Rankings Don't Equal Success...Navigating the Noise in Youth Sports with Guest Coach Kenyon Generette-Oliver

Today's Play:
In this episode, we talk about the evolving challenges in youth tennis, from ranking obsessions to the impact of parental involvement on development. We'll also learn how to maintain integrity in youth sports (hint: discipline is key) and why it is important to build character-driven teams.

Today's Coach:
Kenyon Generette-Oliver is one of the partners at Universal Tennis Academy in Atlanta, Georgia where he leads tennis pros at some of the top tennis clubs in the Atlanta metro area. Most recently, he was named the Head Tennis Coach at Agnes Scott College.  He is an Elite USPTA Tennis Professional and has been teaching juniors and college players for over 25 years.

To learn more about Bryant College Coaching, and download our new e-book, click here or go to www.bryantcollegecoaching.com

Picking Teams: A Playbook for Parents is produced by: Amy Bryant and Sasha Melamud

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Transcript

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Our guest today is Kenyon Generette Oliver. Kenyon is one of the partners at Universal Tennis Academy in Atlanta, Georgia, where he leads tennis pros at some of the top tennis clubs in the Atlantic. Most recently, he was named the head tennis coach at Agnes Scott College. He is an elite USPATA tennis professional and has been teaching juniors and college players for over 25 years. Kenyon, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I look forward to it. Yeah, so let's start off. You've been a junior tennis coach for many, many, many, many years in the Atlanta area. You and I have known each other for a very long time. So I would love to hear your take on what some trends are that you're seeing these days that are concerning to you or even inspiring to you. We can start with one or the other, whichever you prefer. Let's go with the trends and the things that may be a little bit concerning. What I've noticed is, including with the parents and the kids, is they're getting really caught up with their numbers and their UTR numbers. That's been a big thing for them because they think that they have no chance of moving on and going to play college ball if their UTR numbers aren't where they should be or where they think they should be. When I say that, The biggest trend that I'm starting to find here locally is that a lot of the kids that are good players aren't willing to go to the schools where they really should play. They're looking to just say, you know what, I'm just going to go to Georgia Tech and play club tennis. And that's been really hard to watch where, you know, some of these kids could be, you know, champions at a Furman or at a Wofford or a Sanford or something like that, but they just will not go. They would rather, you know, go to Georgia Tech, like I said, or even at all, something like that, just to be at a bigger school and maybe play club tennis or just give it up. But that's a trend that I'm that I'm seeing. Yeah, as a gym coach. It's disturbing because they have so much talent and there's so much to gain by being on a college team, and they're just completely losing that opportunity to continue their development in such a positive way with a sport that's been in their lives for such a long time. To just give it up like that. I mean, a lot of reasons people get into tennis or get into sports are for different reasons. I know for me, when I got into sports, my brother and I, it was really to keep us out of trouble. And then it just took off with something else. But I mean, it gives you something to do, because my parents weren't going to just let us sit around the house. So it's almost like it's losing that luster. I mean, people are sitting around the house again. They're getting lazy. I mean, it's just unbelievable, because they just don't think, the parents don't think that spending the money is worth it. Yeah, it's fascinating where people choose to put their resources. So if you were to guide a family in how they should allocate their resources to better or to more holistically round out their child's development, what would you say? Yeah, it's, it's hard because, like, if you see a kid with some, with some promise, and obviously the parents starts to see see their kid have a little bit of promise. They tend to go overboard as opposed to kind of. I like to use the word grind. They don't have any kind of grind mentality. What I mean by that is, even some of my best kids that I've spent time with over the years that have made it to the tour and made it to big time D1 tennis, we never did more than 30 or 45 minute privates. And a lot of these parents will go the exact opposite. They see some talent. So then they just, everyone's heard that term burnout. They're part of the reason because instead of doing it like I'm saying, they ask you for your expertise. But then don't want to take any of your advice with the expertise, because they've gone to a couple terms and talk to a couple parents and the parents are starting to guide them. So they're like, oh, no, you need to do 5 hours of privates week and 20 hours of drills. And it's weird to say if I was an accountant, you wouldn't question. I'm a certified person that's here to help you. And the first answer you get, you're going to second guess me. And it's just, that's the stuff that worries me when I see this. And I'm a