Episode #33 Season 24: Shaun Boyce & Justin Yeo

Welcome to an engaging episode of Atlanta Tennis Podcast, powered by GoTennis. Listen to the insightful exchanges between host Shaun and our guest, Justin Yeo and Kenyon Generette- Oliver on finding the right coach for your skill development. The exciting conversation touches on several important characteristics of coach selection in the vibrant tennis backdrop of Atlanta- thighs to be considered before selection, role of various tennis related institutions, challenges in building an ambassador system to connect aspirants and coaches, and plausible navigation tools. 

Our Honorable Guests

Justin Yeo: Justi Yeo is the australian professional tennis coach who is currently living in Puerto Rico.  Yeo has a coaching career expanding over a few decades. This pro coach runs a tennis academy in Melbourne.

Kenyon Generette- Oliver: He is currently a partner with the Universal Tennis Academy and the head teaching pro of Agnes Scott.  Prior to this, he has worked with some of the top Atlanta tennis clubs and has 20 years long coaching experience with juniors. He is also a USPTA certified coach. 

Highlights of the Episode

1.Types of Tennis Coaches

Justine describes three broad types of coaches, one is likely to encounter.

• Independent Coaches: They are versatile and flexible in nature.Usually works with players of all ages and skill levels.
• Country Club Coaches: They are often tied with a single club. They shoulder various responsibilities, depending on their positions. Their expertises includes- administrations, planning events and on court training. Though with additional responsibilities, the scope of actual coaching is very limited. 
• High-Performance Coaches: They specialize in developing professional players. Most of the time they work with skill development in young players to improve their performance to the next level. These days they are also working with adults for continuous improvement of skills. Their goal is to bring high quality performance out of the players. 

2.Significance of Proper Alignment 

Yeo explains that a player must have a clear goal and understanding of their own requirements. Before settling with a coach, they should consider the background of the trainer and ensure proper sinking of their needs with the coach’s speciality. It is important in crafting tailored approaches- from grip techniques to adjusting focus, everything must cater towards exploring the potential of the aspirant.

3.Challenges in the TennisThriving Backdrop of Atlanta

Atlanta is one of the largest tennis centers in the world. This unique city provides plenty of opportunity for coaches and aspiring tennis players. However, the challenges are also fierce here: 

• Lack of attempts from USTA, USPTA, GPTA and other organizations to create centralized documentation on certified tennis coaches. Unawareness of the existing database on the part of general people,  is equally challenging. 
• Lack of personal networking among coaches to limit word of mouth referral systems.
• Around 40% of the coaches are not certified. Many certified coaches do not want to keep their certificates up to date due to various issues, like- fees.

Takeaways of the Episode

Plausible Solutions and Alternatives

• GoTennis launched the Coach Finder feature to connect potential players with certified coaches in Atlanta.  Their discussion centers around the benefits of a well-developed centralized system like this to the players, parents and coaches. The conversation explores how such attempts can help GPTA and how a possible reformation of GPTA can help in the networking of coaches around Atlanta.   They discuss how organizations like the GPTA (Georgia Professional Tennis Association) and USTA (United States Tennis Association) can support a more unified community through education, networking, and certification.

A Change of Cultures

• The episode’s ultimate suggestion is that collaboration is a must for improvement of Atlanta tennis. The guests and host advocate for a data driven referral system that can easily connect proper coaches with students in terms of locations, skill level and preferred goals.

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YouTube LIVE Replay: https://youtube.com/live/2o_tkxh6SbY

Shaun Boyce USPTA: shaun@tennisforchildren.com

https://tennisforchildren.com/ 🎾

Justin Yeo: https://www.instagram.com/yeocoach/

Bobby Schindler USPTA: schindlerb@comcast.net

https://windermerecommunity.net/ 🎾

Geovanna Boyce: geovy@regeovinate.com

https://regeovinate.com/ 💪🏼🏋️

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[Music]

Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

Every episode is titled, "It starts with tennis" and goes from there.

We talk with coaches, club managers, industry business professionals,

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We want to have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.

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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast,

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With that said, let's get started with 10 minutes of tennis.

