And as an example, one of our other partnerships outside the podcast is

tennis for children runs his 10 and under program at his club.

So he outsources that specifically to us as a specialist.

Bobby is the director of tennis at Windomere Club in coming.

And he and I spoke a few years ago and

decided that we wanted to start talking about Atlanta specific concepts with

the Atlanta tennis podcast because we got a lot of people out there that say,

hey, we got this new thing and we're going to take over the world and it's going to be global.

And we think that tennis is a little too federal for that.

We think it's a little too specific to each location.

Michigan is going to be different from Atlanta and where you are,

how things operate is going to be, it's just going to be different.

It's still tennis, it's still what we love.

But we focus specifically on the culture here.

And if you don't mind telling us, kind of give us your elevator pitch,

but you don't have to limit it to 30 seconds of who you are,

what you're working on now.

I know you originally started with, I don't say originally, sorry.

You had a Havana Bobz for a while.

I think you moved on from that, which is how I

figured out your Cuban background.

I'm like, he's not a Cuban if he named that thing.

And Bobby's got an excuse to be upset with him for not speaking Spanish as well.

So we've got some connections, but I want to hear about you and what you're doing.

And then eventually we'll tie it all back in to how this works for Atlanta.

We've got a new project coming up called Go Tennis.

It's in Atlanta starting and love to have you be a part of that.

But that'll be a separate thing.

So if you don't mind telling us who is Jorge Capacini and kind of a bit about yourself.

OK, well, first again, thanks for having me.

So who's Jorge Capacini?

I've been in the tennis industry now for about 40 years.

My background is I'm an immigrant from Cuba.

I was born in Havana, Cuba, but came right away when I was a baby.

I speak Spanish and English.

And I didn't get introduced to tennis until almost my ninth grade in school

happened really in the summer between my eighth grade and eighth grade years in high school.

And the Bentley family, there's my two friends that moved into town and I hung up with them.

We played all kinds of sports, but they were a tennis family,

and a football family, and they played all kinds of sports.

So that was my first introduction to tennis.

And I really liked it.

I fell in love and I got within a year I decided that didn't

expring my freshman year in high school rather than play baseball in the spring.

I wanted to do a tennis.

I wasn't necessarily good.

I was pretty raw, but my friends run the team.

And luckily for me, I made the last spot in the team, and that was pretty cool.

And I got to hang out and I really liked it.

And that's what kind of hooked me on tennis.

Within a year, I'm realizing, I got to play your round on the Michigan.

You can't really play outdoors in the winter.

So I started sniffing around the local club and I went and spoke to a guy there at Don Dickinson

who was the pro at the time.

And I didn't know.

I just wanted to have the people play inside tonight.

I remember walking into this indoor club the first time, and I'm like, oh my god, look

this place is crazy.

But being an immigrant family, we really didn't have much money.

And my parents, they were freaked out if I said, hey, I need hundreds of dollars or clinics

and stuff.

So as I listened to that guy, tell me about what it takes to play inside.

Internally, I was kind of already checked out.

I go, man, this ain't going to work, but I was too embarrassed to say, oh, I can't afford

it.

So I just listened to him and I said, okay, well, let me get back to him and talk to my

parents and stuff.

And I was, I'm the way out the door.

And he literally says, hey, come on back in here and he asked me a few more questions.

So I think he might have sent something.

But he said, listen, if you don't have the money to do this, maybe what I can do is set you

up with a walk-on pass.

And I go, what's that?

Because while you pay 20 bucks and you can walk on the court, but literally you can't reserve

it.

You got to be in person, walk on.

And I'm like, man, that's 20 bucks.

I can do that.

So that's how I got started.

He kind of gave me that special walk-on.

And I used the heck out of it.

I had played like 15 hours a week with the same person, Chris Benjamin.

And he noticed, we could get there at your school around three by four p.m.

the clinics were running and we were off the courts doing homework and the lobby.

And he saw that I was just living at the club waiting to hop on the court whenever and he

approached me and says, hey, if you, I know you can't do the clinics, but if you wanted

to do a clinic, maybe you can clean the courts and sweep the courts in the morning.

I said, heck yeah.

And that got me my first clinic.

And then he said, maybe you can sweep the court outside.

I'll do it.

Maybe you can clean the pool.

Maybe you can clean the toilets.

And I just took in these odd jobs so I could play in clinics.

Never had a private lesson in my life.

So that's how I got into that.

And then right about when I seen your year, the coach, Don said, listen, here's another thing

you can do.

I was about teaching with kids, little kids and you know, that'll give you some more time

on the court.

And I said, yeah, I'll do it.

And I think I did it halfway decent.

And he says, if you want to do more, you know, start working with more levels, I need you

to get certified.

And I said, okay, what's that?

He says you got to and he didn't tell me about one option.

He said you got to go to Quebec in Canada.

And then you got to get certified at the same call to PTR University with Dennis Bandermere.

I said, okay, how do I do that?

And I did it when I was about 20 or 19, I think.

And that opened my eyes because I really didn't know anything about teaching.

But that was an amazing experience for me.

And I got started and I kind of liked it.

And then I kind of taught a lot through my college years.

And then right after college, I did not think it was going to be a tennis pro.

I literally had already interviewed for a sales job.

And my buddy who played doubles with me called me at the time.

He said, look, I want you to come back to your home club, Rambo Wood, and I want you to

be the director of tennis.

And I thought, oh, man, I'll try that for a while.

And here I am.

I was in 40, one years ago now that I took that first job.

And I liked it.

I had some good success.

I was able to balance with really good juniors and some global winners.

Next thing you know, here we are.

So the careers evolved.

I think my early years, I was definitely a high-performance coach.

I was lucky to have some really good athletes and really talented players.

And within my first 10 years, I had three different goal ball winners.

And then of course, that makes you the guru and talent.

So all kinds of people were driving over to my club.

And then I switched to a bigger club.

And I did that.

And probably in my around 35 is when I started shifting off the core, doing more on the

core.

I do have an entrepreneurial spirit.

I started a couple of companies.

First of all, I was having an ABOB tennis shirt, which I know.

But it's still out there and doing well.

And about 11 or 12 years ago, I started my current company, Capastan and tennis Inc., which

is best known for tennis drills.tv because I had a chance to speak.

And I spoke on tennis drills because that's what I always thought I wanted when I went to

conventions.

And it just went bonkers.

People really, coaches, as you know, I mean, you give a coach a new drill and they're happy

for a month, you know.

Because it's really easy.

I was told victim of using the same five drills over and over forever.

So yeah, now that company had, or my website has 2,000 tennis drills on it and subscribers

in 72 countries in the school and brainwaves.

