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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the GoTennis! Podcast,

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And now let's get into our recent conversation

with Nathan Singleton.

Nathan coaches in the Dunwoody area of Metro Atlanta

and offers online tactical content

at firstserveuniversity.com.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

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Coach Nathan, I will not ask our typical,

who are you and why do we care question?

'Cause we already care about you

because you are a contributor.

So I will change it a little bit

and I will ask who are you and why should everybody

that doesn't already know you care?

Well, I suppose everybody will care.

So, I won't go that far.

But I will say that I am a pretty much a homegrown

Dunwoody tennis player played around here

in the neighborhoods, Winter Hall,

some exposures to Doni Country Club

for a short amount of time.

And then Blackburn Tennis Center

played some out to there.

I went to Dunwoody High School,

played there, varsity tennis.

And then by some sheer miracle,

the coach down the street at Georgia Fremader

thought I had potential to play on his team.

And so while I was duly enrolled still in high school,

I got a scholarship to play for two years at GPC,

which of course now is Georgia State Fremader College.

And did a little bit of some semi-pro training

until I got into coaching

and wanted to help players with their games

and then fell in love with the tactical piece of tennis.

So I'm a tennis tactical specialist.

So a little bit different from your average coach

in the neighborhood, I specialize

in developing people's brains.

I like the way you put that.

And yes, those that have heard the podcast

before and paid attention to your tips

that you offer and the advice that you share,

it is tactically specific.

And in that world saying, hey, you come in,

you want to help me how to think my way to victory.

I think it's one of the phrases that you use,

which I really appreciate when people put some time

into how to describe what they do.

'Cause a lot of tennis coaches come in

and they say, I'm a really great tennis coach.

You should take lessons from me.

But if anybody ever asks why,

I don't know that they're gonna have an answer.

I think that's one of the things you do well is,

well, here's how.

This is what I like to do.

And you've got your online system as well

at firstserveuniversity.com,

which we will talk about in a second.

But as you just described your origin into tennis,

you weren't like many of the rest of us coaches

that had other jobs first.

You went from college to maybe thinking

about professional tennis right into coaching, right?

I did, yes.

And my background probably is similar background

to tennis players is I just watched it on TV first

and then was outside of my house one day

after watching Roger Federer play at Wimbledon

and found this old racket

and one of our broken down bands,

it was like we had one,

you know those ones that you get from like Goodwill?

- Yeah. - I don't know

grip on and they like massive 110 in shed.

And grabbed it and picked up a dead tennis ball

and started hitting against the wall.

But mom was like you're gonna loosen the mortar

on the house and bring it down.

So we're gonna get you some lessons.

(laughing)

- I love that origin story, Bobby.

We talk about that a lot where it's either

I went to a professional tournament and I saw it

and I thought oh my gosh, that's amazing.

I wanna do that.

Or like me trying to get the rabbit ears on the television

just right so I could watch the guys play Wimbledon

and really realizing again, how cool is that?

I wanna be like that.

How do I do that?

Where do I go?

And then stepping outside with whatever racket

we find in the garage and hitting up against the wall.

I love that origin story and then hey, parents finally say

you know what, the kid loves it.

So Nathan, you provide tips and advice in a tactical way.

It's one of the things you do for us on the podcast

and we put those out every month

and those are extremely valuable.

And from a tip point of view,

it's just a little bit of a reminder.

One of the ways I like to think about it is

this is something on a Thursday morning

when I get in my car, I'm gonna go into my tennis match.

I just wanna put myself into a mindset.

It's not gonna be maybe life changing every piece

of advice any coach gives, but it's just to get me

in that mindset.

So to get you in the mindset, how do we talk tactical?

That's gonna be different from technical and physiological

and all the other things tennis coaches talk about.

So talk about that specialty for yourself.

- What's so refreshing about tactical training

is that once you understand the patterns of play,

you really don't have to relearn it.

It's not like missing a forehand for four years

because you had an injury or traveled or had a family

or you know, decided you weren't gonna play anymore

'cause you got burned out and then came back

and you have to you know, restructure your stroke again.

With tactics, once you learn it,

you have it for life.

It's the chest of tennis and I really hope that tennis

has more of that in the training, especially of juniors

so that when they get to higher levels,

they don't have to learn it then, they already have it.

Kind of like some of the really nice soccer clubs

or I say football clubs from overseas

that train the kids in the tactics early.

So by the time they get to the league,

they've already learned all that.

So it's just doing it at a faster pace for them.

- That makes a lot of sense.

And Bobby, I know you got a bunch of questions.

Bobby likes to play in the business of who we talk to.

So Bobby, I know you got a lot of questions

but I wanna kick it off for Bobby.

Bobby, you're gonna start as you usually do,

which is so, when you're coaching,

where is it, how does everybody get in touch with you?

