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You’ll notice in some of the videos I appear to be talking to subscribers of my website, but just ignore that because the content is the same that I want to have you watch.
Below is a short tutorial video we created for you that shows how to navigate this Execution Plan.
Many Teaching Professionals do not have a definable Teaching System they use to teach their students. Instead, the pros give individual lessons that are not connected to the previous lesson and pros from the same staff all have their own preferred teaching methodologies and language that they like to use and that is different from the other pros on the same staff.
This is no way to organize a lesson program at a club where there is more than one pro. We like to think of our teaching system as our common language. It has 4 parts, but each pro can use his own personal coaching style within the 4 parts so they can customize their delivery. This is important because too much direction makes the best pros feel like they are micromanaged and cannot teach using their preferred style.
The main reason to have a definable teaching system is so that the members of the club can all receive consistent messaging from ALL the pros at the club. It is the cornerstone of every great lesson program I have seen.
Our Teaching System has 4 areas that we want all our pros to use when they teach our players. These include…
In the video below, I will show you more details about how we use our teaching system.
Many Teaching Professional struggle to modify their tennis drills so the SAME drill can be used across a wide range of skill levels. The result is they throw out many drills that they have labeled to narrowly as being for HP players or for Beginner players.
The secret is that if you apply 6 filters (questions) that we use to modify all our drills, you will be able to add to the total number of drills in your arsenal.
The 6 filters (questions) we ask ourselves about any drill when thinking about modifying it are…
To help you better understand how we modify tennis drills, we have created the video below that shows me making several modifications to one of our most popular drills.
Most of you will be playing the role os the assistant pro at the Academy. One of your most important jobs is to make the lead pro look good.
Listen carefully, I am NOT saying that assistant means young or inexperienced. I believe anyone who is not leading the class is an assistant pro, even if they might be the boss or a more experienced pro.
The video below will show you the important things that you MUST do when you are acting as the assistant pro (not leading the class).
1) General practice: This is the stuff we do with the masses. It is really good and covers all area of the game.
2) Specific Practice: This is when we TARGET a certain area of a player’s game and ramp up the REPS they get in this area. At the Academy, we offer this in the form of our project sets, but only to the summer-long players.
These players will be brought indoors on certain afternoons to work on one of the 5 Play Situations they have identified as important to them.
Bob Cawood will lead this effort for us again this summer. You should know what this is about in case you get questions.
Click Here to See the Project Sheet Document
This is essential for a smooth day; please do not be late, even by a few minutes. If you need to put on sunscreen, fill your water jug, or take that last phone call, etc… Do it such that you can be at the flagpole by 10:15 am.
To keep the payroll simple, we will not be paying you for these 15 minutes, but we will pay you for the 30 minutes during lunch. You will end up getting paid for 5 hours a day.
You are expected to be on your court by 10:25 am to greet the players and get them warming up. We’ll do the same warm-up drill every day. Three on each side, rotate out if you miss a shot, groundies.
You will be doing 2 main types of COACHING while working the Academy.
The more important thing is #2 because that is where the real learning happens for our players.
We recognize that when you are a young coach you may not feel like you have enough knowledge to impart to the players BUT you can also stay engaged by saying something after EACH POINT.
This might seem like an impossible task but you can always default to encouragement if you are not comfortable with giving technical advice.
You are expected to attend and you WILL be paid.
This is when we will go over the Friday tournament pairings as well as the next week’s court assignments.
The Rain decision between going inside or outside at the BEGINNING of the day will happen by 10 am.
If it starts to rain AFTER we have started outside, we will just move indoors.
When this happens, it gets hectic FAST. I need all of us to chip in and help with the transition indoors.
If we decide to have an off-court station on rainy days (like TV or other) then please be flexible as we may need to have you switch jobs that you are doing that do. You may even be asked to play.
Most of the Hope varsity players are already on a half-work half-play format.
Just be prepared to play in for match play if we have odd numbers and note that you might have to play with really inexperienced players.
Just a heads up to be ready to battle at all times. If you are assigned to play a match with weak players, we expect you to play NICE and NOT crush them.
The only exception is if you have a leadership role and will be needing to communicate with Jorge.
Everyone else should keep your cell phone under the spine near your rest area.
You are welcome to use your cell phones while we are on a water break.
On occasion, I might ask some of you to keep your cell phone on you if I need to connect with you while I am away from the Academy.
Coach’s Eye: I would like for all of you that have a smartphone to download this app. It costs money but I will reimburse you.