[Music]

Good morning. My name is Shaun. This is Justin Yeo, world-renowned tennis pro in

Puerto Rico, but he's an Australian. Not sure how that works out,

but he does find there. I'm sure he's working on his Spanish,

but we want to ask him to speak in Spanish today.

What is this? What is this?

There we go. Why don't this?

Very nice.

What do we get? What is what is...

Exactly. Well, we are talking today about how to find the right tennis coach,

and it is not easy. It is not.

Potentially as easy as some might think, or maybe it is, because I guess some are just

constricted by how far they're willing to travel.

We've got a few different questions on how to pick that coach.

I've got up in my view a whole bunch of options for online ability to find a tennis coach,

but I think that might be a little more swiping right than people are really looking for.

This isn't an online dating thing. You really need to find out if the coach is the right fit.

So, where would you tell someone to start, Justin, on finding the right coach, and why is this the right

coach actually matter? I knew this was a huge question. I was thinking about all the different

directions this could go. They could tell me.

Well, the good thing is you've got to focus on audience. So your audience is Atlanta.

Atlanta is like a lot of this tennis city in the world, but the most tennis coaches in the world.

And the only difference there is that I learned from working at, obviously, in coming and then

Roswell, and all the coaches in the town very well. Mr. Mark McMan, who was the man of Dumwitty,

who has his own management company now, coaches. He always described three different coaches.

You have an independent coach. You have a sort of what we call a country coach.

And then you have a performance coach. In the independent coach, it's one that can,

it has the skills to be able to deal with ladies, men, juniors, community, be on the call for hours,

construct great, you know, great activities that have fun by the way. High performance coach needs to

be a guy who's, that's it, man. His intense, he's full on all of the response. He doesn't have many

clients, because he has too many, he can't be in too many places at once. I see performance coaching

has changed and I don't think anyone's talking about this enough, but adults are looking just as

much for high performance as a junior. And it's a market that is, I think, I'm tapped that if I

do scaling, I do businesses now. So I don't get into it. But if I move back into Atlanta,

that would be a business I would do is do high performance in adults as well as juniors.

Because there are a lot of adults that want to do better and keep growing and go and travel.

And they're the ones that have the money and they can do all the traveling. So,

anyway, little secret tip there for high performance coaches in Atlanta. You want to expand your

business, make better money and don't have to pull your hair out, dealing with juniors every day.

There's one plug for you. And then you're the one that's your

country club coach. Country club coaches, you know, he's pretty broad spectrum, but usually he's either

head pro or system pro or director, director. Again, I find it difficult for the reason that

the head pro is usually the guy that's building the business and doing most of it and gets paid

half the guy that's sitting in the office. So all those guys, USPTA, USPTA, and all those people tell

me right now, "Shut the hell up." It's something I think should be considered. I think head pro should be,

they really are the soldier of the whole thing. And sometimes there's tennis director in the

stripes and you've got there and probably the best knowledgeable coach, but really if he's knowledge,

he should be on the court more than being in that office. So anyway, let's sneak in there. Is that

in the country club world, which usually isn't what we're targeting because these are going to be

people that don't already have their country club membership that limits your pro. Like you've got your

choices of pro from the club that's pretty much what you get, but it's like promoting your best sales

guy to sales manager. He's not outselling anymore. Sometimes it isn't the best coach that gets promoted

to director. It's often the guy who can handle the administration in the politics.

Yeah, I mean, yes and I mean everyone works their way up. I mean, good mates with Madi Grison and

Bill Anderson, those guys, and they work their titles to get to where they get to and they deserve all

the great coaches. Yeah, they deserve the boards they get, but at the same time, I hope you've got

your best coach sitting in the high the desk or to be on the court and is he, you know, a final

difficult sometimes because when I ran my academy in Melbourne, I had my coaches on the court. I was

on the court and I spent a lot of time every single week doing workshops with my coaches so that they

my knowledge was passed down and they were mised and ears more on the court and if they sounded or

acted more like me, it gave me the free reign to speak to parents or grow the program or do a few

different things. I'll go to a tournament and know that the program is still going to run.