Because Bobby runs Windomir Club incoming.

But Bobby, I know you wanna jump into how

and where Nathan coaches and all that.

- Well, I wanna open up Pandora's.

I wanna see if we're thinking on the same lines.

I wanna know, first of all, Nate,

what was the impetus behind the name of your company,

first serve tennis?

- First serve university.

- First serve university, I'm sorry.

- Yeah, the first serve university,

it came from realizing that I felt like a brain surgeon

in a way and so I was like, well,

you have to go to a program to learn that,

to be able to get your certification

to become a brain surgeon.

And it can be a really involved process to get there.

And so I said, ah, university.

And then of course, you can't start anything

without a serve in tennis.

So I said, oh, first serve university.

And as well, I'm serving the public in a way.

So it has dual meanings and it came together.

And I was like, oh, that was nice.

Also, it was like, what are the only domains

that was open?

- It was.com, right?

- That means that I thought about the role, right?

We kinda find it.com on the name.

It's tough to do.

So you just take whatever was available and stuff.

- No, 'cause I know, I mean, when I'm coaching,

obviously I harbor, you know,

matches are one, you can argue it all you want,

but statistically speaking, by first serve success

and how you return on the second serve.

So I was like, well, it's a great place to start

because it's the most important start.

You know, we make excuses,

oh, Pete Sanford was great, but he had a great serve.

- So what's different than having a great serve,

than having a great forehand?

You know, if you're gonna have a great shot,

I'd wanna start with the serve.

It's the most important shot in tennis.

So that's all I didn't know.

You know, if you were hitting them right out of the gate,

listen, first serve is everything.

So here it is.

We're not gonna lie about it.

(laughing)

So where do you hang your hat?

Where are you guys located?

- I'm at Donut North Driving Club.

It's a Chumantennis Club here in North of Donut,

North Atlanta.

So I teach all my lessons out of there.

I travel at times, not much anymore.

I like having people come to me.

One thing I hope in the future for tennis coaches

that we don't have to travel as much,

and every other sport or mastery you come to the master.

You don't, master doesn't come to you.

(laughing)

And I believe that coaches may be

are tired of trekking their cars all over the city,

especially to Atlanta,

trying to teach tennis lessons to make a living.

I like to make it a norm.

But we'll get to that question later,

but I would hope that for more coaches here in the industry.

- Well, no, but that is,

and I think it's very specific to Atlanta.

And I think that's something that we have to deal with.

We're a lot to blame for it, of course,

'cause we made ourselves accessible,

but I think you're right.

And you lose control,

and it's hard to set a culture if this isn't your house.

You can't go to somebody else's house

and tell them to clean up,

but if they come to your house, clean up.

- Exactly.

- So absolutely.

And how long you've been at?

How long you've been doing it?

'Cause you're still, I mean, we met, God almighty.

How long has it been already since we met?

- Wow, so that was probably 2016 when we met.

- Is it that long already?

We were at Atlanta Country Club?

- Yes.

- No, no, no.

- That's hard-firing in itself.

- I remember Bobby came and helped us

with like, and he was doing something like this.

- The Miyagi!

(laughing)

- I'm done properly, it is indefensible.

I was like, "This guy's the personality."

- We get asked up here.

Do you guys teach that for hand?

And I'm like, "No, that's just something that,

but now everybody's PC world, I'm more careful,

but that's from Karate Kid.

That was Mr. Miyagi, he taught Daniel Sun that move.

And I was like, "That's a lot of people's forehands too."

So yes, I love the Miyagi.

It's still thriving, I'm proud to say,

that the Miyagi still lives in North Georgia.

- And Bobby, do you remember where you and I met?

- I do.

I don't know where, I remember where were we.

Where did we took our USPTA exam?

- At Land Academy Country Club.

- It wasn't Land Academy Country Club.

Is it really that we did it?

Tom Daggers with those dead,

I'll never get over Tom Trump and us like that.

He played, he made us hit with Clay Court balls

on hard courts and then Zoyntos on touch shots.

I'm like, "Really?

"Where were you using red dots?"

How are we supposed to hit a perfect lob?

- With these, that was, yeah.

- In key balls you brought up.

- Yeah, it was also at Land Academy Country Club.

- Wow.

- And that shot along the way to see.

- Yeah, say hi to Cam and Adriana.

- Tom just tested my memory to see how I'm like,

"You're orange and sorry, same exact orange and story,

"except my idol was Jimmy Connors just 30

"some odd years before, that's all, you know,

"but same idea.

"Roger was not born yet, so that's good for Roger."

But same thing, bang it on the garage door,

so certainly appreciate that, but I laughed yet.

This year, Roger took Jimmy,

that's a little bit of a different time period,

but yes, we started the same way.