My current day job, if you will, is I'm the manager of the Duitt, Tennis Center at Holt

College, which is a division three school in Holland, Michigan.

And I also am the PTM co-director.

I started the PTM standing for professional tennis management with one of nine schools in

the country that you can go and get a call for me and also study how to teach tennis.

And I'm really proud of what we're doing with those kids because, you know, they get a lot

of aversion because we have full programs.

So we're not huge.

We're probably around 15 kids, but the kids that we're putting out are really, really good.

They're getting an amazing job and job offer.

So that's kind of my life journey in tennis.

I like it.

We've got two things I want to go from that.

Because first of all, I think the tennis drill comment that you made for the coaches is

kind of two-fold.

Bobby always says, he says, "When we go to a tennis coach convention, what is it, Bobby,

like, if I come back with one new drill, I'm happy?"

It was a good, good, good convention.

Yeah.

That's true.

And the longer you teach, this is phenomenal.

And if you've taught even 10 years, you probably use over 100 drills in your lifetime,

either as a player or a coach.

But I do this exercise when I do these four hour workouts, I'll say, "Everybody, right now,

take a piece of paper.

We're going to take 10 minutes."

And I want you to write down every single drill that you can think of.

And these coaches, and I know it's literally a couple hundred, at least, especially if they've

been teaching for a while.

But no one can write down more than 15.

They get the same.

Top of your head?

There's no way.

I'm doing it in my head right now.

I got to five, and I'm done.

But I know hundreds.

And I know.

That's kind of why I built a website.

I know I'll be presenting here at the World Conference in New Orleans, and I present all

over the world.

I'm really lucky to be able to do that.

But yeah, it's so easy as a coach.

You're like, "What do I do?"

And you end up doing your best hits, the five that you're in your current rotation.

And if you can have a new drill that you really like, it was playing well, like, "Oh, genius,

I love it.

I'm going to use it."

Even your players are fired up for a few months.

You're just like, "Oh, I was cool with you.

And that would, you know?"

So that's my passion.

I love coming up with drills.

I'm pretty good at it.

And now that, you know, right now, I filmed, when I say over 2000 tennis drills, I can't

tell you 2000 tennis drills.

I can't tell you 100 tennis drills.

So we need to place a database where we should get more drills and we can remember, for sure.

I agree.

That is one of those scenarios.

Back in the day, you just have that book.

Oh, man, I just, I need something fresh today.

We do the same thing with the beginner eight-year-olds.

It's okay.

You know what?

We've been doing the same thing for a month.

We need at least one new thing to introduce.

You've got your staples.

You have the things you still need to do.

You've got your six to eight different shots that we all know exist.

We've got our targets to be able to handle those.

But it's always coming back with that one slightly different version.

You know, how many different ways can you play jail with a bunch of 10-year-olds?

And at some point it's like, okay, what is that called?

Maybe there's 100 different versions of that.

Right.

It'd be really cool to be able to do it just by level.

And that's one of the things Bobby and I talk about all the time.

We're going to do drill, we're going to work with players similarly.

But if you're an eight-year-old beginner, it's different from a 12-year-old beginner.

It's different from, obviously.

You can keep going, right?

Yeah, one of the things I find, you know, because I do speak a lot on that topic.

And a couple things I've learned.

And this is global.

Like, it doesn't matter if I'm speaking in China or in Wemmelton or Norway or Australia,

the same pro, teaching pro, the same problems.

Why are we doing this jail?

Is it boring?

What's the purpose behind it?

A lot of times with it.

And by the way, I'm a consumer still.

So if I go to a convention, and someone's title of the presentation has a word "drills" in

it, there's like a 1,000% chance I'm showing up because I still want to learn that's your

thing.

But a lot of times you'll see a drill and you're like, "Oh, okay, that reminded me of this

drill that my college school used to do.

I forgot, I forgot all about that one."

And it may not even be new, it just might rattle some thing in your brain.

So I guess it is kind of new because now it's back in your rotation.

And the other thing is, I've learned that coaches generally, this kind of sounds like it,

but a lot of tennis coaches are not that great at modifying drills.

So here's what happens to me.

I'll do a drill.

It's going to happen in New Orleans, guarantee it.

I'm going to have my wife there, my daughter's going to be there.

I'll get some coaches out of the audience.

And I'll do drills and it'll go well.

I know it well.

But there's always going to be a percentage of people in the audience, sometimes it comes

up to me and say, "Hey, Jorge, I really like those drills, but you know, I just, they won't

work at my club."

And I go, "Why won't they work?"

They go, "Well, because you used Sean and Bobby, these guys are all freaking great players,

my club, my players are horrible."

They're really low skill.

You can't do those drills.

And I go, "Well, here's the deal.

I actually do all those drills that you just saw with 2.5 players.

You just got to know how to modify them."

And man, I run across that globally.

A lot of people, they just pigeonhole the drill.

That would never work for that.

That would never work for that.

Most my drills, I'm going to say 90% of them, I can do with a 2.0 all the way to a 5.0.

It just, here's the thing to remember, a 5.0, it's going to look pretty dang sweet, you

know, because they're sweet looking players.

And the 2.0, it's going to look a little rough.

But they're still hitting the shots.

They're still learning the idea, like, hey, in mid-court, you're going to be aggressive

and you're going to do it.

They're just going to look like two always when they do it.

And that's fine.

It doesn't mean you throw out a drill.

There's maybe 10% of the drills where I would say, "Okay, don't do that for the 2.5.

They skill wise, they can't do it yet."

And it's just going to be a concert reminder that they stink at that drill.

So there are some, but way overwhelmingly, I think most drills work for most people.

Yeah, and we've got, with tennis for children, we've got our lesson plans and along those

lines where we have, it's the same game, but there are three different versions depending

on the 6-year-old, the 8-year-old, the 10-year-old.

So they scale is kind of how we describe it.

I say, "I've got this one game that it's pretty much the same concept, but we can play it

from never played before to kind of figuring it out," which is basically all we work with

in what we do is never played before to kind of figure it out.

Once you kind of figure it out, then we give you to Bobby.

And he gets to worry about the drills for them.

Right.

Yeah, that's great.

But yeah, it's fun.

I mean, that's kind of what I do.

And I think, you know, from one of the unique things that I get to do, which not everybody

does, that's teaching tennis, is I get to work with these, you know, basically new-ish pros,

these 19-year-olds that are now in college and learning it.

So for most of us, you guys included.

We haven't really been a beginner at teaching tennis for quite some time.

You know, you've been pretty good at it.

So it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of a new pro.

We all know there's a massive shortage of coaches.

Literally a week does not go by where I don't get an email like, "Dude, you got to call

me, I need a good pro."