huge fan of playing tournament ball and playing competition because you want to see the kids compete. But it's almost backfiring because the information that they're getting hurts them, I think. That's my personal thought on it. So what you're saying is for these parents to try to, and I say, I use this expression all the time, silence the noise of the other parents that you're hearing, because what they're doing is they're just creating this anxious effect where they hear that a family's doing one thing. And if they don't do that, then their kid's not going to be able to keep up. And, and everyone's trying to, they just get so uptight instead of just relaxing and listening to what The experts are saying we're the ones that see the big picture. Absolutely, I couldn't say any say any better. I mean, it's just that why have me in in the camp if you're not going to utilize me. I mean, that I've gotten more and more. Out of camps, because I'm getting and older, I'm 54 years old and I just don't want to I don't want to deal with it. I mean, it's not worth it to me. So I just. My job now is kind of mentoring the coaches that we have on, you know, the hiccups, you know, because I just, I don't see it the same way that I did 20 years ago. It's not the same. Dealing with the same group of people. Interesting. So who, what was the group of people you had 20 years ago? They were willing to take willing to take your advice and, you know, and they were, you know, the hardest part that I'm facing now is parents that said they played. So they said they grew up playing in the juniors. They said they played college tennis. And if that's the case, then you should know better. I mean, they wonder why their kid decides to put down a racket. You told me that your parents were not jobs when you were growing up. Why would you why would you turn into that person? And it's just were honestly, to be completely honest, the people that I've had the most trouble with lately are people who said they grew up playing. It's interesting. Yeah. It makes you wonder if they're trying to overcome some shortcomings that they felt like they had growing up. Like, if I had trained more hours a day, then I would have been able to achieve more. Or if I had done online school, then I would have been able to do this. So they're trying to provide that for their child without. And the money's there, Amy. Some of these people have just more money. to throw at things than I feel like my parents did at that time. I mean, I didn't think a bunch of privates. I mean, I just took it off. I played other sports, it made me athletic enough in everything that I did. So therefore, I didn't have any of those kinds of issues. And then tournament came along, we played it. Let's go, let's get going. And we didn't duck anybody. You know, this is the tournament we needed to play, we played it. We didn't go. Now, I actually find myself telling kids, you may have to go to Mississippi to play this tournament because you're not going to get into this other tournament. Back when we were growing up, there weren't that many tournaments to choose from. You just everyone played it. You didn't get it. You didn't get it. That was the way it was. I mean, and now these kids are like, 30th on the alternate list. You know what I'm saying? So it's just. You've got a lot of other issues if you're the 30th alternate. Okay, it's it's okay. So it's and that's. They don't want to hear that truth sometimes. And I try to be as sweet as I can, but I'm like, look, if you're going to really do this, here's the steps. But they always want to kind of go back door of the steps. Yeah. they feel like, well, there's got to be another solution. There has to be this silver bullet that is going to launch my kid up to the number one alternate spot the next time we get there. And there's no silver bullet. There's only hard work. There's only good attitude, good effort, and guarding your child's holistic livelihood. That's really what it boils down to and recognizing the priorities as a parent. Right? I mean, what are your priorities here? Is it to make your child that champion that. You know, that kid that doesn't get on the alternate list, or is already to raise a healthy and happy child. Yeah, you you know, it's so funny. I went to Arkansas, I go. You know, every summer, you know, of course, this 1 tournament season really, really picks up for at least, you know, 8 weeks, but I had to go to Arkansas and been there in 10 years. I had to go to Arkansas for the southern 16s. And draw wasn't full draw wasn't full. So. Kids who got into the term and who shouldn't have gotten the term that got in because draw was full. And it has to be because. of the things that we first started off speaking about where the kids aren't going to, they said, screw it, I'm not going to play college tennis, so I'm not going to do something like this, or competition's gotten weaker, or flat out people just don't want to travel that far, and the kids who have the money can take that risk and go, because truly, if you win one match in that situation, you're now on the map because of what those points are. And literally, I took nine kids myself, and I know three of them because they won a match. Literally, they're on the mat. Now, tournaments that they couldn't get into, they're going to get into now, just from driving nine driving nine hours. Just from having the means to be able to travel from Atlanta to Arkansas and be able to