Season 25, Episode 103 - Shaun Boyce, Bobby Schindler

Summary

In this episode you'll discover Matt Grayson, the Director of Athletics at Ansley Golf Club, who shares insights about the unique culture of his club, the evolution of country clubs over the past 30 years, and the changing dynamics of membership expectations. He discusses the importance of programming and engagement in tennis clubs, the upcoming RacquetX event at Ansley, and his vision for improving the tennis experience in Atlanta. Matt emphasizes the need for a balance between competition and skill development, advocating for a seasonal approach that allows players to focus on improving their game without the pressure of matches.

Takeaways

Matt Grayson has been with Ansley Golf Club for 13 years.

Ansley Golf Club has a unique culture with a highly active membership.

The club has a seven-year waitlist due to its popularity.

Membership expectations have shifted towards a more service-oriented approach.

Programming and engagement are crucial for tennis clubs' success.

The upcoming RacquetX event will focus on industry trends and club management.

Matt believes in the importance of skill development over competition.

He advocates for reducing the number of competitive seasons to allow for improvement.

The tennis community in Atlanta is evolving with new sports like pickleball and padel.

Matt's vision includes making tennis more fun and accessible for all players.

Keywords

tennis, country clubs, membership, programming, racquet sports, Atlanta, tennis culture, club management, community engagement, sports events

Full YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/Gm_O9APv-Tc

King of Tennis Answer: https://youtu.be/OD5i7roPeWI

Contact Our Hosts

• Shaun Boyce, RSPA: shaun@americanracketsportsassociation.com | https://americanracketsportsassociation.com/
• Bobby Schindler, RSPA: schindlerb@comcast.net | https://letsgotennis.com/windermere
• Geovanna Boyce: geovy@regeovinate.com | https://regeovinate.com/
• GoTennis Website: https://letsgotennis.com/

More about Ansley Golf Club

https://ansleygc.org/

More about Matt Grayson

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-grayson-90096719/

Join Our Community

Check out the GoTennis! Atlanta Facebook page for deals, updates, events, podcasts, news, stories, coach profiles, club information, and more.

Support the Show

• Donate Directly: https://gotennispodcast.captivate.fm/support
• Crypto Donations: Get into crypto with https://coinbase.com/join/PEWRLWK?src=referral-link

Start Your Own Podcast

Considering your own podcast? We recommend Captivate: This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.

Hey, this is Shaun with the GoTennis Podcast, powered by Signature Tennis.

Check us out at LetsGoTennis.com, and while you're there, be sure to register for the

2025 GoTennis, tennis, and pickleball fall festival.

Tennis drills, pickleball clinics, the best coaches, vendors, sponsors, food, and more.

You don't want to miss it.

And now let's get into our recent conversation with Matt Grayson.

Matt is Director of Athletics at the Ansley Golf Club in Atlanta.

We talk about the unique culture of his club, the evolution of country clubs over the past

30 years, and the changing dynamics of membership expectations.

We specifically cover the upcoming RacketX Club's City Series conference, Matt is hosting

at Ansley.

I'll be there moderating one of the panels, so if we don't see you in person on November

1st, we hope to see you at Ansley on November 9th.

Have a listen, and after you get registered for the fall festival, let us know what you think.

Who are you and why do we care?

Well, my name is Matt Grayson again.

I'm the Director of Athletics and Rackets here at the Ansley Golf Club.

I've been here for about 13 years.

I went to Baylor University for college.

I've been kind of at Atlanta native.

That's an oddity for Atlanta.

My whole family is from here.

My parents went to Georgia.

I went to big UGA fans until Baylor came knocking to have the opportunity to go there.

I was one of the few and our family didn't go to Georgia.

Been in Atlanta teaching tennis for now since 1995.

You can do the math.

I won't tell you how old I am.

Just I'll let you guys figure that part out.

That's kind of who I am, and I've been doing this for quite a while now, but been in the Atlanta

area the entire time.