- Yeah, I like those origin stories,

'cause I think that's how we also can encourage the kids.

And we're all interested in bringing in new tennis players

and bringing in an adult is one thing as a new player.

But if we, you know, hook 'em young,

if you can get the kids interested,

and it really is one of those things

where the kids learn a lot from watching tennis

on television, they may never get hooked,

but they might learn what 15, 30, and 40 are,

which can be confusing for a new player.

So you'll be able to watch and encourage your kid

to go home and watch television,

which sounds counterintuitive to a sporting coach,

to say go home and watch TV,

but in this case, they actually get to learn a lot.

And also sending them to a computer.

So in this case, I want to ask,

is your first sort of university,

is it targeted adults, juniors, is it for everybody?

Talk us through first sort of university.

- I would say it's for whatever tennis fanatic,

which there's some of us out there,

that really wants to find ways to break through

to the next level.

So all of us have had that in our careers as players is,

we feel like we've hit a plateau.

We've polished the forehand, we've polished the backhand.

Hopefully we've got our serve down, like Bobby said,

sometimes that's for the last 10 minutes of the training.

And then we've played a lot of tournaments.

So we have that match play under our belt,

and we just feel like we can't break through,

we keep getting beat by the same players,

we don't know why, I would be that person that comes in

and say, have you considered how to structure your points

in a certain way to give you a chance to beat these players?

Because a lot of it is just learning how to play certain players.

They frustrated us to get us under a scam,

we don't know how to deal with it.

And this is for anybody that wants to learn that.

So that could be a 11 year old junior

that's looking to break through and get a raking.

I even worked with a gentleman,

he was in his 60s when I met him,

and he travels around the country,

still plays national tournaments.

So shout out to Captain Kaplan,

hopefully he doesn't mind me dropping his name

on the recording here,

but he came to me, I met him on a hitting app actually,

and he was like, now you're too good with your coach me.

And so we started together, and he's in his 60s,

now almost in his 70s, and he still trains

and plays national tournaments.

And he said, the program that you gave me still works today,

and I had to lose for two years straight,

but now I'm beating everybody.

So.

(laughs)

- We're good for him that he's stuck it out,

because in our instant gratification society,

a lot of people don't realize we got to take a step back sometimes

to take those couple steps forward that we're looking for.

- It's all about the slow burn.

We need to teach that more, especially with juniors,

is we make it into a force fire for kids.

We see a little bit of potential, and then we like,

we pack their schedule with tennis,

and so that's why we have so many players

that we probably never got to see,

probably some of the best tennis players

that ever touched the sports, we will never get to witness

on live television, just because they were burnt out.

There's too much tennis, too fast,

and by the time they get to the teenage years,

they're gone, but like, I'd ever do this again.

And then we get to play like an out of something.

And they're like, where did you play?

Oh, I played a little junior tennis,

or phenomenal players on the court.

So it's all about the slow burn.

- And you're right, the statistics bear out.

I mean, it's absurd, the percentage of division one college

tennis players that one state are done,

never pick up a tennis racket again.

And to be division one, you obviously had to dedicate

a good deal of your childhood to that endeavor,

and to never do it again.

It's sad, that it was so much pressure,

and that's why I love, I'm with you.

I'm a big tactical guy,

'cause that's the creative part to me.

The ground strokes allow you,

it's like, and I'm not a musician, I'm not an artist,

but you learn how to do it a certain way,

then that's when your artistry takes in.

And I feel the same way about tennis.

Yes, you have to get some basics of fundamentals,

but then that allows you to expand the court and see.

And also, detactically, if you hit the ball in the right place,

the ball tends to come back to a certain area more often.

So you'd find that tactically might help you

with your ground strokes,

because you might find yourself hitting a forehand,

for instance, more often than a backhand,

just because of your tactics.

So I love the, and I love the analogy of chess,

because I use it all the time, how many, you know,

you play chess, how often do you win with a pawn?

The pawn can set it up,

but you're kill shots, you're rook in your queen,

and understand your rook's got limitations.

So, you know, if you're really going

for everything you want to queen, so I love it.

So, when you get somebody,

how do you get them to drink the Kool-Aid?

How do you start to sit there?

It's okay, hitting the ball 100,000 miles an hour

is wonderful, but you know what, how about this?

Where do you start with them?

Well, you have to start with what they love to do the most.

So, is it that they are enjoying a golden retriever,

where they just love running back and forth,

like a Gale-Mom Fee, who's still playing so well

into his 30s, he's 38, and he's built different.

He wins basically on a war of attrition.

He gets to every ball, he uses his speed,

and then every once in a while, I really hope,

that's my dark horse in Australia,

and open his Open-A-Seed Gale, go all the way,

is if you learn how to get on the front foot,

when you have the opportunities and go for

his forehand is just as big as anybody else's,

serve as well.