So, you know, when you talk about coaches, that's a different perspective, but what I guess what I'm

trying to explain that if there were people looking for coaches, make sure you both have the same

goals and have some mission into your tennis. I still teach a bunch and I still get how

to do every single week. Like, I need you, I need you and I'll be like, "Why do you need me?" Well,

because you show me, you know, this is where I am and this is where I want to be. You also

profile me as a player and say, "This is how I'm going to be and this is what kind of player I am

and this is what I need to train to be that way." Whereas most coaches sometimes they don't do that.

They just focus on grip or focus on this or focus on that. You know, so I focus a lot of building the

player with whatever age, whatever level they are so that they feel like they've got a mission and

a goal and they're going somewhere. But that's where I would say picking your coaches, you know,

you got to know your audience and if you're not in a country club, you need the independent

pro, but if you're looking to do performance and you need a final performance pro, is that sort of

the easiest way to sum it up? Yeah, that's more of which coach to find. Yeah, that would be, all right,

we've narrowed down to the types of coaches so you can find the right coach. But in this case,

we want to find out how. So we've got a special guest today and we're going to bring in Kenyan,

who hopefully can help us with the how and hopefully our connections all work and everything's

great, so we didn't test Kenan really. That's another that's a really cool thing that you've added to

your website because USPTA and USPTA used to do sort of, I mean, you meet again, but they just

put a media open and didn't allow each of the community to go find a pro in their level or in their

demographics. And hopefully you can work with them and because the advantage they've got

reviewed is that you can then see the who's really educated. And I think that's one of the

biggest problems we have still with coaches I'm in Puerto Rico and education wise, they're not

doing enough. You know, I see a lot of coaches still teaching what they taught in the 80s and the 90s.

And I'll lead in Kenyan. Kenyan, thank you for joining us because we've got, I've got the GPTA

member list up. I've got the USPTA find a pro up and I'm looking at them and decent search features.

I'm guessing nobody knows these pages exist and it's hard because I think, okay, I want to go into,

what do I type into Google? Tennis coach near me and then who's going to pop up? It might be the

guy online. It might be the local independent pro. It's probably not going to be the Matt Grayson or

the, or the Bill Anderson because the country club guys don't go to you and play your court, so to speak.

But I've also got to play your court guys up looking at it. Thinking, okay, these guys are trying to

help with this, but it's not really going to work in Atlanta because you got to mark up that's too high

and Atlanta people know better. So Kenyan, again, thanks for making time. What would you say from a

how to find that coach? Justin's walked us through the types of coaches that are out there. But do you

have any ideas on which website works better? Is it all word of mouth and referrals? Do you have any advice?

It's typically, again, it's word of mouth. I mean, it gets hard. I know everyone wants to be involved in

internet and Googling this and googling in that, but the best form of trying to find anything

that you need is has this person used this person before. And that's always going to be, you know,

we talk about street signs before just posting up something in the yard at times. It's sometimes going

that old school is the way to do it. And that I'll think you, we're not going to be able to go out and say,

hey, I'm looking for a blonde headed pro that's six foot one or something like that. I mean, it's really,

what are you really looking for? You know, it was my play or recreational player. I just, I just want

them that fun and the second and I think another mom sometimes there's mom chat groups that have things

like this posted, you know, I've noticed that they found at least us through another mom in a chat group

or something like that. And that sounds a bit like next door where you've got that kind of local

group of people of parents usually with looking looking for their kids or an adult looking for lessons.

But there's no compiled group and that's one of the things go tennis is done now. And our page

isn't perfect yet, but it's built and it exists. And it is let's go tennis.com/coachfinder. And it doesn't,

it's not a competition. It's not who's going to get the right coaching list. And while we have

or those in Georgia and all we have are certified coaches, GPTA as a membership or USPTA or PTR.

And in that case, I can go in and say, okay, not just find a coach near me, but it's also I can look

at the list of certified coaches. I can find out if that guy that Kenyans friend referred me to,

hey, if you worked with Coach Rob or if you work with Coach Bobby, because in that case, they may not

have an online presence. So that word of mouth can potentially be helped, but there is no place right

now, which is what go tennis is trying to become or going to become. I'll be more positive about it.