I love it.

And Bobby, of course, you're going to bring up TCU and Baylor, but we're going to try

to switch that.

I may cut out here and there.

I can see that I'm trying to reconnect.

But next question, Matt, prop to us about your club.

Talk to us about where you are.

Director of Rack is there.

What is interesting about that club?

What's unique about you and where you are?

So Ansley is a pretty unique club just because it how active it is.

We're smack in downtown Atlanta.

So we're right in the middle of everything.

So space is always a problem for us, but it is one of the most active clubs I've ever

seen.

Most of our members live within three miles of the club.

We have about 1,600 member families that belong to our club.

So you do the math out on that.

It's probably 5,000 members.

And most of them live within three miles.

We even have three shuttles that will come to your house if you live within a certain radius

of the club.

And they will come get you and bring you to the club because parking is such a problem.

So they almost have our own little mini uber system for the club to get members here.

So they are here all the time.

We have so many tennis players that we have to rent courts over Bitsy Grant, a public

facility not far from here, to house all of our Anzli Thursday and Sunday out to teams.

So we rotate who plays here to Anzli.

We have to go over to Bitsy for some of their matches.

Being in the I'm in charge of the wellness, that also includes youth care, fitness, swim

team, pool.

We kind of joke here that I'm in charge of everything but golf and food.

So that's a big part of what Anzli is, but it is one of the most active memberships

I've ever seen.

Since I've worked at other clubs in Atlanta, when I came here, it was just amazing to

me that if I just sent out about one email and said, "Hey, we're going to have something

going on this Friday."

You have about 40 people sign up from a bet in about five minutes.

So I've never seen a club that was so easy to get things going and moving just because

everybody here lives so close and is so active, even though we're smack in the middle of

downtown Atlanta.

And so Bobby, talk to Matt about the differences, the interesting thing here with this kind of

club being in Atlanta, that kind of membership, it's different, with different types of directors

of tennis and different types of clubs.

How different is that from what Bobby does on a daily basis, from a director standpoint?

Bobby's got potentially similar numbers with access to his club, but Bobby, what does

that look like from where you are versus where Matt is?

Well, that's about right away.

How many hours a week do you spend on court?

On court, I really tried to stay at about 12 to 15 hours at the most for me personally.

Now even though we're only an eight-court facility with tennis, we have three permanent

pickable courts on top of that.

We have six full-time tennis professionals and a full-time pickable pro to go with that.

So we're teaching that much here, and all the other pros teaching out between 30 to 32

hours a week of their schedule.

So because I've been charged with some other things, I try not to be on the court more than

the actual, they club would rather me be on the court only 10 to 12 hours a week, honestly.

So I think that's the number one, the biggest difference, Sean.

As you see, the bigger club, as he's director of athletics, his responsibilities go beyond

where the guys like me, like you said, might have the numbers, but we're still, most of our

money is made on court and through the program that we run.

And we have a hard time, as we always talked about, with scale, and then we have to deal with

the guys from Ansely who come and take our pros too, because he was taking Greg Kasha from

me back in the day as well.

I have to lend out my boy to everybody throughout Atlanta, so it makes it hard.

He did a good job for us as one of our part time guys.

We have to bring in part time guys every now and then too.

We have so many people that come through here during the season.

So that's, we add a couple of part time guys on top of those six full time guys as well.

Yeah, Greg's a good guy, but I mean, did that's the hard guy that we were talking about?

How do we clone these guys and share them because it is hard for the other clubs to scale?

But I think it's great with what's going on.

Obviously, Intercity Atlanta, that much tennis participation.

Obviously, the people at Bitsy must love you as well because they're probably making a

good deal of money off of what you're bringing through Bitsy.

Yeah, they get court time from us every season and they know we're going to pay the court

time.

They know the cheques are going to clear.

And they know we're going to pay it every season.