register for that tournament, do that. It's privilege, right? It's the kids that have the means are able to get on the map, get seen. And we're seeing this across the board in all sports. The families that are able, like in soccer, the ones that are able to travel to the showcases and travel every weekend. And, you know, it's an incredible financial commitment. So what's the message here? I still I still believe that there's there's there's going to be a resurgence of kids just busting their hump and working hard and willing to go because they love the sport or love whatever sport it is. And they really want to be part of a team and want to play somewhere. I think that that's going to come back around because there are a lot of parents out there who I'm sure you've heard this story where they mortgage their house to make sure that their kids got these things and those kids are forced to go to schools that they didn't want to go to for the scholarship money. And my parents didn't mortgage their home or anything, but I ended up going to school where I went because it was free. Okay, so that was the end of the story. I mean, I went because it was free. Probably wouldn't have chosen it, but free is free. And that's how my parents looked at it at the time. That's how I looked at it. And, you know, if I didn't do it, I don't think I would have gone this route either. So I'm glad I ended up doing it. It worked out great. Well, concerning to me, I don't know if you've been following the house settlement at all. But the number of opportunities for scholarships are going to be incredibly impacted. By the settlement, and there may not be as many opportunities for families like yours to take advantage of the 3. Education. that comes from the hard work and the sacrifice and earning it. So it's a little concerning where we're headed in terms of families with means that are able to get to places, to get the rankings, to get to the showcases, to get the exposure. They're just going to keep on getting for that effort versus the kids that don't have that kind of privilege. the way that the NCAA sports are looking, it's just going to be worse and worse for those families. No question. But I mean, it's always to some degree about that. Yeah. It is what it is. I mean, they're going to always find a way. Yeah. Find a way, you know. And you are finding more and more kids that are willing to go the D3 route. But, you know, because then what the, you know, because the word, their term, kids is that work life balance and the D3 education and athletic seems to give you that. Certain schools obviously are better than others. Your former school, you know, is at the top. So, you know, other schools are just striving to get there. Well, there's haves and have-nots in that model as in well, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Interesting. So, well, let's not be so negative. Let's talk about some trends that are positive that you're seeing. I'm seeing more people people play. I mean, there's a lot more people playing, you know, just, I say sports in general, but I would say racquet sports. So tennis is picked up, racquetball, not racquetball, but Pickleball is picked up. Padel is picked up. There's a lot of different. Golf is picked up and, you know, maybe it's all because of. COVID and this and the other one you had to do the social distancing or whatever but I just or there's more kids starting to pop up and young young adults but they're just it's there seem to be more inquiries about young people playing and I say young it could be anywhere from seven to I did a lesson the other day with a 25 year old so there's a lot more people just playing the sport which is good that's a good thing that I've never played before. That's great. Well, it's that kind of sport. I mean, you can pick it up later in life. It's kind of a silly story. I made the horrible judgment call to join a basketball team for the first time in my life. I mean, I'm nearly 50 years old. A women's basketball team. I'm in it now. We're in the league. And it's the Decatur Rec League. And I mistakenly thought, OK, it's going to be all beginners. playing this league, and it is not. It is a lot of really impressive women that probably played basketball in high school, college, and maybe have been playing since then. I don't know. But most sports, all that to say, most sports are very difficult to pick up later in life, where tennis and other racquet sports are a lot easier to pick up later in life. Yeah. I'm sure you're not the tallest person out person out there, are you? No, I'm not, but I can jump up for a rebound and I'm really good at bouncing off of other people's picks. Yeah, I'm like a pinball out like a there. But anyways, that was a bad judgment call on my part, but I'm that type of person. I'll try anything for fun. So what do you see as some of the values that young people are being taught? So, I mean, pressure is pressure. And one of the things that tennis is supposed to be a sport of honor and, I guess, respect, and you're supposed to have a conscience to some degree, I guess. But I mean, I don't know. But a lot of times you can see people, they just don't have a conscience. And I think Let me add to this, because what I think I've noticed over my tenure of 32 years of coaching is I've seen fewer and fewer middle of the road, good, good female players start to drop in playing competitive tennis when they turn to be when they turn to be 16, 