USPTA Southern Standard March 2024

May

USPTA Southern Division: Where Excellence is Standard March 2024 Volume 25 Issue 2

Convention 2024

16-18

President’s Message

Hello Fellow USPTA Professionals,

As spring is geng into full swing, I hope you all are enjoying some nicer weather and are busy teaching and running programs. We have had some excellent state workshops since the start of 2024. Don’t worry if you missed them, we have many more opportunies scheduled throughout the year. Our next and biggest event of the year will be our Southern conference on May 16-18 at Bayou Bluﬀ Tennis Club in Gulfport, Mississippi! I know Allen Jensen, our convenon chair and 1st VP has some excellent presentaons, networking opportunies, and social events scheduled for this year’s event.

I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about all the benefits of aending our conferences and workshops throughout the year. I know it can be a sacrifice for most professionals to take me away from making money with their clients to aend a conference, but the benefits can be so impacul for your career. Here are some of those benefits:

Presentaons: One obvious beneﬁt would be the presenta-

By Ken Andriano

ons. We all are coming to ﬁnd new ideas and techniques that can be brought back to your club or facility. This can be either the on-court as well as oﬀ-court presentaons that teach us programing and management.

Networking opportunies: This is one of my favorite reasons to aend our convenons. I have been very fortunate to make so many contacts at these conferences that I keep in touch with professionally and socially. You never know, you could be talking with your next employer or employee!

Social: This is the most fun aspect of our convenons. Our welcome party is a great way to relax and have fun with fellow professionals. One thing that aracted me to be a tennis professional was that I could share the game that I love and have a blast doing it.

Virtual conferences are excellent, and it allows us more ﬂexibility in our connuing educaon, but there is nothing beer than aending a conference in person. I hope you have a great spring, and we’ll see you all in Mississippi this May!

Zoom-i-NARS

Catch the latest oﬀering from USPTA Southern in this sharing Zoom-i-NAR. Each month, the plan is to have a discussion and share best pracces on an area that has an impact on many of us in our jobs.

These will be held on Tuesday’s at 2:00pm et. These will be on Zoom meengs, which will allow everyone to be acve on the discussion, as opposed to a Webinar which is only acve to the moderators. Replays will be available later, but will not oﬀer the 1 educaon credit.

March 26 - Summer Camp Ideas

Future discussions will include:

 Seng and raising lessons rates

 Fun social events

 Building a great team/staﬀ

 Best kids games

 And much more

The video version is available exclusively via TennisResources.com, and can be watched for half an educaon credit. You can access that version by clicking here!

Page 2

Fun Things to do In Gulfport

Casinos obviously. Gamble and have dinner/drinks. They have great restaurants and bars inside. Hard Rock, Beau Rivage are the best on the Coast. Beaches about 20miles of them. Parasail, jet ski rentals available.

Ship Island day ferry day trips. Fort of Massachuses is an historic aracon on Ship Island Bay Saint Louis and Ocean Springs are lile artsy towns where you can walk, shop, and they have nice marinas. Charter boat rentals. You can rent boats and go ﬁshing. Golf. There are about 10 golf course within 30 min drive. Grand Bear, the Oaks, Shell Landing, Fallen Oak. A new Aquarium that opened a couple of years ago. Dining. Plenty of local restaurants on the beach where you can enjoy seafood and cold drinks.

Featured Speakers

Edgar Giﬀenig has been a Naonal Coach for the USA, Germany and Mexico as well as a partner in two Major Academies: Internaonal Tennis Academy in Florida and Centro MexTenis in Mexico. He has been a speaker at many Naonal and Internaonal Coaches Convenons and is the Internaonal Consultant for TennisGate, a company specializing in tennis coaches' educaon. Edgar played for the University of Texas where he completed an Undergraduate Degree in Business and a Graduate Degree in Exercise Physiology.

Craig Jones is Senior Director, Coach Educaon at USTA. In this role, he is responsible for developing coaching resources, workshops and overseeing accreditaon.

