President ’s Message

Dave Moyer - USPTA Southwest President

Dear USPTA Southwest Tennis Professionals, What a great weekend we had for our 2021 USPTA Southwest V irtual Conference! Even though it would have been great to be in person to see everyone and socialize, the quality of the speakers and the production as a whole was tremendous. A big special thank you goes out to conference chair Laurie Martin and co-chair Amy Badger for all their work putting everything together. They were able to secure commitments from a lot of the speakers that did not get to speak at the 2020 conference as well as add some great new speakers. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention how important Executive Director Jack Michalko was to the success of the conference. Jack not only help with some of the education lineup but was responsible for setting up the virtual conference and making sure that everything ran smoothly all weekend. In everything Jack does for the division you can see the passion and attention to detail that helps give our division a reputation of small but mighty! Thank you Laurie, Amy and Jack for all of your work!

I hope you all enjoyed the slate of speakers and were able to take advantage of the educational opportunity to gain 12.5 credits. If not then please make sure to mark your calendars and plan to attend the 2021 World Conference at the Westgate Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada the week of September 19-23. I am so excited to actually be able to see everyone and have face to face conversations. Let’s represent the Southwest in Vegas!

This has been a crazy 15 months and now that things are opening back up and everything starts to get back to normal, I hope you all have a fun and prosperous summer at your facilities. Tennis has seen a boom during the pandemic and we all have a responsibility to continue to grow the game and keep all those new and returning players engaged. Getting involved in your USPTA division and attending education opportunities are part of that so I hope to see you all soon.

Finally, if you have pickleball at your facility and want to become a certified pickleball professional, the USPTA Southwest is hosting a certification test on October 10 at Phoenix Country Club. I know many of you have been slow to warm up to pickleball but the fact of the matter is that it is here to stay and the more you think like a racquet sports professional and not just a tennis professional the better it is for your growth and longevity in the industry. We need to have a minimum of 12 people to host the certification but I have no doubt we will get there.

Once again, I hope to see you all in Vegas. Get registered and we will see you there!