So, if he could stop playing in the back court,

fetching the ball and starts to move forward,

I think it's good to probably help him with that,

and he really could be a strong player.

So, it's just finding what each player is good at.

Are they artists, or they have great touch?

You can use that.

Better was one of those players,

great touch of Bublik is the same way,

as a great touch and feel, and then once you find that,

then you start to put a tactical plan for them together.

So, they can just, often as they can.

What Bonfist just became the oldest ATP Tour winner

with that win last week, right?

So, he's, and in a great, like you said,

and I used to scream at Chang about this,

being five foot nine, you know, the idea of,

he wasn't even five foot nine, but a grinder,

and I'd be like, yeah, but if you imagine,

like you said, as good as you are on defense,

if you hit five more balls off that front foot,

during the match, would that make a difference?

I always use the Agacy.

Agacy was certainly not what you'd call a classic ballier,

but he always had one of the highest win percentage rates

at the net because his dawn approach shots were so good.

You know, to get people to,

where tennis matches inherently are so close,

especially, you know, as far to total number of points,

your fight over the analytics, say, 10% of the points

are gonna be the, you know, is what difference.

So, if somebody wins, obviously, wins 50.1,

they're probably winning the match,

and that's scary about tennis,

because you can also lose more points,

but there's sometimes, you know, to convince them,

there's a method to this madness,

and I'm always afraid when you got to deal with the mind,

so you must have a great deal of patience to do what you do.

- Well, you really can excite players

when you tell them that you can help them break down

somebody mentally, and there's no more gratifying feeling

for me than to be able to predict what you're going to do.

- Yeah.

- It's like the dad that fights like the five year old son,

and he's like punching and like the dad's like blocking it

like this, 'cause he knows what's gonna happen.

Like, there's something that just refreshes your soul

to be able to do that, and not many players know how to do it.

They don't, and specifically what you were talking about

earlier, Bobby, is those points that really win matches,

of approach shots like Agacy, it's all about doing it

at the right time, you probably heard this,

you probably about Agacy figured out

what Beck was used to do with this tongue.

- Yes, it's the Cal.

- And so he had the high that he knew,

until the break points, and that's when he used his information

to be able to capitalize, and that's what separates

good players from fantastic players, is knowing when to do

what you want to do to win.

So so many people burn out early in the game,

and then they lose because they lose on the key points,

which are the 30, 40s and 30, 15s, so it's teaching them

how to break down and match that way as well.

- I love it, I love it.

But again, you guys are both of you, don't remember,

but when Ivan Lando was coming out,

he had the crushing forehand, and everybody was afraid

to play his forehand, and for two consecutive years

that the US open Conner's beat him,

because Conner's attacked his forehand.

Now, granted Conner's was left, his best shot

was his two handed back, and so they were going

really mono or mono, but mentally he broke Lando's best shot,

and Lando didn't have a reply yet.

He was too young, he hadn't gone out on the journey,

and Conner's was able to beat him by doing the,

I'll take it even further, that's how Muhammad Ali beat

George Foreman.

You know, George Foreman's best punch and said,

"I'm still here," and George Foreman had never seen that

before, and Muhammad Ali, who everybody was like,

"Old, gonna lose in three rounds."

He ended up knocking out George Foreman,

because he just got in his head, and the head is the biggest muscle,

so if you can break that, you're in good shape.

- And George foreshade the same an adult,

people were scared of his forehand too.

(screaming)

People just like feared it, so they were trying

to go to his back and all the time.

What they didn't realize, they were giving him

a lot of good practices.

- Yeah, and then backhand, and they probably forgot

that he's a ridey by now.

- He's riding, yeah.

- It's pretty strong, but when George figured out,

I'll just go into his forehand with my powerful backhand,

and then open it up to his backhand,

that's when he started to crush Nadal,

then other people figured it out,

where he would beat him too.

- I'd like to be Roger, I'd love to talk to Roger,

and say, "Wouldn't you have been just curious

if you unleashed that backhand three years earlier?"

You know, where he finally said, "I'm gonna go."

You know, I'm not winning by slice,

and so I'm gonna, like you said,

it got better in those last two years

at the Australian when he won.

It was like, holy cow, you imagine if he was doing this

the entire time, he's winning, you know,

blatant his career with essentially a new shot.

And that is wonderful.

Like you said about Monthes,

who's still playing after all those years,

still find and joy, and still trying to get better.

And I don't think that ever ends,

and I try to tell my, 'cause I wasn't traditional,

I only played tennis, I played every sport,

and it was always, if he ever catches up.

And that's why I still excited about the game.

I love to hit the ball.

You know, in my adventure, still hitting the ball,

and I still wanna get better.