In the past few years, we have had more situations where some of you have the opportunity to teach players outside the club. Here are my expectations with that:
The driving policy for the players is as follows:
NEW in 2018 – Hope is now requiring any of our coaches that transport players to be registered through the College. I’ll tell you more about that at our face-to-face meeting.
In case we need to go to HC for match play overflow – The kids that drove themselves to the academy may drive themselves to HC along with anyone else that they drove to the academy that morning.
Players may not take anyone else in their car. That means the rest of us must take everyone else in our cars.
I need the pros to keep your cars semi-clean in case we need you transport players.
The cost is $6 (not $5) and it includes a sandwich, chips and a beverage.
The beverage will be served to only to people that ordered lunch and the pros even if the pro did not order lunch. It will be a 5-gallon jug of a punch.
If you want lunch, you will need to sign-up for it at the check-in desk before 10:30 a.m. each morning.
The pros nor players may not leave the site for lunch but will be paid for the half hour lunchtime. I’m expecting that during this time you’ll be “hanging” with the players or preparing for the afternoon session. Lunch is from 1-1:30 p.m.
Please be ready to assist with lunch set up as needed.
We offer players in the daytime Academy an option for our Etcheberry Speed & Agility class.
This class is optional and meets Tues-Fri only from 9-10 am BEFORE the daytime academy.
The price is $40 per week or $250 for summer-long
You should know the BASICS of this class so you can answer any questions you might get.
Below is a video about our Etcheberry class so you’ll know what it is about.
This meets for 20 classes over 10 weeks. For players in grades 9-college ONLY. Over 50% of the time is used for supervised match play…
As a Hope varsity player that is working the Academy, you are REQUIRED to come and work the Night Academy because it is part of staying, eligible with the work hours we must pay you for NCAA rules.
Grades 1-2-3: Meets (3x) Tues, Wed, Thurs from 8:30-9:30 am.
These players will play on a 36′ Red court using foam balls. Lead pro is Matt Bradley
Grades 4-5: Meets (4x) Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri from 8-9:30 am.
These players play on both a 60 and 78 foot (regular) court and use low compression orange and green-dot balls. Lead pro is TBD.
We are West Michigan’s only certified 10 & Under program by the USTA and we are fully compliant with the new USTA rules regarding players this age.
Most of you are already familiar with the online system.
If this is new to you, we will train you how to submit your hours online.
Please set a phone calendar reminder so you do not forget to submit your hours.
You will have the option of getting a physical check or opting for direct deposit.
You WILL get paid for our 30-minute pro meeting on Thurs from 3:30-4 pm if you attend the meeting.
The Academy staff uniforms are the same T-shirts that the player get, but they also say COACH on the back.
All of you that are working every day will get 6 shirts and you are expected to wear them every day.
You may also wear an Academy shirt from past years, but it is better if you can wear the current year’s shirt so we all look the same.
Instructions for logging in to the website are….
Please do NOT share these log in details with anyone else.
All of these videos are from the Feeding Skills section of TennisDrills.tv.
However, this Execution Plan will only include the videos that are most important for what you will be required to FEED at the Hope College Tennis Academy.
This is an important section and worth your time watching.
We have had new (often younger) pros at the Academy that realized too late that they could NOT feed very well and this was embarrassing to them as a coach and makes the Academy look bad as well.
Lastly, do NOT assume that since you might be a strong tennis PLAYER, that you automatically be a good feeder.
These are two separate skills and you don’t want to find out on the court on your first day that you cannot feed properly.
You can now progress through the next tabs and start watch the various FEEDING videos we have selected for YOU.
This training is designed to help you AVOID having a bad feeding experience which will be embarrassing for you.
HINT… It’s NOT the same grip you use to play.
You’ll learn how to avoid a Rookie mistake made by many new feeders.
You should be able to feed to all 4 strike zones based on the skill level of each player.
It is very important to be able to feed different spins to players of different skill levels.
If you get labeled a poor feeder by the players, it’s hard to change that reputation.
In this video you will learn how to keep up with fast feeding pros.
There is more to it than you might think.
This video covers the importance of being able to feed the ball with different trajectories.
There has been more than one occasion where we have not trained our staff on how to properly feed and they have be very humiliated when players start giving them trouble.
Remember that being a good player does NOT necessarily translate into being a good FEEDER.
In this final video I summarize the importance of feeding skills and WHY you should care about it.
We also cover what makes a good lob feed vs a bad one.
They’re NOT all the same.
This one is often overlooked.
In this video we show you some common feeding mistake that pro make that are actually DANGEROUS.
We will also show you how to AVOID them.
Practice the 1-minute feeding test that is shown in the video and see what your score is.
We will all go on the court during our face-to-face meeting and try this.. it will be fun!