Before joining the USTA, Craig spent over 25 years as a Club Owner, Director of Tennis and junior developer, working with players from novice, to naonal and internaonal champions. He is a cerﬁed PTR Professional, USPTA

Elite Professional and USTA High Performance Coach

Thursday, May 16

12:00-3:00 USPTA Southern Board Meeng

2:00-7:00 Registraon

3:00-4:00

4:15-5:15

Blind & Visually Impaired (court)

Bill Phillips - 50 Years of Industry Insights & Lessons Learned

5:156:30 Edgar Giﬀenig - (court)

6:30-8:30 Welcome Party/Dinner

Friday, May 17

8:30-9:00

9:00-10:00

Jason Gilbert - USPTA Naonal Update (class)

Tom Daglis Compensaon Packages & Negoaons (class)

Chris Hoshour - The 4 Most Important Shots to Play High Level Tennis (court)

10:10-11:30 Edgar Giﬀenig - (court)

11:30-12:30 Brian Dillman/Jason Gilbert - USPTA Q&A (class)

11:30-2:30 Trade Show & Lunch

2:30-4:00 Craig Jones - Pracce Like You Play (court)

4:00-5:00 Blind & Visually Impaired Pt 2 (court)

Saturday, May 18

7:45-8:30 Faith Fellowship Meeng (class)

8:30-9:30 Geoﬀ Browne - Increasing Stringing Proﬁts

9:45-10:45 Craig Jones - Controlling Chaos (court)

10:55-11:55 Devin Crotzer /William Foreman/Dan Beedle Elevate Presents (court)

12:00-2:30 Awards/Hall of Fame Lunch (ballroom)

2:30-3:30 TBD

3:30-4:30 TBD

Watch usptasouthern.com for the latest info

Page 3

Convention May 16-18

At Bayou Bluﬀ, Gulfport MS

•Don’t miss out on this amazing event this year at at great locaon at the newly remodeled facility

•Featuring Edgar Giﬀening & Craig Jones

•Meet our new CEO Brian Dillman

•Trade show on Friday, awards on Saturday

•Neat aendee gis

•3 meals included

•USPTA Pickleball cerﬁcaon on Sunday morning (separate registraon –limited spaces)

Host Hotel:

Holiday Inn Gulfport Airport, 9515 Highway 49

 $114-$128. Only 5 miles from Bayou Bluﬀ

 CLICK HERE to book online to receive the group rate.

 Or call the hotel at 228-679-1700

 Room block released aer 4/26

Convenon Price:

• $135 Early Registraon by May 7th, $150 Full Registraon

• New Cerﬁed Member since May 2022 - $25

• Non USPTA Member $160

• One day only $90

 Spouse $75 by 5/7, Full price $90 (no gi or ed credit)

 Register at uspta.com (you need to login or create an account if non member)

 Watch usptasouthern.com for up to date informaon.

Page 4

By Lee Cockerell - former Execuve VP of Disney World Operaons

1) Your employees will not be commied to you unless they are 100% sure you are commied to them. Be careful what you say and do, because they are watching you and judging you every second of every day. What they see you say and do causes them to either trust you or not trust you. Trust is everything. If you don't have trust, your results will fall well below their potenal.

2) A Leader's job is to do what has to be done, when it has to be done, in the way it should be done, whether he or she likes it or not. This applies at work with your employees and at home with your children. You have to develop your children - you can't ﬁre them. If you focused more on developing your employees, you would not have to ﬁre them.

3) What should you do today that will not pay oﬀ for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, or even 50 years?

 Exercise daily.

 Don't smoke.

 Have a clear rerement plan.

 Find out from your boss what you need to do now to be a candidate for that big job 10 years from now.

 Make sure your children have a love of reading by the me they are 6 (which means you have to limit TV, computers and Game Boys).

 Get your annual physical.

 Tell your loved ones you love them every day.

 Keep current by reading the paper every day, watching the news, reading Time or Newsweek, and reading industry publicaons.

 Aend training and seminars to educate yourself so you do not become a dinosaur.

 There are many more. Make your own list and get with it so you don't have a long list of regrets later on in your life, saying things like I wish I had quit smoking, I wish I had spent more me with my son, I wish I had goen my annual physical, I wish I had exercised more, and on and on and on.

