UPDATE YOUR COACHING

Upgrade Your Coaching: It's Not the 1970s Anymore

Believe it or not, the 1970s were almost 50 years ago! We live in a world defined by cell phones, the internet, and AI—a world unrecognizable to someone from the disco era. Yet, many of us still teach tennis like we did back then.

The standard drill: a straight line on the baseline, waiting for the coach to feed a ball, followed by vague feedback like, "Good. More low to high." The coach relies on a dazzling personality, lots of laughs, and "games" like Izzy Dizzy or Fruit Salad to pass off as "fun." Participants leave on a sugar high, but what did they truly learn?

In 2025, there is no excuse for not being up-to-speed with the latest advances in teaching.

The Modern Coaching Paradigm

The future of coaching requires a commitment to a new standard:

• Evidence-Based Methods: Utilize the latest sports science and published research to inform your teaching.
• Maniacal Focus on the Student: The new paradigm is simple: If the student is not learning, the pro is not teaching. The student's learning is the only metric that matters.
• Respect Age and Stage-Based Learning: A 5-year-old, a 16-year-old, and a 60-year-old are at different developmental stages for the brain and body. We can no longer teach all age groups the same way.
• Build a Learning Environment: Move beyond the nebulous concept of "fun." Coaches must build a non-threatening, rally-based, and playful environment. Research shows that true "fun" is a natural subset of this environment.
• Formal Coach Development: Replace the outdated "sage on the stage" presentation model. Coach Development must be hands-on, heavily experience-based, and designed to make coaches love the art and science of their profession even more.
• Master the HOW: For too long, we have only focused on what to coach, which is irrelevant without focusing on the HOW to coach. This potent, key variable—coaching behaviors—has never been fully studied and taught until now.

Organizations like USTA Coaching Education, PTR, and RSPA all offer terrific modules on these critical topics.

The choice is now yours: Will your tennis teaching reflect the standards of 2025 or the methods of the 1970s?