Everybody wants our great pro, you know, like, don't give me a scrub, don't give me

some of those on a teach I need them to be a really good player.

And I'm like, "Okay, well, that's a unicorn.

Go have fun trying to find that."

And are you willing to pay them what they're worth?

Yeah.

So, but now I see all these kids and the wild, the training and the drills I do when I train

them is just teaching them up on how to do it.

And it's really interesting to see what scares them and what they need to, you know, what skills

they need to acquire so they can feel like, "Okay, I can go on a court with adults and

not be scared to death."

And it's totally different than what you might want to teach a 20-year-old veteran pro

that's had, you know, 20-years-old experience.

Well, that would be harder.

I know Bobby's got a lot of questions about your PTM program and how are we bringing new

players or new coaches in?

And that'd be one of those scenarios is, "Okay, once you've been in the industry 20 years,

we're all really great at it and, you know, there's nothing left to learn."

And if you're that coach, you're probably not listening to this conversation because we

all know there's always something left to learn.

But Bobby and I were talking about that recently and Bobby had a bunch of questions of, "Okay,

how do we get more pros?

What does that look like?"

And is that something, is this PTM program helping with that?

And how does that happen?

Because we're going to have a similar question here in Atlanta because we want to bring all

those people that, you know, Bobby had to describe it, just the guy with the basket of tennis

balls in his trunk.

Right.

Well, that's it.

And I hear that one of the fascinating things I love listening to you speak.

What is the kid that's entering your program?

Are they players? Are they a decent player who played in high school but really wants to

career and coaching?

What is the kid who's walking in the program?

Yeah.

Well, I know for us, and I'm pretty sure this is universal because I've been friends with

a lot of PTM directors and, you know, I know a lot of people who've gone through it.

The, your average PTM student in America is not an elite player.

Half of them don't even play on their college tennis team.

So the first PTM program ever at Ferris State University, my buddy Scott Schultt started

that.

And back in its heyday, it had like 100 people.

So obviously, you know, you don't have 100 people on your varsity tennis team.

So the people that I look for, I look for people that play tennis, you can't be a total beginner.

And I mean, you can be actually, I can teach a total beginner how to be a really good

teacher, but they're probably going to be teaching younger players and new-ish adults because

for good or bad, they're not going to get the respective or 4.5 person that wants to

take a lesson and then they'll just, you know, say, well, this guy is not even as good

as I am.

So I think I was the general type of PTM student is that I look for.

Someone that loves tennis, they got to be a tennis nut.

And I want to know that they have an outgoing personality, the kind of personality that's

not shy, quiet.

You can be shy and quiet and be a really good tennis pro, but I'm looking for the person

that's kind of more outgoing because if they have those skills, I can teach them how to

teach tennis.

You know, he's not going to know.

No one walks in to my college PTM program knowing that nine checkpoints for the serve

and the six checkpoints for the ground strokes, but I can teach them that.

So the problem that we have, unfortunately, is that there's just even in PTM schools, all

the PTM schools combined have 160 total students.

We need that to be like, you know, 3,000.

I think, and there's the equivalent and golf is the PGM programs.

And I think there's like, somebody just told me like 2,000 of them and all that combined

out of the college.

So that's 500 a year graduating going into the industry.

Tennis doesn't have that.

And that's been around for thousands of years, as I would put it.

I mean, that's just been around forever.

And golf is more, I think historically considered a business.

There's a higher, and correct me if I'm wrong, Bobby, my opinion in the Atlanta area, we

see your career path ends at director of tennis for a tennis pro.

And if you're in for a golf pro, you can go further up into general manager to run a club.

Usually it's not your tennis pro that makes it there.

So your golf pro college program is probably significantly more popular.

But we would ask somebody like you and say, okay, how do we help with that?

How do we promote, and we focus mainly on Atlanta, of course.

But how do we help with that?

When we go out with, as an example, our new project is going to be yelling at the Atlanta

area.

Talking about what's going on with the coaches, players, the social aspect of it.

Why does it exist?

We don't necessarily need a lot of high performance coaches here, because it's much more social.

Yet the young coaches, and I remember myself being a young coach, really liking the feeling

of working with the high performance player, it felt like I was a, that was a better thing

to be until I realized that director of tennis doesn't do that.

And I wondered why the young player.

So trying to figure out when you start, how do you get those young people that may or may

not know there is a career path here, and even getting out of high school and go, you can

go create a career path to get into teaching tennis where I didn't do that.

I know Bobby was in sports marketing.

I went out and got a really useful philosophy degree.

So I wasn't going to college to be a tennis coach.

Right.

That can be a thing.

Yeah.

It exists.

And how do we promote that even more?

How do we make that more of a thing?

Well, I think, here's the way I think we do it.

So obviously I'm running a PTN program.

I want to have, well, actually I don't want to have 100, but in theory, the more the better,

right?

And all colleges can do the same thing.

So what I think, and the USDA has made some efforts in here too, right?

So for years, we get an email list from them, like, hey, here's, you know, they're running

ads on social media and stuff, and here's names that have clicked, they say they're interested

and they sent it to us PTN directors, and it's up to us to follow through with them.

The problem is there's not that many that are just evolving and showing up at your front

door showing an interest.

So if you just kind of wait and sit back and see who comes, there isn't.

The PTR would probably want to have thousands more, the USPTA would probably have thousands

more.

There's no real good recruiting thing.

So what I would say, and I would tell this to the USDA because they have the money to

pull it off, is we know that in America, there is 355,000 high school tennis players, okay?

That's pretty consistent number.

And high school tennis is a big deal.

Right now, I wouldn't say that either the PTR or the USPTA or the USDA is famously known

for helping out high school coaches.

It's just not what they think.

Now they might say, hey, hold your horses there.

But let's face it, no high school coach in my area has ever been reshowed to these people.

It doesn't mean that they don't want stuff.

You might have stuff for them, but if you don't know how to get all of them.

So here's the problem of that 350,000 prospects.

Those are all prospects for me for as a PTM director.

The problem is that that's not a database.

You don't have everybody's name in the high school database players of America that you can

go and buy the list in market too.

Right?

So the only way you get to these kids is through their coaches or A.Ds, okay?

So we know there's tens of thousands of high school, middle school coaches in our country.

So that you can't get to them, okay?

There's ways to market to all the coaches in America through different marketing channels

and email lists that you can buy.

That's where I think that they should start.

But then the problem is, well, the USDA by email lists and they can't seem to want to do

that.

But it's really tough.

But the way I've been doing it, the way I've recommended people to do it, it's just the phrase

"grow your own garden."

So let's just narrow it out to my PTM program here in Holland, Michigan, Western Michigan.