4) Be the same person 24 hours a day. Don't change when you come to work. Somemes leaders act unnatural at work. Treat everyone with respect. Be humble. You are there to help support and inspire your team, not to tell them what to do. Tell them the outcome you want and they will ﬁgure out how to deliver the results.

5) Leadership is hard. It is full of paradoxes. You oen have to do two opposing things like cut costs and keep the customer happy; or somemes you have three diﬀerent things which don't sound like they are possible. Great leaders do the impossible.

6) Being excellent is hard. So when you have something hard to do, remember you are being excellent. Do you want to be remembered for being good or great?

7) When you are in a senior leadership posion you must be an inspiraonal leader and not just an administrator if you want to get the results which are possible with a team of inspired followers. So many top leaders today are just administrators who focus on doing things instead of inspiring people.

8) Just because someone does not speak

your language does not mean they don't understand a cordial hello with a cheery good morning. Don't ignore people because they don't speak your language. A smile is a universal language.

9) The most important me to bond with a new baby is the first few months. The best me to bond with a new employee is the first few months. Funny how a lile common sense can make a big difference.

10) Leadership is not about a salary grade or a tle. It's about responsibility and making things happen for the organizaon and for the people in the organizaon. It's also about personal responsibility. As a leader you impact the lives of the people you work with more than you will ever know. YOU have a direct impact on the quality of their lives, careers and future.

11) You can't ﬁre your children, You have to develop them; so let's do the same for our employees.

12) The quickest way to destroy an organizaon's culture is to not do a great job seng up the organizaonal structure. When people no longer understand or believe in the way an organizaon is structured they lose faith in the vision and in the top leadership. The best way to avoid this piall is to involve those further down in the design of responsibility, authority and accountability.

Excerpted from a list of 144 leadership ps by Lee Cockerell

Page 5

By Heidi Ramaekers and Chrisne Michaels

Possessing a ‘growth mindset’ is a concept that is geng a lot of aenon lately, and for good reason. Psychologist Carol Dweck wrote about growth and fixed mindsets back in 2006 in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success; but perform a simple google search of “growth mindset” today and you’ll find it referenced in a lot of different places, from the corporate world to the academic arena and now, the wide world of sports.

A mindset revolves around how our thoughts beliefs, percepons and values shape how we interpret and respond to the world around us. On a tennis court, it will determine how we view opportunies and setbacks, how much we believe we can learn and grow from both wins AND losses and even how we respond to pressure. Our mindset will also affect how much risk we are willing to take on the court. Someone with a fixed mindset might believe failures, mistakes and losses define their abilies. On the other hand, someone with a growth mindset believes there is great learning and growth from those very same things, and will likely be less afraid of risk. Athletes who adopt growth mindsets also focus on the process itself: what am I learning and taking away each me I step on the court in a lesson and match whereas the fixed mindset will focus solely on the outcome.

It might be easy to see then how problemac it can be to use the win -loss column as THE measurement of growth and success. Of course we all want to win, and you might even ask yourself, “if I win more, doesn’t that mean I’m improving?”

And our philosophy as coaches is “not al-

ways!” A growth mindset says losses also mean growth and improvement. And, not only is winning every match unrealisc, but geng caught up in a win or loss usually produces a posive or negave feeling; rarely does it give you speciﬁc insight into how to connue growing and improving.

A BETTER QUESTION

So how do we start to adopt more of a growth mindset on the court? One of the ways is to use a completely diﬀerent measuring sck when it comes to our abilies and success. Instead of focusing on the win / loss record, we must ask ourselves "what did I do well in my match today?” and “what can I improve upon for the next match?” Both quesons can be answered with speciﬁc ideas for connued learning and success whether we won or lost!

We then encourage you to take the answers to those quesons and set speciﬁc future goals that help you focus on what is in your control ... and minimize the “ noise” that is completely out of your control (our opponents win/loss record for example!)

Our match goals can be as simple as “I’m going to stay aggressive and play my game no maer the score” or “I’m going to use posive communicaon and body language with my partner in between each point so we both stay posive and focused”. This type of speciﬁc goal seng gives us an actual roadmap for execung in a match vs. the vague goal of “I am going out there to win” … which gives us ZERO informaon on how to work toward growth and success!

