INSIDE: Conference Wrap Up, Awards, and Photos

Congratulations to our recent award winners and Hall of Fame Inductee

Held at the Atlanta Country Club during the USPTA Southern Convention on Friday, May 13th. We send out a hearty CONGRATS to all of our latest award recipients for their efforts and accomplishments in 2021.

Hall of Fame: Pat Whitworth Allen Henry Southern Professional: Seth Redelheim Industry Excellence: Lyndsey Mixon Charity Event/Lessons for Life: Wilmington CTA - Chris Tatum

Assistant Professional: Bevan Hewett High Performance Coach: Chris Hoshour Not pictured: Fred Burdick USPTA Pride of the South: Kevin Theos Mentor: Bill Tym Teaching Professional: Paul Bartholomai Elevate Professional: Allison Himes Manager: Brett Schwartz College Coach: Rolando Vargas

USPTA Southern Conference

Southern Conference YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE

WOW is all we can say. What a great conference host and conference chair Ken Andriano hosted for us. Two new world class speakers in Jeff Salzenstein and Dr. Mark Brouker were fantastic, and our own Dr. Sophie Woorons was right alongside. A host of other topics including drills, doubles, technique, and pickleball were all top notch. We also welcome our Executive Director Pat Whitworth into the Hall of Fame, and honored many others for their accomplishments in 2021. Top honors to Kevin Theos as the Fred Burdick Pride of the South, and Seth Redelheim as the Alan Henry Pro of the Year. The trade show was smaller, but well attended with a great group of vendors. All of this closed with Bill & Todd’s Excellent Adventure, and it was entertaining and educational. We hope to see you next year, or maybe even in New Orleans for the World Conference.

USPTA Southern Conference - FANTASTIC

By Dan Beedle – USPTA Elite Professional

What a weekend it was in Atlanta. Thank you to Pat Whitworth, Tom Parkes and Ken Andriano, as well as his staff for a great weekend of learning and networking at the Atlanta Country Club. Thursday kicked off with Farley Youman speaking about how to use different doubles formations to your advantage and how to play against those formations. Bill Anderson followed with ways to build up the pickleball programs at your club. Southern President Tom Parkes and Bill Riddle wrapped up the first day with quick fixes for club players, how to fix technical and tactical errors. The audience participations was very good as many pros chimed in with their own fixes for certain situations.

Friday was heavily focused on drills to use for our juniors, USTA and ALTA teams. Drill sessions were led by Dr. Sophie Woorons, Rob Carver and our Executive Director Pat Whitworth. I heard many great comments about Rob Carvers presentations. He took a unique approach and used a group of 2.5/3.0 ladies to demonstrate his drills. This was refreshing as it showed what the drills will look like as we take them back to our home clubs. Players will make mistakes, the drills will look messy for a bit but they will get better as the players skills improve.

One of the two keynote speakers Dr. Mark Brouker also spoke on Friday. His talk was focused on leadership and building trust and culture with your team from a manager/ director perspective. Drawing upon experiences from his time in the Navy and running large hospital organizations his presentation was energizing and inspiring. You can purchase his book “Lessons from the Navy” on Amazon.

Congratulations to our USPTA Southern Award winners and a special congratulations to our fearless leader Pat Whitworth on his induction into the USPTA Southern Hall of Fame! USPTA Southern would not be what it is today without your efforts.

Jeff Salzenstein was our second headline speaker. On Saturday Jeff started the day with a two hour serve presentation. Tips and drills to improve the serve for every level. Jeff is part of the RacquetFit team which leads workshops to help coaches and medical professionals learn the ins and outs of the serve and how to screen your athletes for physical limitations that could be preventing them from allowing the body to move properly. His presentation was excellent and educated everyone to some of the more overlooked but very important aspects of the service motion.

Darryl Lewis who is our Southern Head Pickleball tester taught us nothing new, which was his goal! He showed many simple drills that have been used on tennis courts around the world and how they can be implemented into pickleball clinics. We do not need to be intimidated by teaching pickleball. The skills and energy used for our tennis lessons transfer over to the pickleball court as well.

Thank you to all the vendors from the trade show especially USPTA partners Wilson, Tennis Warehouse, String Ping and McMahon Careers! Bill Riddle and Todd Upchurch closed out the conference by taking everyone on a most excellent adventure! You had to be there.