Now, I didn't have the same background,

I played other sports, but it's still interesting to me.

And by far, the most interesting sport to me,

you know, I don't play any of the other sports I used to,

but if I play something, I'll go shoot hoops.

But that's it.

That's the only other thing that I will still do,

and I spent more time on a baseball field

than I ever did anything else.

But tennis to me just opens up so many things for you.

And if you get to the opportunity to fight,

and my coach was all about tactics,

he used to call it the theory,

and he was probably so far ahead of his time,

but where I'm like you, and you're trying to,

well, you know where the ball's going,

and I say, yes, I do.

Isn't that a big advantage?

Wouldn't you like that advantage?

To know where the ball's gonna go?

It helps, it certainly does, yeah.

- I hope that more players understand,

as we talk about earlier about the chess board,

it's not only knowing what pieces to move,

but also how to use the whole board.

And a lot of parts of the court just aren't used enough,

and that's also something I help people with,

is realize like, hey, but why don't you stay in here?

You don't have to stay in here,

they're at hash mark, I think,

I'm one of the tips we shared on the podcast.

You can stand all the way over to the aisle if you want to.

Use the whole court when you're playing,

like a good pitcher, don't let him know it's coming.

Right, just comforted uncertainty.

I've had the pleasure, and this one really got me

to really fall in love with tactics,

but I got to be on court with Louis Kaye.

I can't not take now, he works for the LTA,

and does a lot of work with the Brit,

with Jamie Murray and all of them,

and that opened up doubles for me,

and then a beautiful mind, which is Craig Sicken-Rally.

He's, I think, somewhere in the Carolina's now,

and he's pretty to himself,

but one of the most brilliant people

when it comes to singles tactics, so.

- He has to be here.

- Well, he went, did you work with Craig?

Was he still at Atlanta, I thought it's up,

and you started?

- I mean Atlanta, I come from the zero,

I don't know, I don't believe he was there when I was there,

but I, Marley Woods is another dear friend of mine,

and she helped me connect with Craig for a brief period of time,

and I got to talk to him and get some of his insight.

That man is a, he's a brain.

Like, I'm near compared to what he can do,

but I try to say up a little bit what he has.

So thanks Craig, and thanks Louis,

if you're listening, I appreciate you all,

you're helping players all over the world.

- God, I haven't spoken to Craig in a while in a long time.

(laughs)

- He would, but he was here for a while, and Marley, of course.

Marley came up and worked after she left.

She came up and worked up here a little bit.

Is she still up in the border of Tennessee,

commuting too far, or do you wanna talk about,

how old is her daughter now?

There you go.

I mean, her child, that's, that'll tell us how long it is,

'cause she was a baby back then, so.

- Marley is a woman that has traveled probably more than

any of us ever will for kids.

(laughs)

I think she's traveled all over the world for multiple years.

She's probably been on the court with almost everybody,

and just loves learning.

I've never met a person that loves learning more than Marley,

so shout out to Marley Woods, too.

A big part of the reason that I have the information I do.

- And under the third confidence that she did.

- We hear that a lot.

We hear Marley's name a lot.

And Nathan, before I ask you the King of Tennis question,

which is my favorite question,

I know you wanted to talk about,

I'm gonna ask you the leading question, right?

You wanted to talk about the state of instruction,

and I wanna kinda ask what you mean by that,

because we wanna talk about how is this gonna lead to

better players in the future, like,

where are we from a coaching scenario?

I know that was a discussion you wanna have,

so I wanna give it to you and say,

what exactly do you mean by that,

and where do you wanna take that discussion?

- Well, we're losing a lot of players to pickable.

(laughs)

Right now, that's part of it.

I won't touch on that today.

I'm really hoping that the industry will change

in the way that we collaborate more,

especially here in the city of Atlanta.

I would really enjoy seeing more instruction,

where you have two coaches in the court with one child,

especially in private lessons.

So often it's like one coach and one player.

There's a lot of benefit,

and you see it on the tour all the time,

and probably have more of the means to be able to do that,

to be able to have one coach in the back talking to him,

given tips, one coach may be hitting with them,

or feeding to them,

and so having that dual instruction going on would be nice.

And then, like I said earlier,

integrating tactical awareness

and understanding patterns of play early on with players.

And to remember, the kids can handle it.

Sometimes I feel like in the industry,

and I'll only speak through the city of Atlanta,

is we dumb it down because we don't think

that the players can understand it.

The kids are resilient, they can learn anything.

So trusting that they can soak in the information

and take it to heart,

and they may not be listening all the time,

but even if it's one or two tips that they grasp,

and they can use it in a match,

and they're like, whoa, it actually worked,

then they'll come back, hey, give me more, give me more.

And so I'm hoping that that is something that will change.