17 for this one reason that I'm about to bring up. And I think that cheating has gotten worse. And when I say the honor and the respect is because it's up to you to make the call. You don't have a ref out there. You're making the call. So what I find is kids are cheating more. And a lot of the females that I've coached over the years, they're like, Kenyon, am I going to play this tournament and drive to Mississippi six hours and get cheated? Or am I going to prom? Which one am I going to pick? And I have to bust out laughing, because I'm sitting there thinking, well, I get what you're saying, because I'm sitting there watching your match as well, and I've seen you get hooked, and it's that and the other. So those are the trends that I'm starting to see a little bit more of, and I'm starting to see parents know that their kid's cheating and still just roll with it. I know what my parents would have done if I blatantly hooked somebody. I can promise you that there might have been some battle scars. But I'm just telling you, I just don't think that I just think that the pressure is so high now for these kids to win that it comes at such a high cost. And you just remember if you grew up through the juniors all the way through, we all remember each other. And the one thing you don't want is you don't remember, you don't want that to be part of your resume. And the funny part is, The kids that I've coached that are now starting to come back that are 28, 29, 30-year-old types, and I've coached their girlfriends or fiancés or husbands and fiancés and boyfriends or whatever. It's funny how a lot of them have come back together themselves. And some of the things they bring back up are like, you remember that guy used to cheat. I mean, it's funny how they still talk about that stuff, because that stuff is still fresh on their mind. And they hadn't played competitive tennis in 15 years, some of them, you know? So I think that's some of the things that I'm witnessing. I don't know about some of the other coaches you've spoken to, but that's some of my thoughts. Yeah, and for our listeners that may be listening that are involved in other sports, tennis is that sport where these kids and the juniors are making their own line calls. There's no referee out there. I mean, sometimes there's roving officials, but the roving officials aren't doing much out there and they're not managing. And the kids know when the official's looking versus not looking, and they can go ahead and make the call that they need to make. And it's wild. The parents are just sitting there on the sidelines watching their kids cheat. I mean, I'm with you, Ken. I used to go and recruit at these tournaments. And if I saw a kid do that, which I did many times, they were off my list. I wouldn't recruit that kid to go to my school because character was a really important piece of my recruiting profile for my kids. You know, there's there's different styles and different cultures out there for coaching. Some coaches love that. Some college coaches are like, yeah, bring me the cheaters like I will. I will put out the meanest team possible because we're going to intimidate the heck out of our opponents. And. You know, that's just not that wasn't the type of coach and not the type of team that I wanted to I wanted to have, but it's a lot of a lot of these reps are afraid to actually do the right thing. They're afraid because I sit on the USTA board for a lot of stuff and I brought this up in the board meetings and stuff. And the 1 thing that I think that it's too much on 1 rep to cover 4, 6, 7 courts by themselves. I don't care what anybody says. It's too tough. It's too tough. If anything, if you really want the truth, and I hate it for the kids who can't afford it, but it makes a better experience. They need to up the ante on how much they charge for the tournaments. Charge more so there's more refs. Period. I mean, it's just. There's just no other way to look at it. That's it. That's the only thing that. That makes this game suck because. I don't want to be in 95 degree weather and add another 10 to 15 degrees because it's because it's so hot human outside. And hit a ball in the middle of the court. And someone say, oh, you just missed it came in. I wouldn't want to deal with that. I know I dealt with it when I was that age, but. You figure it out and then the 1 thing you don't want to figure out is you start cheating yourself. Because that's what you feel like you have to do at times if you're on your own like that, and you don't want that either. So that's my soapbox. Yeah, but, you know, raising fees never seems to to fix the problems there because somebody else will just pad their pocket with it. Whoever's posting maternity, you know, like. It doesn't work and then you wind up boxing out families that can't afford the higher fees because they're already having to put the travel fees like we talked about before. So. What's the answer? I think the answer falls back on parents again. Just like you said, you know, your parents would not stand for that. And I think parents have to step up and remember that they have a job, a very important job, and that is raising their child to be a positive and a productive human being. Somebody that they would be proud to say is my child for more reasons than just they win. Definitely for more reasons than they win at all costs. That's right. I agree. So now, so Kenyon, to kind of shift gears and let our listeners