When it comes to adopng a growth mindset, we are also huge fans of using a note-

book to make mental notes for lessons and matches and track progress. What a great place to remind yourself about the mindset you’d like to adopt as well as the speciﬁc goals you are working on. Logging what you are taking away from each lesson and match will also help you stay focused on what you’re doing really well and what you’d like to connue focusing on; and what a great way to see how far you’ve come over me.

We have also seen a funny thing happen when we take the focus away from wins and losses - conﬁdence and movaon also grow. Instead of staying stuck in the uncomfortable, negave feelings that usually accompany a loss, we’ve heard people say “but I feel great about the way I played because I stayed aggressive and moving …and I’m going to do that again in my next match!”

So what kind of mindset do you have on the court? What would it look like for you to adopt more of a growth mindset to improve your game? Asking yourself these simple quesons is just as important as improving your groundstrokes and taccal strategy. And for the players we have helped adopt more of a growth mindset, it has been a true game changer.

Heidi Ramaekers and Chrisne Michaels are the founders of Elevaon Ladies Tennis Academy in Alpharea, GA, the area’s ﬁrst and only tennis academy dedicated to women’s club level tennis.

Page 6

Pickleball Points

Protect the Dot

By Darryl Lewis

One of the biggest challenges for novice and intermediate players in pickleball is ﬁnding an appropriate depth to hit the ball. If your shot is too short it allows your opponent to move toward the Non Volley Zone if they are deep, or worse yet get a higher bouncing ball that they can drive. If your ball is too deep, it gives your opponent a high ball that they can crush or hit down to your feet.

Start all four players back in the transion zone and place a “dot” 12-18 inches in front of them. Players rally cooperavely either crosscourt or down the line so two balls are being used. The goal for the player hing is to get as close as possible to the dot. The goal for the receiving player is to “protect the dot” by hing the ball out of the air.

Aer a few minutes of pracce and possibly shiing the target from down the line to crosscourt, have all players at the Non Volley Zone line with the dot in the same posion in front of them as before. Rally again either crosscourt or down the line with the same goal of “hing” or “protecng” the dot. Emphasis can now be made that the ball can be hit higher over the net as long as the arc of the shot gets the ball to the target. Height is not the problem at the Non Volley Zone as the receiver cannot close and volley the ball up high. Players learn to control height and power in order to achieve the appropriate depth. This can be turned into a compeve exercise using either a half court or playing as a pair. Points are awarded to the hing player or pair if they can hit a dot. Points are awarded to the receiving player for balls that do not go over or for balls that are beyond the Non Volley Zone line.

Do you have a favorite drill you would be willing to share with others. Please send it d.lewis@aussie10s.com for publicaon in future newsleers.

Page 7

Alabama

On February 23rd, we had an excing and rewarding day trip down to Millbrook, Alabama for the Blue Gray Naonal Tennis Classic. A huge thank you to Jeﬀ Barrera and Stephanie Giﬀord for volunteering as we helped report live scores for matches. Not only did we enhance the event for those who couldn't aend, but we were able to witness high quality tennis as well. We watched the following teams: the Middle Tennessee State men's team, the Boise State men's tennis team, the Arizona women's team, the Furman women's team, and the Tulsa women's team. We plan to have our workshop again in December of this year.

Georgia

The board is excited to be planning educaonal opportunies this year. Our biggest event of the year will be our December 6th State workshop at Atlanta Athlec Club. We are planning on combining it with the Atlanta Open for one last summer workshop in July. Stay tuned for details on this unique educaonal opportunity at the event. Our board for 2024 is Rick Wille -President, Carmen Garcia -1stVP, Liam Villante -2nd VP Rod Slack -Secretary and Michael Pereira -Treasurer. Please feel free to reach out to any of us for suggesons for USPTA Georgia while we plan these events.

Louisiana

Louisiana is up and running in 2024. We have grown the number of USTA tournaments for juniors in the last few years to get us back on track. Courtney Dugas and our USPTA pros have done a fantasc job of building back these opportunies for kids. LSU Tennis is making a valiant eﬀort to reach out to teaching pros and tennis players all over the state. It’s a great opportunity to bring members and players to watch the men and women compete at our beauful $15 million complex. Coaches Danny Bryan and Taylor Fogleman are both products of LA. There is a free event on March 10 for the match against Mississippi State. Lunch and a free clinic/play opportunity aer the match. Our coaches conference is tentavely scheduled for April 26 and will be held at the LSU complex. We will have more informaon as we ﬁnalize our plans. Greaux Tennis!!!!