But the word of mouth thing is hard to direct. It's hard to try to bring it into one place. But also,

we all need different coaches. So how do we do that referral? How do we do that word of mouth thing?

Justin, when you were here, you were in the clubs as much as you were ever independent, right? So

it was less of driving around with the basket of balls in your car. So we didn't really experience it

in that way. Yeah, I mean, you know, you're typically is, well, actually, shouldn't say differently,

your market for what you're creating and you're talking about right now is a big market as far as

I'm concerned. If you look at Cummins Hutton right now, and I'm talking like LinkedIn and others,

resumes are switching every 18 months, like people moving locations, people moving in thousands,

people moving towns more than that has been in decades. So there's more chances now they're going

to move to a man ago. So where do I find the right pro? Where do I find the right place to go play?

Where do I find? I mean, those questions are going to continue coming up more and more than it ever

has before because there's so much movement between jobs and towns and, um, letting people moving around.

I mean, it just, it's the way if you look at the patents, even rental rentals are higher than

buying. I mean, the patents are showing people are moving and changing and, uh, and then look,

if I had a kid, I lived in New York and I had a kid, it was really, really good at tennis.

I'd be looking at Atlanta. I'd be looking at Charlotte. I'd be looking at Miami. You know, I'd be looking

at places and when you first move into town, you're going to be like, where's this pro? Where's the best

courts? What's that, you know, what, how can I get there quickly? So I'm not wasting time in a car,

you know, um, access the most romantic kids to play with. Actually, I mean, all these things are all

questions that there is what you're pointing at is there's no central location to be able to just go

get. And right now, we're definitely moving into that technology world. But I mean, I agree with Ken

and it's, um, most of it's all word of mouth. Again, um, but, you know, the coach is a look at

for business too. It's, it's not that hard to just rock up to fit, you know, facilities and,

and be watching and people ask your questions and next thing, you know, you've got a whole bunch of people.

Yeah. How do we help those people? That's because that, that would be my, my question back to Kenyan and

Kenyan having been in Atlanta, even actually a few years longer than me and, and knows it better,

even where we say, okay, how do we help the people here? Because I'm on court. I got that parent or

that guy that's standing around kind of eyeballing me and like, all right, well, what do you want, dude?

And we don't all have that card to just say, hey, you know what? Yeah, I'm tennis for children,

go check it out, give me a call because I'm not going to stop my lesson and go talk to somebody. So,

assaulting someone on a tennis court usually isn't appreciated, but also just find a coach online

doesn't necessarily work. So how do we help the people here, Kenyan, without just building the next

website? I've always thought that USDA could probably kind of jump in somehow as well because they're

putting out all these extra leagues now. They got the red hair league. They got the sets in the city.

We got all these different things. So that's got to be one way, but the other thing too that

I'm sure that Justin has brought up when I was on mine here, but in fact, Justin and I took our

USDA test together. I don't know if he remembers that, but who did? So one of the things too that I find

to struggle still is that there's not enough certified people here in Atlanta, okay, because if there's

enough courts here that these guys just ploppin up everywhere and just coaching, I also don't want that

atmosphere either here. So I mean, you need to be dropping your kids off with reputable people,

okay, and I think that it's too easy sometimes in Atlanta for just people just to just do that. And then,

you know, some of these parents have gone down these roads with some of these coaches, you know,

and they're two, three years in and they're no better than they were two years ago, okay, so,

and I think I heard Justin right when I first walked in that some of these guys are still coaching

when racquet, you know, stop, okay, so I've always thought that USDA could be a little more involved.