know, last year you were hired as the head women's tennis coach at Agnes Scott College, a small little college here we have in Peter, Georgia, women's college. How does coaching these women compare to coaching these junior tennis players? I have to say, and now let me start off by saying, Marcy Huck was the coach and she was able to get another job and it happened in December. So, and I had been volunteering because we already do programming there. And they asked me would I consider being the interim coach because it was everything to the girls and whatnot. I said yes. It's probably been the best experience I've had in coaching, maybe ever, because it being an all-girls school, one. Two, Agnes has changed over the years. They're not getting a lot of kids locally, so they're getting kids, you know, from other places, but my team was full of kids that had never played tennis before. So it was awesome to see the effort they put in. They wanted to learn and just knowing where they came from because I've been the volunteer with them to go from the record they had to go to the record that we had this year make that make the conference tournament win our first round losing the semifinals I mean and then during the banquet and people forget and you don't because you've done all this so you have to end of the year banquet I was in tears literally the entire time because some of the girls are graduating which Sometimes it can be a good thing, sometimes it can be a bad thing, but it's not because, you know, you get close to these kids, you know, you're with them for. You know, the betterment of 3 straight months, you know, you spend a little time with them in the fall. And you're just you're with them all the time and you care that. They're good character people, like you're saying, and you're, you're worried about more than just how they hit a tennis ball. Okay, I was, I was worried about their grades. I was worried about their social interaction with their other friends and the second other, because they start to come to you. They rely on, you know, because you're. You're a parent almost, or a big brother and uncle, whatever you might be. So, it just, it got to be more to me than just. Man, your 4 hand stunt today or this that the other was just. And then the bus trips, because I had to drive the van. was some of the best times I've had with, you know, eight people behind me screaming and yelling in the back because I don't have I didn't have young kids or anything like that. So now I get to understand what are we there yet? Are we there? All that stuff. It was it's funny. But then as you get to the banquet and you start to say, man, I may never see this kid again, you know, or it was it was just absolutely awesome. So then when they asked me, would I would I be the full time coach? Without hesitation I said yes and fortunately my partners of UTA have understood it because we're all at different phases of our life now and and I needed this for me to continue with the other almost because I needed that that separation a little bit and it's it's been great and the athletic director Tanika Richardson's been awesome because she's allowed me to have that to be able to be both people still. And it's just been awesome. And the girls have been awesome. And starting to do the recruiting thing now, which is, again, why I'm happy that we're still such good friends. I know that's something you're into. So I hope that the team is going to get virtually better as far as skill-wise. But I don't want to lose the skill part for the people. I don't want to start getting better girls in here and their snots. I don't want to be around that because I already have that. I can have that on the other side if I want. Yeah, does that make sense? So, so I would rather have. I feel like I can still develop kids at a really high level, which I feel like we did last year because. We won a ton of matches last year, and this is from kids who had never played and they're beating girls that everyone knows about UTR and tennis that had these girls had no UTR. They were beating girls that had 4 and 5 UTRs. So that so I know that we still can produce players, and I don't want to act like I was the only 1. I had another great volunteer for me, who was 1 of my coaches, who stepped in to help me do a lot of that stuff. So, the 2 of us literally knocked out. 8 girls, we put them on the ball machine, we did whatever we needed to do. To get them to a competitive part, and my 2. Top players were soccer players too, so they just don't have any any quit. And because of that, all I had to do is teach him the score. Teach him how to look at the tennis ball and. Give him a racket and say, have at it and literally they were the 2 winning players on the team. They went 16 and 10. So that's counting doubles. So you can do the math. They got it done. Well, that shows also what it means to be athletic and means to be athletic and be able to move across sports. That's what I was incorrectly assuming when I joined a basketball team. I thought, okay, I got this. I'm an athlete. Basketball is a different story. But for your soccer players, they also have the team understanding. They know how to work. They know how to grind for other people, not just for themselves. And so to have them in your team and be as successful as they were after just picking up a racket, that makes complete sense to me. Makes complete sense to me. And you and I both played soccer and tennis