I have a system where I go to all the local kids in our, so we have a pretty good size junior

program, right?

So I'm guessing we have a couple hundred high school kids that come to our lessons pretty

much on a year-round basis or just at least season.

I will start reaching out to them and I'll email that list all the time, so hey guys, I have

a volunteer opportunity.

Do you guys want to come?

And most of them are doing this national honor society so they need volunteer hours anyway.

And I say I wanted to try to help us with some kids.

You don't have to lead it obviously, but this way, I get a look at them.

And I always have probably a recession, at least ten high school kids out there kind of working.

Now, more recently, I developed a course online on tennis field side TV that I share with them,

that they can get their training before they show up.

So they're like, what's a red ball?

What's the size of the core?

What's, you know, what's the visual scoring?

What can you expect from a five year-over versus a eight year-old?

So they see all this before they get there.

And then once they get there, our coaches lead and then they take their three little kids

and do their thing.

It works good, but they get volunteer hours.

I get extra help for free.

But more importantly, now I'm seeing ten kids.

And then my little brain, I'm like, that one would be amazing.

I'm going to, and not all of them, but probably half of them will say, hey, I want to talk

to you.

First of all, thanks for doing this.

Secondly, you're pretty good at this.

You have the right personality, you have the right to be here.

Do you know about this problem?

And I'd like to talk to you and your family about it.

So we're growing our own garden, basically.

And that's where we're getting most of our kids.

Over half the kids in our PTM program came from the DeWitt Tennis Center junior program,

so that we raised them up.

So it's a good success rate.

So we would ask that of you.

We would say, okay, if we want to grow the garden that is Metro Atlanta, we would come

to you and say, okay, we want this advice.

And we use your preparation videos.

I mean, I got some, but they're targeted toward tennis for children, specifically, because

we do a lot of high school recruiting because our best coaches aren't, I'm not coming to

you saying I need a certified pro who's really good, because we don't pay $70 an hour,

$100 an hour, right?

So ours is, like you said, are you happy hanging around with a bunch of six year olds?

If so, I can give you the lesson plan.

I can teach you how to teach them, but you have to enjoy being there.

And if you can help us find who might be interested, that'd be great.

Yeah, first of all, I can always do it myself, but I'm going to tell you something that very

few people actually know, so I'm kind of breaking the news here with you guys.

There's a guy in your area, Mark Covex, good buddy of mine.

He's the sports scientist right there in Atlanta.

And Scott Schultz, who I mentioned earlier, he's the first guy that ever started the PTM

program at Ferris.

He's retired from the USC, and now he was a high level executive in the USDA, kind of the

Godfather of PTM programs.

And then me, we're all buddies.

So about a year ago, we formed a company called RSU, RACFUS Sports at University.

And our first material, basically, coaches education, our first material, we don't want

to certify.

We're not USPTA, we're not PCR.

We want to educate.

So the very first dashboard, of course, is, if you will, is one for newer coaches for trying

to get people.

And inside that dashboard of like 13 courses, the very first one, the most powerful one, is

assisting with kids' classes.

And it was literally me with five high schoolers and five moms training them, like, hey, here's

the course.

But you can use that course and send it to all your members.

Hey, members, adults, whatever.

If you're interested, that's the other market, by the way.

There's a lot of adults.

I know tons, but I know several guys who are 55, they made all the money they'll ever

need.

They're tennis nuts, and they're like, can I laugh?

Maybe I can just hang up my business thing.

I'm still going to be fine financially.

And I'm going to start working out at the club, and maybe I can teach this or that,

and that's the other.

And those guys are rock stars.

I have a couple of my club that had been volunteering.

I don't think you consider it a low-stress gig, right?

Yeah, they're like, this is great.

I get to wear shorts and go to work.

And, you know, I'm already a millionaire, so what's it?

You know, even more low-stress, that's great.

Yeah.

So, we're really close.

We have a verbal agreement with the USDA, so to put that material out.

So, worst case scenario, I could always help coaches through tennisreal.tv.

But our bigger thing is, like, if I do that, you know, I have bills to pay.

I got to pay a couple of employees and all this stuff to run the website.

But we're asking the USDA, guys, don't make this a barrier.

Take this content, which is going to potentially grow all these.

I'm not aiming at 28 euros.

I'm aiming at wreck players, like, literally every wreck player in America.

It could be ass.

Are you having any interest?

You probably never saw it.

We've got a few of those here in Atlanta.

Here's the thing.

Watch this video.

We can show you how you can actually maybe do this pretty well and take away the fear.

And then get them out into the clubs and then all the local clubs, all you would have to

do is just send out the email.

Hey, guys, new opportunity, really clever idea.

We need help.

Tennis needs help.

You play tennis.

You might think you need to be a rock star.

You don't.

But you need certain skills.

We'll teach you these skills right here.

It may be a certain club.

It's a local further.

We'll meet face to face on top of that.

But it has to be done for you.

And not that many clubs, to be honest, are looking in their own garden.

They're kind of like nine times out of 10.

When a pro calls me or text me, I literally have one this week.

So I had to get a new pro, as a pro in Florida calling about, hey, one of my guys is leaving.

I need, he was a rock star.

I need somebody good.

They can make a lot of money.

And I'm like, is there anybody in your membership or in your orbit and call it, look around.

Is there anybody?

Because they always think they got to come from somewhere.

And I'm just telling you, they're not beating down the planet to come and join the industry.

So a lot of people are just like me.

It's good.

I got to just build my own day in garden because the harvest isn't there.

No one's around that wants to do this.

I got to make it.

It makes a lot of sense.

And we'd love to take a look at that because that's one of the things we're looking to do here

in Atlanta is improve the interaction.

We want to make it better.

We want to make it.

Everybody talks about tennis being more accessible and more affordable.

And it's like, okay, well, is that, what is, first of all, what does that even mean?

We go back and forth on defining accessible and those kinds of things.

But also are there coaches out there that are affordable?

And do we have an eye on them?

Are they background checked?

Are they safe, sport trained?

Are they, I mean, even if they're not certified, did you run a background check just to say,

look, I'm good to play with kids.

And we've looked at these, what we would call coaches, and we've got a lot of them here

in the Atlanta area where we're not all looking for the country club job.

We're not all looking for that rock star.

Some people just need a guy to feed some balls to their team and they don't necessarily

want to pay $100 an hour.

So we've got to figure out, all right, where is that coach that we can give them a little

bit of support, give them some training, give them some affiliate relationships and some

potential pro shop relationships and we can help them with the business of what they're

doing.

But we need to find them first.

And that's one of the things Bobby and I talk about a lot.

Where are they?

Where do we recruit?

How do we train them?

