"Practice makes perfect"

Feb 15, 2008
Tennis Coach Marc Weinstein:

Gorgeous Friday afternoon, everyone at practice! Started with our standard warm-up and ab work, then grooved strokes for 45 minutes. Then we sat on court one and had a team meeting. We went over the “Tennis Team Guidelines” that everybody signs each season. Had a very engaged conversation about commitment to the team and everyone’s goals and expectations. I really stressed that the more everyone commits to the team and each other, the more valuable and worthwhile the experience is for everyone. Sena and Claudia both requested more support and coaching from Christine (our asst coach) and I during match play. Easy enough for us to do, I committed to that on the spot. Jenn suggested we do a check-in during the last ten minutes of practice each day as we do our group stretch. Great idea, we’ll implement that beginning Tuesday. Lisa implored the group to not miss matches, saying only a test that you cannot reschedule or a death in the family are sufficient reason. She stated that “matches are the most important part of the season and everyone is affected when someone isn’t at a match”. I reminded everyone (again) that I have a full packet players should give to their profs with our match dates, a letter from Themy, etc. I also shared w/ the team my experiences as a college athlete. First off, I never missed a single practice, in fact was never late for a tennis team practice in four years. Christine also was never late to a practice in four years of college tennis.

I also shared my experience on the UMASS ultimate Frisbee team. We had a ton of talent and were always in the hunt for the National Championship. Unfortunately, we always had divisive factions and a handful of selfish players who cared more about their own playing time than the team. In fact, though we were “Zoo Disc”, the East Coast frisbee community (not so) affectionately renamed us “Zoo Dicks”. We finished third in the country my sophomore year and second in the country my junior year.
We lost a ton of talent that year, including possibly the best player in the history of the sport. But my senior year we had great chemistry, everyone was rowing in the same direction, no one was more important than the TEAM and we beat Stanford in the finals of Nationals. It doesn’t matter if you are vying for a Championship or simply trying to have the best possible experience in a team environment – commitment, support for each other and placing the team ahead of self can turn a group of people playing and competing together into huge fun and an incredibly valuable life lesson. I think my team is starting to get that and that is exciting!!

After the meeting we ran our first mile as a team this season. Half the players finished under 8 minutes, and everyone finished under 9 minutes. I’m pleased with the overall fitness of the team at this point. More importantly, everyone sprinted or at least pushed hard for the last couple of hundred yards. That willingness to push yourself when your body would really rather fade is a big part of what being an athlete is all about, and every single player exhibited that today!

We all headed down to Haas after to finally do our team board. When I had to leave a bit after 4 PM, several of our players were staying late to finish up the wall. Overall a great day in terms of defining our team’s culture and building chemistry, should set us up for a good week of practice next week.