Kentucky

David White has become the interim GM at the Lexington Tennis Club. Due to his expanded roles which also include the Director of Tennis, he has stepped down as the KY President and Chuck Brown is moving to AR. Kentucky is looking for members to serve on the USPTA Kentucky board for 2024-2025. If you are interested please contact Chuck Brown, USPTA PresidentKentucky. C 859-321-9970. Chuckb0489@msn.com

Mississippi

The USPTA MS Conference in January was a great success. Thank you to all of our pros who aended. Paul Walker was impressed with how engaged and thoughul all of the aendees were, and we were very appreciave of all the work that he put into making great presentaons (all 4 rounds of them!). Bill Dopp and Dan Beedle rounded out what was a stellar day of learning and networking. We had over 60 pros in aendance at River Hills Club, who helped make everything 1st class all around. We are excited to be hosng the USPTA Southern Conference at Bayou Bluﬀ Tennis Club. The new clubhouse at Bayou Bluﬀ is going to be enjoyed by everyone, not to menon the dining opons in the area. We are looking forward to seeing everyone in May.

North Carolina

The USPTA NC Workshop will be held August 17th in the aernoon at The Winston Salem Open. The workshop will be three hours and will be held on court. The Winston Salem Open Kids Day will take place in the morning, and we would love any pros to join us to help. Congratulaons to Mic Wallace for winning the USTA NC Professional of the Year and to Dipesh Rao with his new posion as Director of Racquet Sports at Green Valley in Greensboro.

South Carolina

Aenon USPTA South Carolina members. We're excited to announce plans for several informave state workshops throughout the year, held in convenient locaons across South Carolina. To help tailor these workshops to your needs, let us know what topics you'd ﬁnd most beneﬁcial! Feel free to email your suggesons to usptasouthcarolina@gmail.com. And stay tuned – we'll soon be revealing details on the return of our USPTA South Carolina state awards program, recognizing the outstanding contribuons of our dedicated USPTA professionals.

Tennessee

There is a USPTA Level 2 cerﬁcaon June 28-30 in Memphis at the Lewich Tennis Center. Welcome to Brian Anderson, the new Director of Racquet Sports at the University Club of Memphis. The new USPTA Tennessee Board is: Geoﬀ Browne - President, Sarah Evans - Vice President, Daniel Shidler - 2nd Vice President, Brian Perry - Secretary, MJ Garne - Treasurer.

Page 8

Doubles “Triangle Training / 2 on 1s”

By Stewart Russell USPTA Elite Professional

for Groups of three or Four - Intermediate and Advanced Level Players 1.0 or 1.5-hour session

Round 1 – 5-10 Minutes Players warming up CROSS COURT only mini tennis to ensure players are seeing the ball they are receiving as well as sending on the applicable ball being played during a live ball point. *** please make sure players are starng from far enough behind the service line to be able to aempt a comprehensive/full stroke. I like to call this shot a “touch/drive” and “cooperave warmup” with strokes that are more apt to be aempted than what is currently being aempted with the tradional warmup. ie; Down the line and starng at or inside the service line aempng strokes that you very seldom see during a doubles match.

Round 2 – 5-10 Minutes Volleys cross court and incorporate “one ball all four’ with designated players going down the line and cross court. No excuse for players not being ready as they know they will be receiving a ball from the same person each me. ***(Level based Pro involvement to keep a controlled environment with feeding and perhaps even playing in)

Introduce the thoughts behind “Triangle Training or 2 on 1”s (5 minutes)

Round 3 – 20-30 Minutes – Introduce the thoughts behind “Triangle Training or 2 on 1”s from a one up one back on one side and a 1 back starng on either the Add or Deuce side baseline

-Doubles players' understanding of keeping the ball on the same side of the court as the player they are trying to put in trouble. -Both baseline players understand how and when to aempt angles.