And then being able to,

when we talk about this a lot,

Sean and I is, and Bobby as well,

is being able to know that the player

may not be with you for life.

So if you know that you're specialised

tact is like mine, I'm a tactical person,

I can teach all the other strokes and techniques,

we all know that, but if I know that somebody's a specialist

in a certain category, and I know that they have availability,

I'm a send them to that person.

So sharing more often would really help the industry

in a big way.

OK, so I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit.

How do we convince others of this?

Because you're speaking the GoTennis language.

Because what we do is bring everybody together

and we share resources.

And as an example, I run Bobby's 12 and under.

I have a specialty, I'm good with little kids.

Bobby doesn't have the time to do it.

But as most tennis coaches are gonna say,

well, I can coach every single thing,

and I'm gonna make sure I make all the money.

As opposed to, let's bring it, let's expand the pie,

as opposed to trying to chop up a little bit.

How do we convince others that working together is OK?

We don't have to wear all the hats all the time.

It's a lack of information.

So any business person, like a real business,

Matt Rick will know that you will never make as much money

as you can all in your own.

And CEOs and founders, founders never

make the most amount of money if they retain

100% of their companies.

If they really want to grow, they always bring in outside people.

And they may have 20% or 30% of their companies.

But that's the way that they grow.

They bring other people in that have investment,

that have interest in the company,

and that's how you really grow something to be.

So if you're looking for money, it may happen slow,

but it's partnering with people.

That's the only way to really make something grow.

If you do it all alone, you're gonna burn out.

And then the whole industry that you have

or your little island is dependent upon you.

So if you're not able to coach, then all the cash flow stops.

But if you have partners in place,

and you can still have that passive income coming in,

because you're partnering with other people.

So it's just misinformation, I believe,

or lack of it for coaches in Atlanta.

So you all really want to make some more money

than partner with each other.

Bobby, can we just put him on a loop

and just play him on the YouTube channel, just loop him?

- You know, you get an amen out of me for that.

And that's exactly why nobody can grow their business.

Like you said, it's stagnated

because everybody wants their name on the marquee.

And I've always been a proponent of it and talked about it,

but then when I actually did it and found the right partners

to use, like you said, and forget about just the money aspect

of it, my God, does it make it more fun for everybody?

Because like Sean says, nobody wants to be coaching

their 12 and under because I am 12 and under.

So I'm gonna be the biggest distraction on the court.

So make me come down there for three minutes, say hello,

get the kids riled up and leave,

because you're gonna want me to leave,

'cause they're not gonna learn the Miyagi.

And that's good for last, but it's not really

improving their tennis.

So it's knowing where your strength is

and putting it in and saying that.

I couldn't agree more.

And as you said, that's what we're trying to do.

And I think the fun part about the journey we've taken

is finding the folks.

And it's still hard to land it because

hey, geography plays a role.

There's no question.

It's a big city.

It's not the easiest city to maneuver,

going east and west in this city would make you homicide.

And I truly believe that if I had to drive even more

than I do.

So it's tough, but I would love to see the big organizations,

you know, as we get more involved with the GPTA or,

you know, the US or whatever they're gonna become,

to do something like this, not just for the instructors.

This is one of my biggest gripes.

We get together on the top level

or the coaching level to share ideas.

Why don't we bring every, a lot of different coaches together?

I think that's why the Northside Hospital event

has been so successful throughout the years

because you bring in a lot of different people

with a lot of different knowledge for one day.

It should be done more.

I think it would be done more.

And hey, you're gonna make more money and be,

you're just gonna have a lot more fun doing it.

And it's gonna keep you fresh.

- Well, you are doing that right now with the Goat Tennis.

This has been good to see you and Sean partner up

and y'all can do more.

'Cause you can specialize in your area

and let the other person specialize in the area.

And then, you know, ask questions every once in a while.

I was like, I know he's got it.

Now I've got my part and we're better together.

- Absolutely.

I concur.

- Better together.

That's part of our tagline.

Better tennis together.

We still haven't figured out better racket sports together.

Like, not everything scales into racket sports.

- Doesn't flow.

- Doesn't always flow exactly.

All right, well Bobby got anything else for Nathan

before I hit him with King of Tennis?

- No, I have his phone number.

I'm trying to call him anytime.

- Oh good, we can call him.

He's one of us already, which is good, I know.

But we wanna make sure everybody's here.

- Obviously we can call him.

And one of the things I will mention,

I don't remember if this was there the first time

I maybe I just didn't check.

FirstServeUniversity.com for anybody that wants to check it out,

you can find it on our site if you forget what that is.

It's in our shop and there's a link to it.

It's 30 bucks a month and you've got a lot of content

on there, you've got a lot of videos

and a lot of tactical information.

