How Many Transfers From a College Program?

When your son or daughter starts to consider college tennis and the different coaches/programs available, one of the telltale factors about a coach is the amount of transfers in the past 5-10 years. Before making an emotional decision, be sure to do your research on seeking how the roster has changed year to year. It is very easy to get caught up in an emotional decision based on a number of factors relating to the time of year you visited, the charming girls on the team, the best foot forward by a coach, the facilities, the location- so many factors can influence and cloud your judgement.

Most programs will have a transfer from time to time. This is normal because naturally random events happen where mutually both the coach and player are unhappy with the status quo. Your best bet is to analyze how the rosters have changed year to year. How many freshman have transferred in the past 5 years, how many sophomores? Were they unhappy and why? Talk to players- current, former, transfers. Do your research.

It is very hard to discern who is genuine about your own goals and interests. Everyone has an agenda, coaches need to produce results to keep their jobs and impress their Athletic Directors. Coaches will always put their best foot forward and hide the baggage in the closet. Most parents are misinformed and do not know what are the right questions to ask.

Why is this important information to potentially seek out? Simply it shares information about the integrity of the coach. From the coaches perspective, it is an imperfect science (frankly a lot of luck) in picking the right kids to fill the scholarships. Coaches will make big errors that they will need to live with for 4 years. For the most part, college coaches are people of extremely high character and will do their best by the kid. What you want to be careful with is a program that has high turnover and why is that?

Once a child reaches college, the balance of power has shifted strongly towards the coach. The coach has an enormous amount of power over the kid. If a coach wanted to, it would not take much to make a child feel unhappy about their current situation if things weren't working out. Now one could argue, "but yes, the coach needs to win, push the kid, and weed out the weak." Sure that is one way to look at it and it is an easy way to cover up poor recruiting choices and upgrade your squad.

The appropriate way to look at it is to understand the coach holds all the power. Is this the type of coach who will do his or her best by your child- through good and bad? The coach has a duty to coach (definition of a coach is to move forward) and to help the child turn into an adult. Is winning at all costs the most important thing? 99 percent of these NCAA players will be professional in something other than tennis- do you really want someone who is going to give up everytime he or she doesn't agree with? A coach of great integrity is one who is true to his word, character, and integrity- preparing this person not only for tennis, but the long road ahead in the real world. Think about it and please do your research. You will quickly start to sort through the fluff and see the light.

Signs of What Not To Do

Kareem Abdul Jabar is known for perfecting the hook shot. This highly effective shot made him virtually unguardable when he was in the flow of the game. Over the years he has been asked many times why nobody has emulated the infamous hook shot. Never able to give a solid straight answer, he can't put his finger on exactly why this is so. Maybe the introduction of the 3-point line into the NBA, maybe the satisfaction of making a flashy jump shot, but he isn't quite sure. What he does know is nobody has taken the time to learn and perfect the skill of backing someone down to the basket, inch by inch, waiting for the right moment to unleash the deadly hook shot.

The Lakers hired him to be a coach for big man (center) Andrew Bynum. Outside of Dwight Howard, Andrew Bynum is considered one of the best centers in the NBA. He was asked, "Why don't you teach Andrew the hook?" The reporter went on to say, "It would seem logical to copy one of the most effective shots in basketball history, time is on his side to learn this valuable skill, and it could potentially elevate his game to a whole new level. It makes perfect logical sense."

Kareem replied, "I don't know. I tried, but you can only push a person so far. I hear what you are saying, everything you are saying is right. For whatever reason, Andrew just didn't want to learn it and you can only push someone so far."

Sometimes there is no changing people. The best approach is to accept them for who they are, quit trying to change them, and appreciate them with the good and the bad. It's very easy for any outsider to say, "So and so should do this and that. It's so easy." Not so fast my friend.

Knowledge is not everything in relating to a player. If one of the best basketball players in the world is unwilling to change, imagine what the rest of us are capable of? Human beings are flawed in one way or another. The best coaches do not try to prove they are right (especially early when signing on with a player). The smart coaches patiently try to build trust, go with the players strengths, before messing with any technical issues. There is certainly an art to making your players feel good about themselves.