-Individual side of the court understanding what types of shots to play to gain some me (lobs, chips, and locaon of shots all discussed) when constantly being pressured by two opponents. *** Forces players to understand when and how to re-direct balls that they would normally play cross-court.

Round 4 – 20-30 Minutes (2 up and 1 back)

-Doubles Net players' understanding of keeping the ball on the same side of the court as the player they are trying to put in trouble. (discussion on when to use a short or deep volley plus a possible drop volley as a level-appropriate skill. *** Also discuss visual triggers to idenfy what you are looking for as far as “pung an opponent in trouble” ie; lunging to aempt a stroke, hing oﬀ back foot, hing up on a ball to recognize who closes in, and who is responsible for a lob. “LOW and I Go” is oen overheard during this poron of the training.

-Individual (baseline) side of the court understanding what types of shots to play to gain some me (lobs, chips, and locaon of shots all discussed), when constantly being pressured by two net opponents (as me diﬀerenal and quicker decision making is needed during this poron of training)

-*** helps players gain an understanding of when and how to redirect balls that they would normally play cross-court.

***Please Note: All Players should pracce from each of the areas of a Doubles starng posion to gain an understanding of what they do well as well as need to work on, as well as a level of awareness of what types of shots to look for from their opponents.

BONUS: How to Solve an Industry Problem, Advocate for the Industry, and Change Lives by Mark McMahon

longterm success and sustainability will start

Page 9

By John Joyce USPTA Elite Professional

Ladies Social - Barbie Theme

the Boca West Country Club Racket Sports department hosted the annual Women’s Member Guest event. They had 108 women playing the tournament. The theme for the event was Barbie, and the women dressed beaufully for the event. The atmosphere was extremely fun and everyone had a wonderful me.

The day started out with a connental breakfast followed by approximately two hours of play. A recepon was held prior to lunch where the women enjoyed drinks and Hors D’oeuvres and then a fantasc plated lunch. The guest speaker was Lisa Pugliese who gave a wonderful talk on how her charity Love Serving Ausm has used tennis with ausc children.

This event uses plenty of pink, Barbie themes, and pink food and drinks. There is a lot of room to run with this, and the ladies will love it. Make sure to setup fun, photo ops even if you have to hire a professional decorator.

by Dan Beedle

1. Networking – USPTA conferences are a great way to network with other pros get ideas and best pracces. Make new friends, meet potenal future employers and some simply great people.

2. Educaon – Our line up of speakers is top notch and will be sure to give you a lot of ideas to bring back to your club. Gaining more knowledge will help your athletes and show your commitment to helping them improve their game.

3. Fun - Apart from learning and joining in on presentaons we will be having an Elevate social on Friday evening of the conference. Hang out and enjoy some fun mes with your fellow tennis professionals.

What is Elevate Elevate is a membership growth and retenon iniave that focuses on members who have been in the USPTA for ﬁve years or fewer.

What we do The speciﬁc goal is to connect, involve, and engage new and exisng members. Elevate grows and retains membership by supporng our new and current members at both the naonal and divisional levels with consistent touchpoints and viable resources

Page 10

Key Points to Building Lasting Personal and Business Relationships

By Frank Fanning Chief Relaonship Oﬃcer, McMahon Careers

You hear it all the me that the racquet sports industry is a small world, and you never know when or where a connecon you made may come in handy. In my life and my career, I have made it a priority to build relaonships in order to grow both personally and professionally, and along the way, I have found that there are ﬁve key factors that are crucial to building lasng relaonships.

1. Communicaon: Open and honest communicaon is essenal for building lasng relaonships, fostering understanding, and resolving conflicts. The key to effecve communicaon is seeking to find points of connecon. Points of connecon can be anything from shared experiences and interests, to emoons or stories. Finding points of connecon takes effort but it is worth it. Trying to get to know the people you are engaging with shows a respect for them, their views, their values, and their priories.

2. Trust: Establishing trust is crucial. Consistently delivering on promises and being reliable helps build a foundaon of trust in both personal and business relaonships. When employees have conﬁdence in their

Presented by McMahon Careers

colleagues and leaders, it promotes loyalty and engagement. Trust amongst colleagues allows people to feel empowered and to share opinions and ideas and leads to beer collaboraon and teamwork. When you priorize trust you create a sense of belonging and connectedness where everyone feels valued.