So we're guaranteed court time every single lot of season for the four teams that we

play out of there.

We have one on Sunday and three on Thursday.

So they love it.

So we try to keep up a good relationship with whatever management company is running

the city courts at that time.

So they do like it and it works for us too because it's one of the few clay court facilities

that we can use clay courts to play on since our members are used to play on clay over here.

So it works well for us as well.

And so I'm real quick is I know we're out of taste, but I feel like I'd be remiss that Matt

is one of the last.

I don't know what the graduates of the country club of Roswell, director of tennis machine

that used to be helmed by Cindy Jones.

And if you know you wanted to become a director in city of it in Metro Atlanta, you had to go

pay your dues with Cindy Jones and Wilson, Tineo.

They were on quite the roll back in the late 90s, early thousands with who they were producing.

So Kudos to Cindy for all the great people that she put out into Metro Atlanta tennis

force.

Yeah.

Cindy actually hired me to be the head pro at Country Club of Roswell.

Said no knowing she was coming up on the retirement.

She brought me in and said, hey, if you come in, be the head pro for a couple of years,

when I move out, I want you to move in and be the director here.

So that's kind of like she brought me in to kind of take her spot when she was leaving.

So that's how I got a got to country of Roswell and then became the director there.

And that brings along the wider, I guess, right guys that ran three big clubs during Atlanta

for quite a while.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

And so the wider question, Matt, that says, okay, what have you seen in the last 30 years

because from a country club standpoint, there's a difference.

There's growth.

There's certain clubs that produce great training for country club pro types.

But what is there other differences in the last 30 years?

Is it all just the same?

What do we see that's changed in that time?

So there is a lot of difference.

Kind of what we've talked about this past weekend, we just had our board of directors retreat

where our board of directors in our department heads all went away for the weekend and did

a big planning retreat for all of next year.

And you know, some of the conversation was because, especially in downtown, there's been

a big resurgence, but because tennis itself, since COVID, shot up 30, 35, sometimes 40%, depending

on where you are, it's been a huge resurgence.

As a club at Anzui, we have a seven year wait list right now.

We're full.

We cannot take anyone members.

We have about a seven year wait list.

So what's happened is now, dues go up, like the initiation fees of all the clubs have gone

up.

I mean, there's a lot of clubs in downtown Atlanta that have a $150,000 initiation fee.

So we joke, you have to pay that $150,000 to get the privilege of getting a big, big

bill in the mail every month to be able to stay a member, right?

So what it used to be that, you know, when those things were smaller and people were getting

into clubs at a much more affordable rate, they came into the club and it was more of like,

hey, what can I do to help my club be better?

They were much more like a, they wanted to join, wanted to be on the board, wanted to be

on the committees, and they wanted to be more of that a part of that club.

And you still have some people that way, but I think you have a lot more people that

are joining clubs now saying, hey, we just paid $150,000.

Do you remember this club?

And now I got to pay dues every month.

What is the club going to do for me on day one?

So I think there's a little bit of a difference of attitude.

And then we understand why.

I mean, if you're paying that much, that's reasonable.

But it is a very different feeling in some of the clubs.

Some of the clubs have still held on to that family feel.

And I think Anzli is one of those.

They talk about being the Anzli family and it's not a kind of a stiff kind of club.

It's pretty very laid back kind of family feeling place.

But there are a lot of clubs that have gotten much more stiff and a lot more hard to manage

membership expectations.

When they come in because of those high initiation fees and more member expectations and more

to the fact of, we don't want to do things to be a part of the club.

We want the club to do things for us.

I managed the swim team.

It used to be that a lot of the clubs in Midtown, they always had swim team committees

and the parents volunteered and we're all staffing up the swim meets and they had to

do all their volunteer hours.

We still have that here.

And I know of several in town clubs that now have no parent volunteer hours.

They staff the entire swim meet and they have they pay people to run the entire swim team

where the parents just drop the kids off and that's it.