growing up, right? That's right. Yeah. So I mean, they're very complimentary sport. But I love hearing you say that you're not willing to sacrifice the team culture for even more wins. There are so many coaches out there that I think say that, but don't necessarily mean that. And I get it because it's tough to, you know, coaches want to win. But you got to draw the line somewhere as a coach and really recognize what this is all about. And kudos to you for kicking in with yourself and realizing what you wanted out of this experience early on. It's really impressive. Again, I Again, I mean, but it also, it also relates to the staff that's around you, you know, that, you know, you've got, you know, there's other sports at Agnes and then I'm telling you that, you know, being a volunteer there for a number of years, I got to see the other athletic directors. I see this athletic director and I just think that she sees things differently. And I just think because she sees things differently, I think the culture has changed. And for me, the one, the one thing that I think that I've probably gotten better at as a coach Strictly from this is. This athletic director is really big on making you do outside development. Of yourself, so to speak to help what to help with this and 1 of the things that. That that she's made us do is by doing that, it's made me realize. My coaching style really is I do a better job of throwing myself under the bus than just screaming at you. So, if I, if I throw myself under the bus. it opens up a lane for you to maybe open up a little bit because I'm not picking and picking you out and saying this is you stink this any other. So I've tried to use that philosophy more because I think it's helping, especially with girls for me. And everyone has different ways of doing it. But I just when I say that, I'm just saying I throw myself under the bus and let them know the mistakes that I've made the first, as opposed to. You know, shooting a bow and arrow at 1 of them if that makes sense. I think in the I think in the past. I may have may have gone the other route because of what I was trying to produce because I was very lucky. When I 1st started coaching that I had. Top top level juniors that I spent that I got to spend time with. that needed just a hard ass and just needed to teach him how to him how to play. And I was thrown into that environment. So when I was thrown into that environment, I just, eh. It worked. I'm not going to say it was 100% me, but, you know, I liked it when I was a kid and when I was playing, I liked to coach on me. I didn't mind it. It pushed me. A lot of these kids don't like that. And you got to figure out which kid to put your foot in. And most of them don't like that anymore. That's just not how they are. I think the career development stuff that Dr. Richardson has put us in, it's just really been awesome. And every coach that's in this environment has bought into it, because we're all struggling with the same thing. Recruiting is hard now. It's just hard. It's even harder in an all-girls school. I mean, it's just harder. So she's done a great job of making us be a team ourselves first, so we can be a good team to our personal team. You know, so that's what I, and this is in five months, she's been able to do this. That's amazing. That's, I mean, that's just fantastic leadership, right? I coached college tennis for 23 years. And one of the things, I had some fantastic leaders as well. But one of the things I noticed is that there's a huge gap in the professional development That is expected of college coaches. And I think that's why in the news, we hear so many of these scandals come out. About coaches reading their student athlete. It's because coaches don't have any requirements to keep learning. They start their job. They've been in their job for 20 years. They do the job the same way they did it 20 years ago if they haven't been continually educating themselves. Because there's no requirement from up above to do any training. Within the last 5 years, the requirement that has been imposed upon a lot of people is DEI training, which is fantastic. You know, we need it, but there's a lot of pushback because this is the 1st requirement that we've ever been encouraged to do or required to do. And it's unfortunate because learning is an important part of coaching. You can't be a good coach for an extended period of time if you're not learning. And then, you know, the other part of that is, too, and I love hearing you say that you're able to be humble in front of these kids. It's important for them to recognize that you're human. You make mistakes, just like they do. And for them to have that recognition think really makes them respect you even more. But it's hard for a lot of coaches to admit that in front of their charges. One of the things that I do is I do do some coaching of one of my goals. was to be able to support coaches because they need it. Coaches need coaching just like their kids need coaching. But kudos to you for recognizing all that at the get-go. I think you probably have a long career there and I love the relationships that you're building already. That's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, being an owner of a business, I think that, I mean, they all recognize that I'm an owner of the business and I think that it's actually probably helped me see and she's she's managing a smaller staff, but I've got 80 employees that work for us