Once you have earned the trust (which could take months to years), anything is possible.

Here is an example of what not to do. Watch a world class junior, college, or professional player play 2-3 matches and start suggesting to change their technique with no prior relationship with them. "Change your grip, toss the ball here, angular momentum, apex on serve, crossover step, blah blah and blah blah and blaaaah." Especially if you have never played at the level they have played at- pressure, nerves, confidence, bad luck- all "real" contributing factors that affect performance.

Perfect technique is the holy grail. The quest that will never be reached. The wise coaches understand this is unattainable and instead focus on things they can grasp such as the ability to handle suffering, approach to training, the look on their face during matches, do they genuinely scrap for every crumb, etc. A great warrior with poor strategy willl usually beat a strategist with a poor head. People who have never played before think "two shots here, one shot there" or "why don't they just step into the ball and hit it?" The pressure to win is debilitating at times.

Put Some Vinegar in Their Cocoa

CAtennis.com has had the opportunity to watch a couple of mid-level professional women's events being played in Southern California. At first blush, every one of these players seems like a world-beater. The ball explodes off the string bed like a missile being launched from the battleship and, from the sound of the ball, it appears that they have fire-crackers in their strings. However, if you open your eyes and get past the intimidation factor, you realize how one-dimensional a lot of these players are. They are amazing at every shot that bounces between the knees and the chest. When such a ball comes in the middle of the court...well, fuggedaboutit. They can crank it like the best of them. However, looks can be deceiving. When the ball is high/low and away, things take a whole new dimension. Therefore, it is perplexing to see that certain strategies are not being implemented in the match by someone who is hungry to win. 

As a player, if you want to slug it out and take your chances, then so be it. Ultimately, the best ball striker that day will come out on top and there's no reason to be upset if you end up on the wrong side of the score-card. However, if you want to win, it's important to analyze your opponent's matches as well as practices in order to devise a game-plan. It is really in practices when you can pick up sublte clues about your opponent's game. For example, does she spend an inordinate amount of time crushing cross-courts? Does she rally mindlessly from the middle of the court? Well, then your mentality should be: "I don't care how good you are from that spot because the LAST thing I'm going to hit is going to be in your wheelhouse." Or "you like your forehand?! Great! Hit it a 1000 times in practice 'cause you ain't gonna be seeing any in the match". Or "you like THAT?! I'm going to give you the exact OPPOSITE of what you like; Now drink up." Remember that, for a lot of the players, practices are like safety blankets. They practice one way and they play matches the same way. Take them out of their comfort zone - be it with sharp angles, heavy topspins, deft slices or attacking plays - and they will be dumbfounbded. Why?! The answer is because a lot of players are simply too lazy to do the dirty work in practice. They are comfortable hitting certain shots and continue to work on them long after they mastered them. A good, smart player will always look to expand his/her dimensions and expand his/her mental, technical and tactical horizons. In the long-run, the "same-old, same-old" is a losing strategy. A smart player WILL find a way to punch through your defenses or to neutralize your offense. THEN WHAT?! Are you going to keep hitting harder? Try plays/strokes that you haven't practiced? Give up? 

So next time you see your opponent crushing ground-strokes from a stationary position, don't despair. See how good s/he is while on the run. If your opponent is adept at covering the court side-to-side (the sign of someone with some degree of intelligence), see how good she is at covering diagonals, up-and-back and behind her (i.e., wrong-foot, or contre-pied). Some players do cover the baseline fairly well. At first, these players can be intimidating. However, get them out of this comfort zone (which for them = being on the run "coast to coast") and their games will break down. Very few players will make the effort of performing drills where they cover the deep corner (e.g. BH), the other deep corner (i.e., FH), short FH corner, deep BH corner, short BH corner, rinse-and repeat. When they are faced with situations like this in the match, they will often take the coward's way out and slap a low percentage show just to get rid of the ball. THAT's when you know that you got them! Learn to take your opponent out of the comfort zone, leae them with a bad taste in their mouths from the first point to the last, and you will win more matches and beat "better" opponents.