So you're starting to see more of that which is a change which because of dual working families

and things like that that they're expecting more support not having them be more fled in.

So that is a little bit of a change and I understand why it's not a, it's not a rip on people.

It's not saying it's better or worse but it is a feel sometimes depending on the club and

depending on what your demographic is of membership.

Bobby, go ahead and give me the answer.

What would you say when Windomir came to you and said we'd like you to also run the swim

team please?

I think it's easier just for me to look at and say what Matt just described is why I, Ken

and Riano is at Atlanta Country Club and I'm not at Atlanta Country Club.

You know and you have to be the right person to know whatever your qualifications are it

has to be the right fit and when that was all happening I just looked in the mirror and

said I'm not the right fit for this and Ken does it do nearly what Matt does.

Nothing against Ken of the Ken to do.

You know there's still his Matt's membership.

How many out the teams do you have play at it?

Let's say this fall season.

How many players were teams were out of angially?

Here we had seven Sunday teams we had 11 Thursday teams.

I believe it's six junior teams this season and two senior teams.

We ran our men's league as an in-house league that we run and we have about 90 guys on our

men's in-house league that we run internally and we also have a women's pickable league on

Wednesday nights at about 90 ladies in our in-house pickable league.

We run on Wednesday nights.

So we do think something's in-house as well.

So I think what happens is on that programming part like the reason all the athletics directors

and why that's kind of become a thing is tennis pros have always been really good at programming

right we come up with different programs we come up with things to get the membership

engaged and the club sees those things and they go hey there's not as much program there's

not as much member engagement in the fitness center.

So they look to the cut they look to the pro and say hey you've done a good job of getting

people all the tennis courts pros are kind of like trainers they teach people how to play

tennis the trainers kind of teach people how to work out can you help program that area.

So you start getting people to come to fitness classes you start getting people to go on

group runs you you program people to go run the peach tree together and you put together

programming there they're like hey that's going better now or make generating more revenue

in the fitness area because the program is put together tennis is making more money because

you put things there and then they go hey well you've done that can you do programming

at the pool and that starts going better they go hey we need some programming in the youth

care department can you program there well.

So once you show people you do better with programming they start coming to you to program

all these different areas and I think that's why a lot of tennis directors and what racquet

sports directors now wherever you want to say depending on what your club is are getting

asked to do more of this stuff because they're proving their their worth as a programmer and

so the clubs reach out to you to help program on all those different areas that maybe lacking

in programming in the past.

And I think I think you're doing yourself an injustice there not only the programming

but you're the person on the ground and you're very approachable and you are the person

for better or worse that most of the people will reach out to when there's a problem no

matter what hat you're wearing kudos to angely to realize that and say okay this should be

our point person because you know creativity doesn't necessarily fall into but I still

want to talk to this person there's been a lot of obnoxious creative people but the fact

that you're very approachable and makes it where the people want to talk to you then

it's a win-win and again angely was smart enough to see that and build on it I just hope there's

enough hours in the day for you.

Sometimes there aren't sometimes there's not but it all goes it all ends up working out

pretty well.

And you've got a cool event coming up at your club now Matt I say now we got to get this

published before it comes out we just dated our conversation but November 9th you've

got racquet x coming in talk to us about that I've been surprised there isn't more buzz

about it in Atlanta so hopefully we can get this out and create some buzz for you.