at. Okay, so I've actually recognized. That I needed to treat them differently now than. That may have thought before, you know, I mean, there's, you got to I'm hiring people that are. 2526, this, this might be their 1st job ever as well. And. You know, tennis is 1 of those jobs where. It's rewarding. It's a grind. We use that word earlier and you can start to have a. You know, physical ailments, because you're on your feet all day to send the other and 1 of my. Staff, they came to me, they said, can you said we need some. Time or time. And I literally said, what did you say? She said, because I had no idea what she was talking about. None. And she said, PTO time. I mean, she said, well, what do you mean you don't know? And I'm like, I'm like, literally, I don't know what you're talking about. Explain to me. She goes, personal time off. I had this, I said, please let me marinate on it. Do not let me, don't let me answer you right now. So I went back and talked to my partners and said, no, I said, I know we can't afford just to pay people to take time off, but we've got to figure out another way that. be figure out how we don't grind these people to the point they don't want to do this anymore. We figured it out and we need to keep having younger people come in because they just know things that we don't know because we're not in that age group anymore. We love that we try to treat people the way that we would have wanted to be treated when we're in their position, but we're not in their position anymore. In a weird way, it's hard. It's we understand what we want to do, but we got to understand that we are. 50 to 65 years old now, because because we all are in that range now. And we have to just see things differently and it's been. It's been frustrating at times, but it's been awesome at times to see. Your ourselves grow and. we're an academy that we really believe that when we're not coaching anymore that UTA will still exist. A lot of these other academies as soon as that group is gone the academy will close down. We've set it up now where we've got people that will take over the academy as we start to retire and that is that's felt awesome and you know and to and that is that's felt awesome and you know and We have we have some really forward thinking partners because I don't want to act like I'm so there's eight of us and all eight of us have our strengths, you know, and like a team. With that being said, I really feel satisfied that when Kenyon decides to retire, that Kayo, Trey, Zabkar, these people will be the next owners of UTA. I don't know a lot of academies that can say that and have set it up to be like that because they're all employees of ours. Most people, they're independent contractors. These people, we offer benefits. and simple IRAs too, and et cetera, et cetera. So we have gone the extra mile to make sure that this is a business. But learning some of the outside development stuff that I've had and brought it into here has been awesome. I can't say anything anything better about it. That's great. And I think also one of the biggest signs of strong leaders is that they have successors That are just as good or better if you're able to groom quality people to come in and take over behind you, then you've done a fantastic job. So, again, I've done that. I think you may have done may have done that. Did you do that? Well, I think my successor is is fantastic. I'm not going to take all the credit for grooming her, but she's unbelievable. She was unbelievable before she became my assistant coach and she played for me as well. I mean, she's just an unbelievable kid. And you know, Bridget, she's, she's awesome. And she's doing a fantastic job in her second year. She just finished her second year as a head coach. Good successors are good people also before they are groomed by you. I firmly believe that, but Bridget was the right one for me. Anyways, congratulations to you. And even talking about retirement, that's amazing. You've been- Well, I got it. I got to start thinking about it. I got it. I mean, I'm 54 now. I have to start thinking about it. My body's just not there anymore. It's just- It's a hard life out there with that. You just got to start thinking about it. And I'm married now, and there's other things that are important to me, too. Yeah, good for for you for recognizing that. And I think it's important, you know, we have a lot of parents that listen to the show and we do have some coaches that listen to the show. I think it's important for parents to remember that coaches are people too. I said this before, you're human. It's great for your players to be able to recognize you as a human quote unquote, you know, coaches are people too. And, you know, some of us coaches are parents too. And I think parents lose sight of that meaning. We, and I say we because I'm a parent as well, we fall prey to immediately lunching out at coaches and thinking of them as people that are there. We pay to take care of our kids and to groom our kids and we forget that they have lives of their own. Their life is not solely to our child. So what advice do you have for parents as they Continue to work with you either as a parent of 1 of your college players as a parent of 1 of your junior players. What what's your single most piece of advice of advice for. Consistent just be consistent as a parent because. I think that, you know, I think a lot of times at least this is what I have faced. And again, I