Does that also come with access to you

or is it just the videos online?

What do those products look like real quick?

- It can and we're gonna do some big promos starting soon.

So you might see a little bit of a drop in that rate online

for how much it costs a month.

- Ooh, discounts.

- We're now at time.

(laughing)

- Yeah, so we wanna make it accessible to more people.

We see a lot of progress and a lot of good feedback

from the information.

So we wanna open it up to more people in Atlanta.

People like me growing up, I didn't have,

we didn't have a lot of money to be able to pay for tennis lessons.

So if I did, who knows, you all might have been seeing me

in the US open crack and I wasn't expecting.

Just know what I had that exposure,

but God knew that there's something better for me to do.

That being said, you can find it online

and yeah, sometimes access, if you all need help

and I'm in your area, like I said,

I don't like to travel anymore.

So if you can come to me, then I'm always open to meet

the players at least one time and we can record it

so they can have it for themselves.

And then also we have a sportswear company too.

If y'all wanna check that out, it's called the baller,

like the baller.

- Okay.

- See that, there's also sportswear line

that we got if y'all wanna get some of that merch.

- Yeah, and we saw the baller, I like that.

And we saw that online, is that you,

you say we have a sportswear company, is that your,

- Is it a family?

- Is it a partner?

- Family business.

- Family business, nice, okay.

Okay, yeah, support logo.

- We'll make sure there we go, support the Nathan family.

Which is part of the go tennis family.

So therefore you should also support them.

Aside from the self-serving comments.

All right, so Nathan, I appreciate your time

and we wanna ask obviously our favorite question,

which of course you know is coming,

which is the King of Tennis question.

And if you were King of Tennis,

is there anything you would do or change?

- Ooh.

- Anywhere in the world or just Atlanta, you can scale.

Is there anything you would do or change

if you were King of Tennis?

- If I ruled the kingdom, I would,

I would say there'd be more sharing of facilities for coaches.

So there's a lot of coaches that could do more good

if in their down times they would allow

some of the maybe independent contractors

be on their courts.

So like public parks that use their own by academies,

having them come in and being able to use their courts

would be really good.

And then I would have more coaches mixers

that people would come together and meet other coaches

in the area to do exactly what we talked about

and network and see who specializes and what.

Of course, tactical training and then,

I would raise the higher minimum rate.

I don't think there is a one for coaches at facilities

and clubs.

I would say that you have to pay coaches

at least this amount.

There's so much turnover here in the industry.

It seems like every two years your coach is leaving

because they're not getting paid enough

or the facility or club is not doing right by the coaches.

Sometimes you got bad coaches, they'd be let go.

But there's a lot of good ones out there

that should be paid their way in gold

and everyone benefits from having tenure in their coaches

and not having somebody new every time

to coach them on the court.

I like that.

So raising the pay, now, does that also raise

and I'm gonna pick in a little bit if you don't mind?

Because I always take these King of Tennis questions

and then I try to figure out how to actually

accomplish it.

Okay, this is all pie on the sky stuff.

But one of my jobs is how do I make it happen?

Raising paid is that also raised cost.

So most tennis coaches think hourly.

We think if I'm paying my coach 80 bucks for the hour,

that's the hour and that's what it costs the player.

If I'm working at a club, the club usually takes

a little bit of that.

So maybe I'm paying the club 80

and the coach gets paid 60 and the club takes 20.

If we raise what that coach makes,

are we talking about the club making less?

Are we talking about raising costs on the player?

Have you figured out how you might do any of this

or is this just snap your fingers and somehow it's magic?

Which is okay too.

I think it's okay.

Sometimes there's not an answer.

There is an answer to every question.

Here's an interesting concept and we'll kind of

conclude with this.

In certain Asian companies, if the club is not,

if the company's not doing well, let's say they see a drop in stock

and drop in performance, a drop in whatever it is.

They don't fire the employees.

They fire the CEO.

Because they say that it all starts with leadership.

So I believe that at some of these director positions

that are paying upwards of 80, 90,000,

maybe six figure price tags to be able to direct.

A lot of the people in the industry,

so this would be another thing I would change as king.

It would be to teach directors how to be stronger bosses

and mentors.

If you're in a director position, your job

should not just be to be kind of a lookout over the city

and just kind of like make sure all the pieces are moving.

You should be pouring into your pros,

teaching them what you know.

You got there for a reason.

And the industry suffers when we don't have that wisdom passed on.

And so I would take a little bit off the director's cut

and maybe make them earn a commission and say,

hey, if there's a bump in participation

and you get a bump as a director,

but there's a lot of people that are getting paid a lot to do

not much.

And I think that's why the director positions

are so coveted right now,

because you know, you can kind of just sit back in your lazy boy

and let the pros and the courts do all the work.