3. Mutual Respect: Treat others with respect, valuing their opinions and perspecves. Mutual respect forms the basis for healthy and enduring connecons. A common misconcepon about mutual respect is that it means you always agree. However, this is not the case ,as mutual respect is the acknowledgement of another person’s opinions and feelings, even if you don’t agree with them. A simple way to show mutual respect is through acve listening–taking the me to focus on the opinions of others and what they are sharing.

4. Empathy: Show empathy by understanding and acknowledging the feelings of others. This creates a deeper connecon and fosters a supporve environment. A simple and powerful way to connect and care for others is to recognize others’

emoons–especially negave ones. When we are recognized by those who we share a connecon with, we feel a ghter e to them and have an easier me opening up. In the workforce, employees who felt caring from colleagues had less emoonal exhauson, less absenteeism, beer teamwork and higher sasfacon.

5. Collaboraon: Whether in personal or business relaonships, collaboraon is key. Working together towards common goals enhances the strength and longevity of the relaonship. Collaboraon is easier than ever thanks to technology, but you should never discount the value of sing side by side with someone to work together. Collaboraon encourages problem solving, and allows people to learn from one another.

It’s been said many mes that people who have healthy relaonships are more likely to feel happier and sasfied with their lives. They are less likely to suffer from physical and mental health problems, and healthy relaonships can make you feel less alone. We can all benefit from a sense of belonging.

Page 11

By Ken DeHart

Mix It Up Mixer

Tripod Dolly

As the calendar flips to a new year, a familiar roune takes hold at our tennis club. No, it's not dusng off rackets aer a holiday break (although that happens too). It's me to capture our students' swings on video, a tradion not just for posterity, but for powerful progress tracking. This annual ritual isn't just about preserving a moment; it's about witnessing and celebrang the remarkable transformaons that unfold on the court, from the six-month leaps of eager youngsters to the jaw-dropping mul-year evoluons that leave even seasoned adults speechless. Forget USTA rangs – for us, video is the ulmate game changer, offering undeniable proof of improvement that fuels movaon and sparks joy.

We won't be addressing any video analysis soware in this review; that search took me months and I sll haven't seled on an app that doesn't require a very high monthly fee. This review will be focused on a very helpful product that we use to help capture the video more easily, the tripod dolly. We don't have a speciﬁc tripod dolly in mind, but the SmallRig Universal Photography Tripod Dolly from Amazon is the one we use. Our video setup is simple: an iPad mounted on a tripod, and the SmallRig Tripod Dolly.

You can easily use your iPhone as a quick substute, but the large iPad screen is really nice when providing video analysis for your student.

For years I had been using just a tripod for all of our video analysis. It's a great tool for taking eye level video, but it was cumbersome to move around the court, and it's quite top-heavy. Mounng the tripod on a dolly has allowed me to wheel the rig around the court with ease as well as anchor the tripod to the ground; eliminang the risk of pping over with your expensive iPad on top. The dolly is equipped with large, 3-inch rubber wheels that can handle smooth surfaces and uneven terrain with ease. The wheels also have independent brakes, so you can lock the dolly in place when you're not shoong. The SmallRig dolly is compable with most tripods, thanks to its adjustable clamps

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Excel Tips to Become a Spreadsheet Pro

excerpt from PC Magazine - Eric Griffith

Paint Cells to a New Format

Let's say you change not only the wrapping in a cell, but also the enre look the font, the color, whatever. Now you want to apply that look to many, many other cells. The trick is the Format Painter tool, the one that is on the Home tab that looks like a paintbrush. Select the sell you like, click the paintbrush icon, and then click on a diﬀerent cell to paint in the format they'll match in looks, not in content. Want to apply it to mulple tabs? Double -click the paintbrush icon, then click away on mulple cells.

Autoﬁt All the Columns/Rows Instantly

If you've got a sheet full of truncated cells (with no text wrap) that no one can read, manually clicking column and row headers one by one helps with readability but could take a while. Instead, do a Ctrl+A to select all then tap Alt+HOI (hit the leers in that order). That will autofit all the columns. Then use Alt+HOA to autofit the rows. Every cell will be instantly readable, though you may need to use the scrollbar to see everything on the sheet. You can also find those commands using Home > Format > Autofit Row Height or AutoFit Column Width.