mean, if you're consistent with your kid, it's just. So much easier to to produce. whatever you want to produce. If you just, I mean, if you want to produce just a good human being, you're going to produce a phenomenal tennis player. Those things are just easier if you're consistent. I find that a lot of the kids lately, they're more friends with their parents than, than their parents actually kind of parenting of parenting them. Does that make sense? And my mom said to me, my mom's 70, 76, something like that. She said, we're just now friends. She's 77. Sorry. So now I know exactly. She just told me just a few weeks ago in front of my wife. She goes, you know, Kenny and I are just now friends. So that to me says it all, you know. fortunately or unfortunately my mom also lives next door to us so we see my mom a lot and but she hasn't just popped up on us and just in the middle of you know the day but she she's good she's a good person but i think that i could say about my parents even when they were together they were consistent they were consistent they said no they meant no that was the end of it they said yes they they meant it you know but even like i think about if i got grounded And my parents had a party to go to. I can remember this. I was probably 15, and I got grounded for something I did with my brother, probably. And they canceled their party. And I said, what are you doing? They go, we want you to know how important your screw up was. That we're going to cancel us going out tonight to prove how important this was. And they were consistent. You know, and there's things like, you know, I like to tell this last story. I was supposed to mow the grass. I was supposed to mow the grass. My dad said, Kenyon, make sure that grass is mowed by Friday. And I didn't do it. And I kept procrastinating. And he said, Kenyon, it's Wednesday that grass needs to get cut. And I said, yeah, yeah, get off me. It's Friday. It starts raining. So I said, perfect. I leave and go out and come back home the next day. My dad met me at the door, dragging me down to my bedroom at the time. and kick the door open and all the wet grass clippings were in my bed and all over the floor. It never happened again, is my point. And the consistency was, don't try me again. All the stuff that you have here can be taken away. And it's just, I needed, and every now and then, you know, you got to be brought back to reality. And he had a way of doing it. And that was my reality for the next, because it took me about 15 hours to get all that grass out. Because it was wet, and it was in the bed, and it was all over the floor. So reality set in pretty good that day. That's a fantastic story. And so poignant, because I can't even tell you the number of times that I've said to myself, this kid was never disciplined. or this student, her parents never said no. And even as a parent now with some of the kids that my kids are friends with, I'm like, oof, my kid needs a little discipline. It's not hard to say no, but it's really hard at the same same time. But it's so necessary because your child's ability to be a functioning member of a team later on in life, in college, and beyond is really dependent on the level of discipline that you place on your child early on. And whether that discipline is related to their behavior on a tennis court, when they're competing, or whether it's related to their chores at home, it really can impact how they behave later on. One of the best things I thought that I was able to witness during this past season was, and I've always been a huge fan of this, and I know it happens more in the football world because of the Viking and the brutal mentality that some people can have when they play football. It was awesome to see these girls do this one thing. And I told them almost one of the first days of practice. I said, I'll know I did a pretty good job. when you guys start policing yourselves. Because at certain levels, if I'm coaching at Georgia, I've got an assistant coach, a volunteer coach, a volunteer for volunteers, a volunteer for volunteers. I mean, you got a lot of resources, right? And if you're at a school like this with limited resources, it's just you being dad or mom and you're a good cop and bad cop like every minute of the day. And it's just, it was awesome to start watching the girls literally police themselves to the point where They were fine. They weren't mad at each other. They didn't take it out on one another because, you know, how teams can get. And, you know, it's passive aggressive, but they were absolutely awesome. That's how I knew. And I think those are the things that brought me to tears is how close I saw them get over the dumbest things. But it was awesome to watch that. So that what you just said to me reminds me of that. Wonderful. Well, good. Well, let's end on that note. I mean, I really enjoyed having you here today. We talked about all sorts of different things, which I think comes from you being involved in so many important pieces of a child's life from their young start in tennis to their collegiate days to beyond and the relationships that you've developed with these players last through life. That's why you're a great coach. I appreciate our relationship as well. We've had it for a long time, and I definitely want to continue that. And I look forward to seeing your success as you carry on there at Agnes Scott and UTA until you you retire. Same to you. Bet you're out of me.