I think they should be a little more willing to jump in with something like this if everyone's

in it for the right reasons. And that's my saying on that. And then my other say is I just,

when we go the independent route, just make sure that they have either been doing this for a

little bit and they're actually certified either through PTR or PTA, one of the two that has,

that's made them go through some sort of criteria to be coaching your kid or coaching you. And that's

only thing I would throw out there as well. And in that case, how many? You say there aren't enough

certified coaches. I don't think that means we need more coaches. Are you saying not enough coaches

are certified? Because by my count, there's about, there's about a, my guess is about a thousand coaches

in Metro, in Metro Atlanta, maybe even including arguably the rest of Georgia, about a thousand coaches

and about 600 of them I've found are certified. That's a lot of coaches that are certified,

but you've also got almost half as many. You've got 40% and these are estimates in my world,

40% that are unsertified out there with a basketballs, teaching a lesson, uninsured is probably the other

thing, but right now more people care about the safe putt. I mean, parents aren't asking,

are you going to be able to cover the cost of a broken ankle? Parents are asking, is it safe for me

to drop my kid off with this guy, right? So that's another thing is, is it more getting those people

certified and encouraging them because that's going to be more of a PTA or PTR thing than a USTA thing?

Well, that's in collaboration. I totally agree with you. Or a lot of pros have let their dues

laps because they didn't want to pay that because they're not coaching enough, let's say. So they don't

want to pay the $300 whatever it is for the year. Okay, so you've got a lot of those pros out there as

well. But then as, as Justin knows, when you go to the country club route, which I have to,

you have been in the country club as well, the one thing that you do know when that person leaves that

club, if they decide to leave it, they're going to be certified because that's one of the things

that's one of the criteria that when you first get hired there, you're either already certified

or you're about to be. So there's no director in town is going to have anyone there, even as an

independent, they're not going to take that risk. So that's just, that's my personal opinion. I

think, but see, I think that USTA being the biggest organization that we that we all have

up money into at some point, they've got to be the one that kind of takes the pyramid on this and say,

we've got to get everyone involved somehow because too many times you just kind of feel like you're

floating on your own. And that's, that's not a good feeling either. And I'm, and I'm good with that.

And we can all have our complaints on USTA and what they accomplish and what they don't accomplish.

So in this case, we'd probably just talk USTA Atlanta and see if we can even start there. But I would

even say GPTA because that's the organization. I think USTA is more focused on getting players to play

than they are. And I haven't read their mission statement recently. But arguably they're probably

more interested in getting someone to win the US open. Then they are actually just getting the next

kid into a league. But the, but the GPTA in my opinion should be targeting getting coaches connected

with players more, more of a mission statement than the USTA. So how do we help the GPTA do that

directly beyond just like I said, we've built another, we've built another website to help find a pro.

There's find tennis lessons.com. There's book lessons.com. I'm looking at play your court. We all know

those guys. There's the US PTA find a pro again. I doubt the US PTA or GPTA are running ads saying,

hey, check out our GPTA pros, which I think arguably they should be. They might not be a big enough

organization. Go tennis is doing this because we just want to help. And we're investing in this to help

players find coaches. Canyon, how do we help? And I jump, Justin was texting me the other day. He's

like, it's not that hard to actually help players connect with coaches complaining about the GPTA.

But Canyon, how do we help the GPTA help itself to help the coaches find the players? And maybe we

can just kind of target it from a different direction? Yeah, you know, that's a good question because I

think that tennis has been, especially in Atlanta has been kind of deemed this is the tennis

method in Atlanta. But it's in my opinion, it's pretty isolating in a lot of ways because I don't

feel like the people here who coach tennis are actively involved with one another to the point where

they're they're let's pretend that I get a call and it happens all the time. I get a call from

someone from Petrie City. Okay, I'm most likely you're never going to see this person. It makes no sense.

Okay, but believe it or not, there's plenty of coaches out there that would get that same call and

try to figure out a way they're going to hit this kid. Okay, so that to me is why I say isolated

because either, A, you don't want to turn a kid over someone because you think that's either money

out of your pocket or your instant fame that you thought you were going to have. Okay,

it's sad because us being this mecca that we're supposed to be rarely do any of these coaches get

together ever except for the PTA thing that we have in December where you got to get all your points

and I've been guilty of this too. So I'm not throwing anyone at the bus. I'm just as guilty. But

but I'm definitely not going to do a lesson with the kid in Petrie City. I'm not driving to

Petrie City to do a lesson with the good or I'm not going to have them drive down to me 55 minutes to

a lesson. If I thought there was someone there that they could easily be with. Okay, and what you're

saying and these points are their valid points because I just don't think that we even know these

people in other areas. I don't know and you're right. The GBTA should be the biggest one, but if you go

to a GBTA meeting, it's the same people that are kind of going to those meetings all the time.