AutoFill Your Cells

This is a no-brainer, but so easily overlooked. You start typing a series of repeve things like dates (1/1/23, 1/2/23, 1/3/23, etc.) and you know you're in for a long day. Instead, begin the series and move the cursor on the screen to the lower-right part of the last cell to get the AutoFill handle it looks like a plus sign (+). Click and drag to select all the cells you want to fill. They'll magically fill using the paern you started. It can go up or down a column, or le or right on a row. Even beer try Auto Fill without much of a paern. Again, pick a cell or cells, move to the fill handle, right-click, and drag. You'll get a menu of opons. The more data you input at first, the beer the Fill Series opon will do creang your opons

Add Line Breaks and Wrapping Text

Typing into spreadsheet cells can be frustrang, as the default for text you type is to connue on forever, without wrapping back down to a new line. You can change that. Create a new line by typing Alt+Enter (hing Enter alone takes you out of the cell). Or, click the Wrap Text opon under the Home tab, which means all text wraps right at the edge of the cell your in. Resize the row/column and the text re-wraps to ﬁt.

Text to Columns

Say you've got a single column full of names, first next to last, but you want two columns that break them out. Select the data, then on the Data tab (at the top) click Text to Columns. Choose to separate them by either delimiters (based on spaces or commas great for CSV data values) or by a fixed width. Fixed width is ulized when all the data is crammed into the first column, but separated by a fixed number of spaces or period. The rest is like magic, with extra opons for certain numbers.

Paste Special to Transpose You've got a bunch of rows. You want them to be columns. Or vice versa. You would go nuts moving things cell by cell. Copy that data, select Paste Special, check the Transpose box, and click OK to paste it into a diﬀerent orientaon. Columns become rows, rows become columns.

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The Written Word Tennis Beyond Lessons

by Kirk Anderson, USPTA Master Professional

If you do not know Kirk Anderson, then shame on you. He has been an industry leader for the last 30 years and has been at the forefront of coaches’ educaon in both curriculum and seminars for coaches. He also has to be one of the most genuine people that you will ever meet and liked (or loved) by everyone.

Kirk is a Master Professional in both organizaons, one of only 12 that exist in the world. He uses all of his experse to share lessons about how to improve and play beer. Early on, the book makes it clear that this is not a technical guide, but a guide to help players choose the correct shot, read situaons, and earn beer outcomes. The ﬁrst sentence in the Introducon sums it up quite well “ Tennis Beyond Lessons – Coach Yourself to Beer Tennis, is about understanding yourself as a player by recognizing your strengths, making good decisions, and hing every shot with a

reviewed by Pat Whitworth

purpose”. It is clear that this informaon is not proprietary, and much of it may be known, but this is a perfect collecon and reminder for playing winning tennis. This informaon should be complimentary to the player who is already working on their stroke techniques but wants beer results. The player can also learn the right quesons to ask their pro as they connue to improve their game.

Another quote in the Introducon is about the purpose of the book “This book will provide new ways of looking at tennis and help determine who you are and how to play your best. You will learn how to play the ball rather than just hit the ball”.

The meat of the book will help in learning exactly what type of player you are, both strengths and weaknesses. Then understand the court areas, the Five Ball Controls, and the swing style. Decision-making is huge

along with shot-making and game situaons. The later parts of the book include how to pracce properly, ideas for compeng, and all the situaons both posive and negave, and the last chapter oﬀers ideas to keep improving with goals, journals, ﬁtness, and more. I really like the end of each of the 14 chapters where Key Points are reviewed. This is also a neat way to return to the book and review these key points.

As a seasoned coach, I do not see this book for me, except as a reminder of areas that could be covered for my students. I loved reading the book though, and it is a great reminder of what is important to help our students succeed. Where I see a huge value is to get our students to read and study this book. There is no doubt that they will understand their game beer, understand what it will take to improve, and understand how to compete and win. Great job Kirk. This is an exceponal eﬀort. Thanks for sharing with all of us.

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