Because obviously we can only be in one place at one time.

But with online content, we can do a heck of a lot more.

Yeah, one thing I would do, I would even advise just to friends or maybe you guys can do it,

but the ones I'm interested in are the two living two places.

So they're either in high school teams.

So everybody in a high school team is a potential PTM student for me.

So I make real damn sure that I got a great relationship with all the high school coaches.

They pretty much all recommend their kids to come and train with us in the Aussies.

There's a couple coaches that are ambitious and they got their own things in the program

in the summer and we're like, boom, do that then.

No harm.

There's enough tennis bodies.

We have weightless anyway.

So it's not like we need every single kid to come.

But just having a free clinic for high school, a ton of kids together, 36 kids and they get

a free couple of, maybe they spend an hour drilling and then they have an hour to listen

to an expert.

Every day they have an hour of someone else talking about, this is what it could be.

There's PTM programs.

There's this, to do even know.

I can guarantee you, if I go up to 100 people, families at my club and say, have you thought

about your kid is really good at tennis?

Or he's really loves tennis and he's got the right personality.

I think he could be a teaching pro and get out of a hundred of a lot.

What is that thing?

Yeah, it's a thing.

You know me, right?

I'm a tennis broadman doing it.

There's six of us that work here.

Yes, it exists.

You do know we're capable of paying our mortgages, right?

And they don't, man, they don't think of it.

So just an introduction.

We do stuff, you know, Zoom meeting.

Adam and I, Adam Ford is my co-director with me at the Hope PTM program.

And we have a PowerPoint that we present at Deep Boom Wall.

We call a Zoom meeting when we invite 500 families.

We have a 20 of them who have available, show our Zoom thing.

Here's all the cool things you get to do.

Here's us at the US Open.

Here's us talking to Martin Blackman.

Here's us at this place and they're like, this is a thing.

But that'd be one thing.

The other thing is they also live on your USDA teams.

And I think, so if I needed more help, I'm looking at the parents of my kids and my USDA teams.

And our women and say, guys, interesting opportunity.

We need some extra help.

I know a lot of you love tennis and probably never thought of yourselves as coaches or you

qualified, but we can train you.

If any of you have an interest and maybe sniffing around and seeing what that would look

like and what perks you can get out of it, check out this quick video that we made because

I'd love to have that YouTube issue.

And if they reply, I'm interested.

You set them up with a course.

Does that, do you get a decent response when you try to point out to someone you don't

have to have played college tennis?

You don't need to be a former professional player to coach at a certain level in the same

way that you don't need to be a math major to teach second grade math.

Right.

Yeah, that's a big part of my field.

One of the biggest hurdles when I talk to PTM prospects in their families, the number

one fear they have is that they're not good tennis players or not good enough.

And my club is a great example.

So at my club, I have four full time pros, all certified pros.

It just happens to be that they all were at the 5.0 level at one point.

They all happen to be really damn good tennis players.

So our kids look at pros and they go, oh, they incorrectly assume, oh, you have to be a

5/0 or higher player to be a tennis pro.

So a big part of what I do is to look.

That won't hurt, but that's not a requirement.

No, that adds an ego that we got to deal with as director of tennis.

Maybe we want the 3/0 or 4/0 instead.

Yeah.

I have some of the most solid kids, our three, five to four role players that we have.

And yeah, they're probably not going to go to work for Sanchez, the car, your academy,

nor what I want them to.

But they can go down to one of your clubs and they will be rock stars that running little

kids and they'll be rock stars that take in a 2.5 middle schooler and get into 4.5.

That's how you become famous in tennis.

We need a billion people that can take a 2/5 in tournaments or 4/5.

We don't need a crap load of people.

I don't care if I ever see another pro that can take a 4/5 to a 7-0.

Whatever dude, those three are my life.

But that doesn't build tennis, right?

That's what we talk about all the time.

We want the game to grow and taking somebody who already plays tennis and making them better

isn't always the target.

Even though it's fun and that feels good, you can say, yeah, my kid went to college and

played division one.

We love that.

That feels good and that looks good on a resume, but it doesn't grow the game.

Yeah.

So that analogy of just kind of thinking of the NTPR scale, that's what we need.

A lot of people, especially young, they think, well, I really want to work with 4/5 enough.

I want to be a coach in national ranked kids and I go, listen, that was me for a while.

I lived that for 15 years and I went to national tournaments and I remember the stress and

the craziness of those parents generally, not all of them.

If I had to do it again, if my daughter went into tennis teaching, I would say, don't worry

about that.

When I was a young pro, I had a girl, Kim Gates, I was working with her.

She won the girl's 16th hard courts on San Diego when she was 13 years old.

Everybody was like, oh my gosh, this girl is the next hot as saying she's going to be famous.

She can be a top 10 or she's a USA came in and try to help.

At that time, if you would ask me, I was the same way.

I go, and unless I get fired here, I'm going to be sitting at the box of the US Open when

she's in the semis against whoever.

Nothing can be far better than true.

Even that, the number one ranked junior in America, like 100 times out of 101 doesn't get

to be famous.

It's full school that you're chasing that.

I tell all our key timbers, my wish for you is that you become insanely good at taking

a 2-5 and bringing it in a 4-5.

You will have, the world will beat down a path to you for lessons because that's 99%

of the club.

Absolutely.

If you would have everything you're saying, but how much of what Sean's saying is the barriers,

the cultural, systemic, just the portrayal, whether it be the director is calling you and

say, oh, give me a rock star.

Then the first thing out of their mouth says, well, they had to play college dance.

Well, you just limit, we just lesson the pool.

How do we perception across the board with the industry and the support itself?

We always use the Bill Bellichek example.

Bill Bellichek didn't play football.

His dad was a football coach.

He played across.

He's going to go down, said and done is the greatest coach you ever played football.

A man who never took a snap.

How do we change that perception and tennis to make it more?

Hey, the door is open.

There's an opportunity here.

If you have the skills that you're talking about.

Yeah, so I think there's two pathways for that.

The slow grinding pathway is that all of us need to be able to communicate that to the

people in our garden, our own juniors, our own families, our own members.

But I think on a national level, the USPTAPTR or hopefully USDA because they got money, they

have the dough, and they can put out a lot of good stuff for sure.

I haven't seen a video ever out of any of them organizations.

Let's just put the own assigned to the USTA because they got a lot of money.

Say, I've seen a few years ago in the Papyrus Hall, a really cool video that they put out

promoting and it was shot in a core.

It looked all dark.

They hit it and the ball would spray a bunch of talcum powder.

It was really high death, cool looking.

And if my high school kids saw that, they wouldn't go, "Oh, I can teach tennis?"

Never thought about that.