And it's so it's you're not getting new blood in there either because there's people who have not

pushed their new blood to go. And we've been trying, we've been trying, you know, just stewards credit.

He's huge on this and he's involved in this. We've been trying to get our new blood to go, but

I'm thinking it's the time of day that they do it that makes it a struggle. That's the only thing I

could think of because those are key times when people could put money in their pocket. That's all I

could think of. That's the original. Back to when my head pro Justin at the time, my first head pro.

And the Darrell Lewis is of the world we're encouraging me to go. I just never saw the value. You

just you just couldn't talk me into it as a 25 year old tennis pro to see the value there.

And I get that, but I'm thinking less along the meetings and more along maybe referrals. Justin,

if you look at scaling out a referral program and now if I were to say, okay, Justin gets an

incoming call and says, Hey, I'm in Atlanta. Justin, can you coach me? Well, Justin's not getting

on a flight to come teach you every week. If you're in Peachtree City, you can't get me. Sorry,

I'm an hour and a half away. Now, we might all just get together and go take over the Peachtree

City location because I hear they're looking for new management. But Justin, how do we, from an

outside point of view? You've been out of Atlanta for 10, 15 years. I don't know more now, right?

And what would you look in and tell me and Canyon to do if we were to task with this to say, okay,

GPTA, here's your referral program. Let's actually incentivize the young coaches to be part of the

GPTA because they're going to get that incoming referral of the coach. Let's say I'm new at

Peachtree City and I want that call. I want Canyon to refer that player to me.

What's Canyon's incentive? What's my incentive to be part of it? And can we kind of

hook the GPTA in the butt and get him to do it? Well, my head was going to, as I've been

data these days, my head's going towards the data. The data is how many players do you have

these days currently? So what we say, audience or community, how many coaches do we have?

Start mapping out the demographics of where the coaches are because that's really a key two,

right? Because if all the coaches live here could achieve, but all the audiences over here

are pretty screwed. So Peachtree City could be tons of audience but no coaches, you know? So I'd start

there because again, you're focusing on GPTA and start scoping what you can have to bring these two

things together because they're both a very important element to the length and long term of

the sport because people drop out if they're not getting this guy and then people are progressing if

they, you know, so they, they, they, they rely on each other as far as I'm concerned if you think

about it that way. As far as certification, that's been a big thing for a long time and it's

only been because, you know, people say, well, I spent 300 bucks when I don't get anything out of it

really and then they also find me insurance that's that solid for $300 a year. Right, well,

I don't know you'll get anything out of it. Right, but see, I've been coaching this in my 30s,

almost my 37th year never had to rely on insurance. Neither have I. Never had anyone hurt their eye

or twist their ankle or I mean, I've been doing this for a very long time and I haven't had any injuries

on the court. So, you know, touch wood. Right. But, you know, people start adding up those things and they

start adding up education as well. You know, I really want to do this. I really don't do that. I've

got my clients, I've got enough money, I'm doing well, you know. I want to put Marcus Hurtie

down to the bus, but man, the guy had personality and he was energy and he was a great, great,

energetic coach, but he really, very rarely went to educational stuff or certification or whatever,

but man, the guy crushed it, you know. So, you know, it is, it landed to me if they could do that and

bring those two, they'll bring some data to it and then rebuild GPTA to a, what I would call

an educational opportunity where I would then, I'm going to throw Maddie under the bus, Maddie

and Bill and all those boys and go pay it forward, show up once a month, each one does, hey, this is what

you can do to improve this. Hey, this is what you can do to improve that. Ask all your coaches,

what would they like to learn and invite those people in to the once a month meeting, you know,

because I remember the one time I went all the way to Shudalo to see the little Taiwanese guy

that this eye who builds the racket for Wilson, who couldn't speak a word of English, but we all

showed up because we wanted to hear about how they build a rack, right? So, you know, you don't have to

give out food and drinks and all that stuff. I think you're best to design something, redesign GPTA

around education within its town, you know. I mean, if they asked me, I would find, I would find

to do a workshop for GPTA. No question. And you can give me any subject and I'll be able to help

those pros and I'll be there the whole time, you know. Sometimes the guy that comes in and talks,

you'll talk about half an hour ago, I'm off to you, I got to run a business or go over to the family,

you know. But that to me would be a way to start, if you ask me.