Hot take and I know that probably ruffles some feathers,

but it's the truth.

I love it.

And I'll ask Bobby, so Bobby, how's your lazy boy's reading it?

Hey, you know, I've worked for a living.

I'm doing a lot of directors, too.

And you know, and again, unfortunately,

we're speaking to somebody who drinks from the same ball

as us. You know, I'm a poor kid.

Finances were the same reason.

You know, I look at how much better I've gotten over the last 30

years. Well, I played more tennis than I ever did when I was

growing up.

You know, tennis was, at best, a two day a week sport,

when I was busy, you know, when I was playing it a lot,

because finances played such a big role.

So I will never stop a lot.

If a kid wants to keep going and I have the time,

I will never stop a lesson because I want them to walk out

of their fulfilled and feeling like, you know,

how do I get back?

And I think what Nate says and how do we implement it?

And of course, I always judge a good podcast,

a good conversation by what Pandora's Box, it opens,

and it goes back to and any alluded to it.

And we try to not to ruffle fans either,

but there is a lack of leadership in our industry.

And that lack of leadership hurts us.

Here's a way to stop it right away.

We talked about it.

Make a governing body so powerful or so respected.

That's not even so powerful.

Let's say, respect it that you call.

So when you're hiring that director,

you should go to that organization and say,

who would be the best fit for what we're trying to accomplish?

So we can continue to perpetuate a positive message

of doing what we're talking about here.

Because like you said, I'd rather have 10 people working

under me than two.

So I want it to be, and if you would think,

if I got 10, that means that a lot of people are playing tennis.

So we're covering a lot of bases like that.

So how do we get the organizations where, you know what?

If you're not, as we're doing with the GPTA,

if you're not a GPTA member, you should not

be hired in the Atlanta metro area.

That's the way, because now we're going to say that we have value,

and that's going to be a way to raise what we do.

And like Nathan said, if you don't do it,

then you get fired.

But if you're going to aspire to be within this organization,

you're going to aspire to try to grow the game mentor,

do all the things you're supposed to do,

which should make you the money.

Well, there's a ramification if you don't.

So like I said, I love when an answer brings up more questions.

So it's exciting.

And Nathan's young enough where he can keep it rolling

as I get closer and closer to retirement.

And one more quick second-hawk take would be that there's

a lot of phenomenal instructors that should never be directors.

I think you should pay those instructors that are very good on court.

They love it.

They live in the jungle.

And they love the jungle of teaching.

Let them be there and pay them their weight and gold

and have them mentor other coaches to be as good as they are.

Don't make them directors.

Absolutely.

A very specific position that requires

in the poor and to all people help other people get better.

So I think there's a lot of past great instructors

that have become directors and not to their own fault,

because there's not a lot out there for them.

They haven't been taught how to lead teams.

So they're telling you you need to leave better,

but they don't know how.

So there could be more even some of those governing bodies

to be able to teach directors how to pour into their people.

And also the idea that a great player translates

into a great mentor, great coach.

The greatest coach in the history of football played the cross.

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah.

The tennis, you say that, it's absurd.

You know, like, well, what do you mean?

His story, I think, if somebody can correct me,

I would say the only champion that really maintained that culture.

And he played-- and this is way before Y'all's time--

but Bill Russell, to me, is the Boston Celtics,

went from being the leader of the team

where he coached a couple years.

But he even transitioned, I think.

And he's a little bit-- I was alive.

But beyond when I was cognizant, I

think he was a player coach the first couple years.

So he was able to continue to set the example.

But I agree.

The biggest problem in our culture, a great salesman

does not make a great sales manager.

A great coach does not make a great director.

It's a different set.

A great player does not necessarily make a great coach.

You're right.

It's a different skill set.

And it's the easy way out.

And again, that's where I think the governing bodies,

if there was a pathway, we could facilitate it a little bit

where people felt comfortable with a first phone call.

So I would love to see that as a continuation as well

from what you're saying in Nathan.

So again, that's what-- I love it because we've just

opened up more questions.

We've probably opened up, like you said,

a pan-dorers botanical.

You've got the cat-a-words, but now people talk about it.

But it needs a discussion needs to be had.

You are doing so great here.

Hopefully a lot of people come and tap into what you are doing.

This is such a great way for people to get good information.

We appreciate your contribution.

We appreciate everything you do with us.

And we're going to keep it going.

Evidently, we're going to have to do this again and follow up.

Say, we're just going to have to do a King of Tennis

follow-up.

And we'll take that out.

Nathan, I appreciate your time.

Bobby is always--

We will do it again soon.

And thank you, sir.

We'll see you next time.

Thanks, Nathan.

Thanks, Jonathan.

Great to see you, brother.

See you, Bobby.

Well, there you have it.

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