That's a made for Madison Avenue video.

They need to have videos of famous people, is there?

People that, "Hey, do you know that you can teach tennis?"

You might think this.

Here's what your next step, just sniff this out and something like that where I can send

it to 500 families.

Right now it's Jorge and they trust me, but still they don't.

He's selling me a PTM program.

In a lot of need-proels, I always look and I said, "Have you ever tried to get some volunteer

or some of your own club?"

I'm like, "No, I don't want that.

I want someone to walk in my front door that's damn good and I want to hire them.

Why?

I'm complaining."

That's the immature junior.

I can't believe it.

Why can't I hit winners all the time?

Well, wake up, dude.

They don't exist.

You're not going to have a 6-0 player show up to your club magically and say, "You know what?

I'm currently a lawyer, but I'm 6-0 and I wanted to use tennis and I'll do it for not that

much and I want to work here for you."

Does it happen?

You got to go make them.

I'd love to see something like that that all of us could forward that.

Hey, guys, check out this video.

The USDA came up with and it's totally true.

You can get started right here at your home club.

Please watch this and if you have any questions, reply to this email.

This is, I think, low-hanging true.

But right now, all these potential people that could be turned into pros, no one's even

telling them there's no system for it.

I do it in my little neighborhood and I have a pretty good email list of followers.

Probably about 30,000 people have an email too, who I've sent stuff to over the years.

That's pretty powerful, but your average club probe doesn't have that.

I can send out any email.

Now I can't send that out every week because people start getting all this.

I don't want to buy this guy's program, but I can at least create some awareness.

You got a big email list starting to wrap up.

Is that Michigan specific?

Is that nationally?

No, it's global.

It's international.

Okay.

From years of people getting free courses, if you want to, here's a free amount of toughness

force, get me your email and I'll send it to you.

It was the list that Bobby and I are on also.

Yeah.

Okay.

So on that list, I happen to have a unique mixture.

My other online friends, they have way bigger lists than I do, but most of them are club

players.

My list because of tennisville.tv has a lot of coaches on it.

Coaching market, right?

Yeah.

So it's probably, I'm saying is half a half in my list.

Okay.

Yeah, because that'd be interesting.

As we build out our project here in Atlanta, as we're building out, go tennis, it would be

fun to figure out what kind of deals we can make.

What kind of promotion are you looking for that you would send out to your email list?

And like you said, your online friends, you've got some guys you're working with.

Who's the guy that does the world conference, Maribon or whatever's name is?

Oh, yeah.

Maribon, uh, 10,000 will have.

Yeah.

There are quite a few people out there.

They're going to have, gonna have big lists and big followings and play your court guys

and you got guys with, with giant email lists and it's what we're doing is trying to make

friends with everybody and say, okay, we're only focused on Atlanta.

So we're not trying to compete with anybody.

We're not also doing online lessons.

We're not also doing online videos.

We want to take what you're already doing and make it better and try to make tennis in Atlanta

better.

So I love hearing, I love hearing your ideas to say, hey, this is, this is how we could do

this.

And in that case, Bobby and I can spend some time working with our team and say, okay, how

do we do it in Atlanta specifically?

What's our culture here?

Can we find somebody in Atlanta to say, we don't just need more players.

We need more coaches to get the players.

We need more positive advocates in the area and we love doing that by making friends and

say, hey, how do you think we could get more positive advocates and how would you help?

>> Yeah, I mean, if I, let's say the city of Atlanta said, okay, we're going to hire Jorge.

We want you to help us.

I'm not asking for that, by the way.

But here's what I would say.

I'd say let's have a coach's conference.

Let's do a Zoom one because that way, lots of people can show up.

And then we'll brainstorm ideas and I'll say, here's what's worked for me.

Imagine, just imagine that inside your club, you all have two in your programs and you all

have, you know, adult league program players and wrecked players and club players.

What if we could, what if each of you could pick off just five out of the hundreds you probably

have just five that would be willing to step up, get a little training and start volunteering

with some stuff.

Would that be helpful?

And 100% of the pros, yeah, that'd be a freaking helpful.

Okay, so here, how do you do it?

So I have emails that you can swipe the copy and send it out.

I have an intro video that talks about the idea, talking directly to high scores and three

old ladies and like, hey, relax.

You don't have to be good.

I'm going to change it.

And just to get interest, okay, that's the next level.

And then the next thing that, and they don't, they won't have a video like that probably.

Not many people do and that's why we, that's why we would lean on you and say, okay,

obviously that's promotional for your other businesses and you benefit from that.

We would lean on who's the best at doing that.

Say, hey, you know what, Jorge is the best at this.

We're using his product to promote what's going on and everybody wins.

Yep.

And then the final phase, which I think was huge, because for years, what I would do guys

is I talk to a high school, you know, I see a high school.

Here's Sean is in my high school class and I think he has outgoing personality.

So I can go up to one at one.

Hey, Sean, you have, you, are you on NTS?

You need national honors, NHS.

You need a volunteer hour?

Yep.

Would you consider volunteering with a junior kids?

You know, you can help with how little kids kind of fun.

You can get your volunteer hours.

Yep.

Okay, I'll do it.

All right, show up next Tuesday.

That was the training.

So what would happen is they show up on Tuesday and Adam Ford is running 16 kids and, you

know, big bunch of little mini courts and Adam's demonstrating.

And then he says, Sean, Sean, take those three kids and go do on that court, what I just

showed you.

Okay, so it's really, it wasn't very good training, but at least most of these kids could mimic,

right?

Now, I already have, through RSU, this course, assisting with kids class.

So I could really take the stress down and say, look, I'm going to hold your hand, dude.

I'm going to show you videos.

You're going to see what a five-year-old runs like and how they trip over themselves and

how there's no way they're going to be rattling over the net.

Racket to racket with another five-year-old.

As Bobby says, you're complaining about his forehand, but the kid can hardly walk, right?

And then I'm going to show you the specs.

I'm going to show you the court size.

I'm going to show you the different types of balls.

I'm going to show you what rallying expectations would be.

I'm going to teach you a couple of little quick things how you can fix so many technically.

Because you probably don't feel like you're going to be able to say anything technically.

And I'm going to teach you all these skills about how you talk to these kids and trust me,

you're going to walk out there first day.

And I'm still, I'm not going to even ask you to lead.

You're just going to basically mimic.

And then what happens is each club gets five.

So now across Atlanta, there's 150 people trying it out for the first time.

Then you at your club, me and my club, we look at our five and say these four, but this

one here.

I'm going to follow that up with this guy.

Hey, listen, you're killing it out there.

How about you do another day?

I might actually, I don't maybe need you to volunteer.