Right so racquet x is a big racquet's conference that they hold down to my amy every year and

it's a big convention they tied it to a big padell tournament this year they have a big

trade show that goes on and it covers tennis padell you know ping pong you name anything

with a racquet senate it's down there and they did a new thing this year where they had

a day where it was all about clubs and the tennis industry and they had people speaking

on it and different panels of people you could ask questions to and because that went so

well they paired together this year with the directors club of America and they created

a city series and they went to Philadelphia first they went out to LA they now been to Austin

they just wrapped that one up and now they're planning on coming to Atlanta for the fourth

and final stop so at Anzli we're going to host that at last stop on November the 9th

and they bring in industry people from all over the place they're going to bring in

people talk about padell some pick up all people some tennis people some people outside

of the tennis industry that are going to have some good insight to just business acumen

talk about things that are happening in the industry overall I know they've had you know

Ryan Dilman spoke at one of my believe and they've brought in you know guys that are part

of the directors club of America to speak they brought in different GM's to help give

different perspectives from different clubs to the guys that come listen to it so we're

waiting on that finalized speaker list to come in but that's the kind of people they

brought to speaker so it's really geared towards directors of programming and GM's and

industry people of the rackets industry to really kind of help talk about what's happening

in our rackets world and try to get more information out to everybody about the changes and things

that are that are coming and the trends that everybody's seeing so we're excited to host

that and be the Atlanta stop for them on the 9th so that's that Sunday and we're we're

looking at the exact time but somewhere between like that 9 to 5 kind of time that day so

it'll be a day time event that Sunday yeah and I'll be there I'm moderating one of the

conversations there about getting attention in a world of FOMO and go figure we're the podcast

people right so getting attention is something we're actually pretty good at but it'll be a

good it'll be a good day because I think it's it's a fairly unique event and like I said

I don't know that there's a lot of buzz yet and hopefully that will grow to get the attendance

that everybody's looking for it's a fairly targeted audience for attendance it's general

managers directors club owners they're not really sending out the invitation to anybody who

isn't at I'd say at least but at least a director of ragged sports right it you know they're

not trying to go to just the guy that's just trying to be an independent teaching pro because

out there's what they're going to be talking about wouldn't really apply if you're not going

if your goal is just to you know come and teach in a neighborhood and put balls back

your car and teach which there's a lot of those guys in Atlanta that do very well and

are very good at that but it's not geared to what those guys do on a daily basis what they're

going to talk about is not the newest drill how to coach ladies what doubles tactics are

out there none of that will be discussed it's going to be more about the management side

how to run a club what club owners are looking for trends in ownership trends in club management

so it's going to be that level of ideas and talking points that wouldn't be geared towards

just teaching and junior development those kind of things less of like our local workshops

that we do a lot because we've also got like the RSPA is doing a workshop in early December

which I think is more on court it's more targeted to say the boots on the ground type that are

out teaching lessons and want to get better at coaching so in that case we've got that

in coming up November 9th you say that's a Sunday I'm excited about that one I was thinking

it'd be a neat thing neat is such a boring word I apologize it'd be a great thing to bring

in every year is this the kind of thing you're a DCA member as well I think so is this the

kind of thing they're going to try to do in Atlanta a lot they're going to pick another

four cities next year is this a pilot program do you know this is the first year they've

ever done it it was a new pilot program this year Robin heads up racquet x and Jarrett

does a direct school of America I haven't heard them talk about next year but I know that

so far the first three stops have gone well and they've been happy with what's come out

of it so you know what's this stop in Atlanta comes through I'm sure they'll talk about it

figure out what they want to do for next year and see if they want to expand this offering

or or see what happens but I haven't heard anything from them yet but I know they're

just trying to get through these four stops because it takes a lot to coordinate all

these these four places and get that going so they just finished all of them I think last

week so they're turning right background in Atlanta so they got their hands full so I'm

sure once we wrap up Atlanta they'll be some discussion about what they want to do going

forward yeah they're not not involving me in that conversation but it's probably a

smart thing to do which is keeping keeping next year let's worry about next year after we

finish this year at some level especially if you're doing something for the first time you

say you've been at an ansley for over a decade you've probably already got next year

all planned pretty much we just went away for the weekend with the entire you know board

of directors to talk about all the budgeting and all the planning for next years there's

always a few curveballs we throw in there and things we try to add to the calendar but

we pretty much have 26 kind of wrapped up as far as least our programming side for us well