You target education. I want to turn GPTA into a better networking system,

not just that circle of guys all staring at each other and giving each other awards, but facing out,

trying to draw in the players. Right. Would you build the relationships first to then be able to do it?

With the coaches. So I see from an educational point of view, it's getting the coaches to know each other.

I now know Kenyan, I didn't know him before. Right? I want to know who's in pastry city so I can

send that referral. But what if I don't know him? It sounds to me like we need to take that data.

Let's find out where all the coaches are. Right.

And then you think we can do this Kenyan? We can say, all right, Billy Ewells, Billy Anderson,

all the bills evidently. Justin, Kenyan, Sean, Harp, all the guys, right? Everybody, all the girls,

everybody, right? And stick them on a map and say, okay, you want to be part of this referral program.

And for every incoming referral, you got to make sure you're willing to do that outgoing referral

because Kenyan, would you say that's not a natural tendency of the coach? I think that was the one

of the first things you mentioned. His coach is not wanting to give up players.

Yeah, connecting the dots. I mean, that would be like connecting the dots, what you're saying. But yeah,

it's not natural for a kid to come to our program or kid to go to another program. And they say,

you know what, you'd be a better fit here or this coach would be a better fit to the data.

I mean, we, we, again, we're a little bit larger in the sense. So if a kid is not the right fit for me,

I try to pass them along to one of our pros and our, you know, in our organization. But we definitely

try to pass people along in a sense that because the one thing that could drive someone from playing

is where you're located. So just the distance. So we try to avoid that by San Luis. And here,

we have a location over here. This is 10 minutes from you. We love having you. So if you want to

continue to drive 45 minutes because of the ratio, that's great. And we have plenty of people do that.

So, but we also have plenty of people that are, you know, take that advice and say, you know what?

10 minutes is better. So therefore, they'll go over there. So you're usually going to lose people

because of the distance. Rarely are you losing people because of the finance part these days.

Because I thought that was always one of the reasons why you would lose people. I don't see that happening

as much. In fact, I think there's more people playing tennis now since, you know, March 16th of,

was it 2019 COVID? I think I think that social distancing thing really helped tennis, you know. So,

I don't see the finances being one of the reasons why people are leaving the sport like they once were.

They're leaving the sport, you know, so that's my opinion.

Yeah, I'm with the adjusting. So you start with your numbers.

Because, you know, the other thing, the other thing that if they're going to join your ambassador program,

and we call it an ambassador program, because then it sounds like it's open, and people are just helping

each other and we're supporting the support. But then, you know, given the little question here,

like how many kids do you have? How big are your programs? How many schools are you connected to?

Blah blah blah. Like, get an idea of their business as well. Because, you know, when you start to put

all this together, they're going to say, "Oh, yeah, I want to get it, you know, Jim Harper's round

at corner call." Oh, he's got 289 kids, all high performers. But good luck getting time with Jim,

then, you know, like, let's be real. So, let's, so I think what you really want to do is start,

start there with the numbers. And then, you know, because I remember he was all the way up past

Warp Warp, but that neighborhood at that stage was growing now. It's probably

ginormous. So, he's probably got tons of business. I like the Jim Harper reference, Justin, because

he's at Castlebrook. He's still at where I met you in 2001 or whatever it was. Where you and I met,

that was my first club job. Where Jim Harper is now. But you're right, he's busy. He's busy. And

then in that case, if you refer him out, you say, "Hey, you know what, Jim's not right. Maybe we

refer over to James Creek." Or maybe we refer over to Windomere. But where's the incentive program

to get these people to do it? Okay, if you took finance, like, like, can you just say, it's not going to work.

You can't look at a pocket. You cannot, you look at what's best for the tennis and what's best for the

game and what's best for the client or the best for their kid. I think that's true. I

don't think that's true with the tennis coaches. I think tennis coaches are money-oriented. And I think

they're not going to forward somebody on unless they think they're going to get something in return.