I'd like to add you to our staff.

And this is, you know, you just stir it up.

You get some next people you train in.

They show up, you can pick a few more.

And every year you do it next, next cycle.

I made that course basically because I realize that some of these kids are walking in.

I can see the nervousness in their eyes, you know, like, "Oh, I see him here.

I'm doing this.

This kid's a five year old.

No, he's not going to be judging you too much.

He thinks you're a fucking rock star already, right?"

They assume you're, yeah, they assume you're not.

Yeah, they don't worry about five of them.

What if I say some soup and coach Adam thinks I'm done?

No, we're just going to show you everything.

So, you will, it's okay.

Yeah.

It's kind of our system.

I seem fairly logical to me that the old way of just kind of pros will come knocking

at your door and it's going to be plenty of them around.

That hasn't worked for years.

What I hear from my friends at PTR, you know, as PTA is, you know, they've been stagnant

for years, you know, thousands of people in, a thousand people out, a thousand people in,

a thousand people out.

Hey, we'd eat more pros, huh?

We still got X, thousand then.

Well, let's figure out how to create that culture where a pro thinks they're appreciated,

whatever that means, whether it's financially or in response from the culture because at

some point I look up and Bobby talk, Bobby and I talk about it a lot, which is, okay,

what is the USPTA done for me?

And that's a question, okay, well, yeah, we've got the benefits and we go through those things,

but there's more that can be done to keep the coaches that are already certified or previously

certified because there's got to be a list of coach, of potential coaches that have left

because they either couldn't find a job, they weren't paid well enough.

I mean, whatever all the reasons are.

Or is it a pandemic related scenario where we probably have a lot of people out there looking

for some part time work that are perfectly willing to learn a little bit, play some tennis

in Atlanta.

It's tough because tennis here is mostly free.

So it's a, it's a different culture.

It is people going out on their tennis court, playing for free, paying for lessons is an

intolerable hundred dollars.

It's, it's difficult to come up with.

Other areas, tennis is expensive.

We read a lot of articles, Bobby and I send them back and forth every once in a while, but

it's all this thing of golf and tennis are so expensive and they're elite sports and you

can only be a member of a country club.

And that's just not how it is here in Atlanta.

Tennis courts are free.

Access to tennis is pretty much free.

You can spend what, twenty dollars at a Walmart, have a couple of rackets and some tennis balls,

go out to your local neighborhood courts or the local club, spend two dollars and go play

some tennis.

And how do we get those kinds of people into it, which is exciting, get those new people

in, but then also be able to have a guy like you that says, Hey, I can help you train those

people and get them excited about it because you're capable of creating the videos.

You already have the content.

There's thousands of drills there.

If there's a package available, we want it and we want to promote it because hey, you

know what, you don't have to come in being that six out former five oh six oh player rock

star coach.

Everybody knows it takes time to evolve into a great coach.

Yeah.

So one thing I want your listeners to know about so this iris using rackets for you, I'm

pretty sure we're going to be able to get that out through the USDA, which means it'll be

free.

It'll probably live on their LMS, but in there getting that finalized.

So obviously I'll let you know about that because free is better for everybody.

And honestly, I'd rather have the USDA pay me and then we make it free of the whole of

the coaches.

I don't need, I don't think for this particular product, which is then trying to grow

the sport and the people that you're going to need to do it, don't put a bunch of money

barriers in front of that.

Just make it free and get it out to as many people as possible.

So I think that's coming.

But also on tennis trails that TV, so about maybe two months ago.

So I have obviously 2000 tennis trails, all of them you can print a diagram and those 80

courses, like this is not just a drill, but actual courses in 25 to 30 of those courses.

Any one of us could take a quiz or optional, but if you take the quiz and pass it, you get

automatic PTR and US PTA credit.

But what you may not know is for years, the only thing you can do there is go and join

it or do a one dollar trial.

But now on that site, I have 15 totally free drills.

You can see them without doing anything.

You don't need to opt in, you don't need an email, you don't need a credit card.

And I even put three full courses free on the site.

Because I'm a tennis guy.

I mean, sure, I want tennis drills to make millions and millions is not going to do that.

But I also want to help coaches.

OK, I know I'm never going to have 100,000 subscribers on tennis drills.

It's not going to happen, but I can still help coaches.

So just having 15 drills is probably more than most coaches having their arsenal and their

rotation right now, and they're totally free.

And then you can take those courses, there's three of them in there.

And I think one of them even has a quiz.

You can get PTR, US PTA credit on it.

So I would direct people that want to expand their drills and just a tennis drills.tv

And without spending anything, you know, they can get a whole bunch of free stuff today that

they can use.

Part of what you're talking about is you as a person, you as the story, what you've done

to get into the field the way your archipelago, that spirit translates into some of the other

areas.

And I'll be creating that part of a curriculum or an understanding to a potential applicant

that it's not you're going to be sitting around hitting a tennis ball to a person who's

going to be two-hour out.

And if that's just if you're looking at getting to the Wimbledon box, hey, you're wrong for

better.

What you're looking at to is create experiences, lifetime moments, that they're going to

look back and someday say, hey, remember that crazy tennis coach, I really learned a lot

more than just tennis.

Yeah, I think we all have that.

One of the things that we do for PTM recruitment, a lot of almost every PTM prospect that comes

in is sniffing around the idea of PTM.

Their number one concern is, what if I don't like it?

And I'm stuck.

I'm going to be a teaching pro and I have to be on the court doing it.

So the way we come back then is we take an annual trip down to the national campus in Orlando.

When I line up people over a three-day period, I line up John Embry, Scott Schoels, Martin

Black and Paul Rower, Chris Mikalowski, Craig Jones, they meet everybody, Leah when she was

there, some of their pros, Rita, the expert with little kids, they go over and they meet Satoshi

over with a high performance.

And they're going to meet probably 17 people who are doing tennis, they're in the tennis industry,

and two of the 17 are currently tennis pros.

The rest are people that were tennis pros that are now working for NJTL or they're working

with a high performance in fitness or they're working with, maybe they're still teaching

tennis because they're the path that they chose to stay on.

But that's the number one thing and we convert, that trip really converts for us because

kids come back and like, oh, okay, I freaking get it.

And we always tell the kids, even if you don't think you want it right now, there's probably

a good 50% of the kids in my PTN program that if they had to be honest, right now today,

college kids, they would say, I don't envision myself being an on-court pro for that many years.

But which kind of is a bummer because that's what we need to laugh, but what I always tell

them and all my friends tell them, that's fine.

But my strong recommendation is do that for a couple of years, minimal.

The skills you learn, the people ask that you'll build up because people love it when

you work.

There's nothing like it.

