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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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