Well, okay, but forwarding on is all this effort of, you know, making sure they get connected,

making sure they do this, making sure they do that. So they're not going to do a lot because

this is going to be a problem. I know, but if your system can allow that, it will be an easy

handball and you're doing it for the sake of the sport. And that's really what it has to come down to.

It kind of comes down to...

One other thing, I cannot remember his name. It's driving me absolutely crazy. He was in Dunwoody

forever. He had a court in his backyard and a tie-fuller. Tie-fuller. Do you all remember that name?

Tie did an unbelievable job with kids and he... That was his thing. He did an unbelievable job with

kids. I think it was nine. I think that was kind of his wheelhouse say. So ten and under or whatever.

So he was kind of on that, you know, red dot green dot orange dot ball before it became that, okay?

He did an unbelievable job because he would always refer the kid out afterwards.

The problem that I see in this community at this current moment is people are taking on kids

that quote unquote want to be high performance, I'd say, okay? And they take them on and they ruin them.

And then now these parents are in search of what they just screwed up with. And it typically happens

when you're dropping your kid off at some park because this guy can play tennis. He's played. And now

the sudden he's coaching. And I don't know if anyone else is witness when I'm talking about, but that's

what I see is that a lot of people, because I think that it's going to be stronger than just adding

this database that we're talking about. We're going to also have to put in there that here's what

your strengths are at this facility or at this whatever or at this academy, okay? We know harp.

Everyone knows harp because harp's coach, you know, high performance kids for a long time and

some of us have spent some time with some of the kids at harp has spent time. So we know that,

hey, I don't have the time to do it, but hey, I'm going to shoot you this way because I know he's

going to do a great job. He's attentive and that a better because I would do that for him. And I think

he would do that for us because we have a relationship. I just think that right now the hardest part,

not only with your database, is we got to get the pros that are even at other facilities to want

a help one another. And maybe because I've been in this business for 32 years of coaching,

that I see things differently. And maybe I was that selfish and that arrogant when I was 25, 27.

I hope I wasn't, but maybe I'm getting better at it. But I just feel like these pros, they just don't want

to recognize what their strengths and what their weaknesses are to the point where they're

willing to admit that this is the wrong move for me, let's say. I need to stick with coaching

ladies out to teams, let's say. So I wish you all the best, Sean, because this is a beast that's

been around a long time. And the beast they're getting in the high performance, which is obviously

the big conversation. That's it. That's being around the day. Absolutely. We've already got those

guys. And I think, I think what Kenyan says is right, this is a culture change. And that's what

go tennis is all about. We're here to help the culture. We're here to make tennis better than it

already is in Atlanta. But it's understanding that we're going to have to convince some people to

do things differently. And then to convince you would be to build the platform and categorize things.

I used to have that. I mean, anyone that would come to me and they'd say, you know, I'm three or three

five and I want to learn and want to get out there once or twice a week. I'd be like, well, this

pro is right around the corner from your neighborhood. And that's his specialty. That's all he does. So

see you later. When you feel like you can start to hit forehands the back ends and we're really

starting one play, then you can come back and say, you need to categorize things that way so that

you can start to recognize what throws away. I mean, Kenyan, if he's been teaching that long, he's

got a new cycle pre-deer in his head. But he's basically going out, he might be that way anymore,

about wanting to be on the court that much. So he should be trying to teach some teachers.

So there's a whole bunch of different things that you need to, and I see coaches all the time,

go this way and then this way. So our careers rock, I mean, I'm 50 now and I'm learning, I'm

going to go out and play again and play the high level again. So you just never know where the person's

at, where they're coaching that. And I see changes all the time, but Atlanta itself,

as far as being the MAKA, no one's really being able to. And I think that's what you would

try to do with the GPTA, the Austin. Yeah, and I think this is less of a how you should find the

right coach, but I'm pretty sure we just asked ourselves the question, how to find the right coach,

because it is not an easy thing to answer. Justin, thank you so much, Kenyan. We'll definitely have

you back. I appreciate it guys. Have a good week. Good to see you, Kenyan. Hey, good to see you.

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