Teach tennis for a little while.

All those people you've met, Scott shows, you know, a ton of them.

They used to be teaching pros and now they move down and they're still in the tennis industry

because the tennis industry is big.

This isn't you teaching, you know, women's teams and little kids for the next 50 years, you

can go have lots of options.

We know plenty of people that have done, oh, yeah, I taught for a few years, you know,

out of college.

But all the time.

Yeah.

And so when I can show them that, look, it's not just, PTN doesn't just mean, PTN means professional

tennis management means you're, you're getting the tennis industry.

The most common thing to do in the tennis industry and where those are the biggest need right

now is tennis teaching professionals.

But beyond that, you can do this and this and this and this and this.

And they just meet all these people.

They meet Jason Gobert, taking over to Florida, US, Florida, USTA, which is like right next

to the campus and they meet all those people.

Wow, there are 18 people working here for the Florida section of the USDA.

What do you do?

You do digital marketing.

What do you do?

And they're like, man, this is like an industry here.

I can maybe do, if I don't, I won't be stuck is what I want them to take away from them.

Yeah.

Well, and you're, and that's one of the things I like that.

We have a lot of conversations amongst ourselves, obviously, but also in the podcast and it's

fun to talk to guys like you that we don't usually have somebody on here that we look at and

say, oh my gosh, we completely disagree.

Like that happens so rarely with it.

The people that get to the point that where we are in our careers, that we've seen enough

that we get what's going on.

We see the pain points in the industry and try to figure out, how do we get together

with the people that we know and the people that are interested in tennis for tennis is

sake.

Tennis itself, not just my career or how do I get the next thing?

And there's a time for that.

But for tennis, tennis for tennis sake and to make it better.

And I think that's a great scenario that we've had plenty of ways to talk to people.

And this podcast specifically gives us a chance to do that, to talk to people like you

and say, okay, what would you do?

And that leads me into kind of typically my last question that I ask before I let you talk

about whatever you want if you had anything specific other than yourself or us to talk about

is my king of tennis question because it's, we've got some experience.

We're not asking, we're not asking a starting out pro.

We're not asking somebody that doesn't know what's going on.

You've got a global reach.

You've got a global understanding and you've got your credentials are impeccable.

So if there was someone other than John McEnroe that we might actually pick for king of tennis

and that's just my personal choice.

But if you were king of tennis, is there, do you have any ideas?

Is there anything one thing you would change?

Is there a direction you would go?

I have two thoughts I've come to.

I think the first one is just because this is the space I live in.

I'm a coach developer.

I used to do that for the USDA.

I don't do that anymore.

But I've been a coach developer.

I've got thousands of people that subscribe to tennis.

I TV and I have my own little army of customers.

And I love hearing from them when they get through Sunday.

Every Sunday we put out new content and they go, hey, I love that.

So I would put a lot of energy into coach education and increasing the base, which is a lot

of what we talked about in this podcast so far.

So I would keep doing all that.

I would probably, if I had the USDA's budget, I would literally create programs that go

after all these high school players and help high school coaches.

There's a lot of high school coaches that are pretty, you know, it's a weird mix in Michigan.

There's high school coaches that don't play tennis, but a lot of school is in Michigan.

If you want to be the high school tennis coach in your teacher, you get first right in refusal.

So even if Jorge Capacini comes in, I'll give it to a total beginner, which is fine.

We have coaches that need a lot of help because they don't even know tennis.

And then we have other coaches who are master professionals working in the club, but they also

coach, you know, so is a huge discrepancy.

You don't see quite as much discrepancy in the teaching profession.

That's already at a club, but you do at the high school level.

So that's one thing I would do a lot, everything I could to help out high school coaches.

At the pro level, okay?

You know, everybody talks about, you know, what's going on?

American tennis and the men's tennis.

I wouldn't have, I wouldn't even be that interested in that.

I'd probably assign someone else to do that thing because that's not what floats my boat.

Sure, I wanted to have an American Grand Slam champion.

I'd love to have that.

I have a history way back in high performance.

Again, kids pretty high.

I'm not an expert at what it takes to get in the top 50, frankly, even if I was, I wouldn't

want to spend my energy in that because that's what I'm going to do.

Travel the world and not be with my wife.

You know, so I want to have a job where I go home every night.

We call that rule number five.

Well done.

It's a tough nut to crack, but I think, you know, the number one concern, if I was to

Zarr, the king is, I think there's a real problem that tennis.

We had this tennis, COVID boom, right?

Where all these clubs have, a ton of people have entered the club and the data shows at all

usage and stuff like that.

I had that too.

So I talked to a lot of friends.

We had definitely an injuries.

Our budget went up the year of COVID, even though we were close for three months.

We have more people.

So I talked to coaches, pro-friends of mine from all over the world and they said, yeah,

we all had that.

Not everybody maintained those people.

So some club A did and club B didn't.

You know, I talked to club B.

What happened?

We're back to normal.

We're back to pre-COVID numbers.

I'm not.

I'm still at post-COVID numbers, even though hopefully COVID is gone out of our hair for a

while because when you go into club A, you might have had a crappy experience.

You know, lessons that aren't that good, a lot of standing around, a lot of coach talking

the whole time, not enough ball hitting.

And if that's the club you happen to live by, you went and tested it out.

Chances are you kind of slid out of there and you didn't love it.

But hopefully you went to Holland, Michigan and you went to my club and you experienced

great all these new COVID people.

And there was great lessons and there was lots of options and you would play opportunities

and the coaches were fun and you're like, hey, that's it.

And they're still there.

So even though most clubs experience the COVID boom, about 50% of them is what I'm gathering

and maintaining it and the other 50% are kind of like all those people are falling off.

We didn't impress them enough to keep them in the game.

And no surprise is the clubs with the most educated pros and the most, you know, it's

really the pros.

No one said, well, I'm sorry, but they really like the towels and the locker rooms, so that's

what kept them.

No, it's all about the instructor.

Yeah.

So, you know, if I'm a club owner, man, this is what's so paradoxically pros probably don't

get paid but they're worth overall.

I'm sure some do and some areas very regional and all that.

But yeah, that's the thing I would consider myself with is trying to grow the number of coaches

and make them good.

You know, when I say I make someone good, I'm not saying make them good so they know all

the sports science stuff it gets at the next standpoint.

Screw that, dude.

I'm saying right here, get good from two, five to four, five.

You do that.

You'll be a well-paid pro.

And that's what our country needs, frankly.

Well, there you have it.

We want to thank Rejovenate for the use of the studio.

Be sure to check out the Rejovenate Wellness is a journey podcast at rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

And then we'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

I'll see you in the next episode of Rejovenate.com/rejovenate.

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