I know Robbins working on changing some things about the racketex conference that they do I

think they're gonna try to hold it maybe in a little bit different possible location next

year but I don't know what that is I think she's trying to finalize all those things I

don't want to you know talk and I turn and say it's the wrong place but I know that there's

some discussion about what they want to do so you know I know there's there's some changes

they're trying to do and make it even bigger and better for everybody so we'll see but

I know that they're doing a great job of trying to keep it fresh and new and you know Robbins

an idea person every time I sit down and talk to her she's throwing out 12 different things

and asking like what would you do this would you do this and so she will never run of ideas

it doesn't look like so I think it will always have some new fresh feel to it so I know

that she's always got something in her head plan I just don't know what all those things

she's confirmed yet so it will continue to grow and move yeah ideas go ahead Bob I'm sorry

no I'm sorry we have to remind Robbins that she lives an hour away from downtown Atlanta

that you should think of us first and I was I was also proving to be I didn't say it worked

and believe it and I went in a whole entire hour on a conversation and I did not speak but

I listened and just an amazing organ is what they've done and what they have to do to put

on that weekend conference and the cost associated with it it is an unbelievable undertaking so

you know and and she like Matt said she there they are trying to figure out ways and I would say this

anything that came out of the conversation you know because we always talked about it that since

paddle and pickleball are the new kids in town and with new usually means more companies are

willing to spend money to try to make their brand the recognizable brand that they kind of had a

big paddle in pickleball platform associated with them but they realize the importance of tennis as well

and are trying to pivot and get more tennis involvement and get more tennis exhibitions and whatever they

can for the consumer because you know that was the fun part they use like B2B and B2C and I'm

sitting there saying okay what is B2B oh business to business cool I was business B2C oh business

to consumer cool so you know they use all those great words and you sit there so they like I said

I was very impressed it was great to be part of that call just to listen and I'm a big fan of Rob I

was tracking Robin for about six months and finally found a way to get her to at least answer my text

and it was it was great to hear what's going on so I'm excited when I read that they were coming

to Ansely because I would and I'm a big Jared fan as well because I think what he did with pickleball

he was so far ahead of the curve there that he was smart enough to leave Maryland or wherever he

was to go to Texas so again I'm all for any time you can make that switch I'm all for that as well so

I think they got some really good people I heard someone describe those three sports with pickleball

and tennis and pickleball I mean with Pudel and it was kind of a neat thing they said hey if you

want to compare those three racket sports to like auto racing they said pickleball is kind of like

dirt track racing everybody can get into it it's pretty cheap to try it out and you can figure out

if you like it or not right tennis is like NASCAR there's big events there's big money in it there's

sponsorships it's been there for a long time and it's good a state it's not going anywhere and Pudel

is like Formula One that's where the money is that's where the new sponsors are going that's where

it's the flash is that's where the kind of the sexy part of the sport is and that's where people

are kind of moving to and where the TV and all the advertising and kind of the movie rights are

going to right so I thought that was a pretty good comparison of sports a different sport to where

the rackets are was comparing race car driving to the rackets world Bobby I'm sure you're going to

steal that so write that down so we don't forget right that's a good one I like that I love the

Formula one not knowing that apples look into put money into Formula One I'm like that hey that

makes a lot of sense so yes it does like it so Bobby you got anything else from Matt before

hitting with King of tennis no I'm happy listening okay Matt anything else you want to talk about

because you know the King of tennis a question is coming I'm but anything else you want to mention

we talked about the racketacks we talked about Anzli we caught up on you and who you are and end

it some industry trends got anything else interesting that's been on your mind recently you want to

discuss no I think we covered most of the things I guess really good okay then I will jump to

King of tennis and this one is my favorite question I love it I love ending with it I think it's

a lot of fun but if I ask you and I say if you were King of tennis whether it was the whole world

social professional any version of tennis whatever it is whatever scope you can picture if you

were King of tennis is there anything you would do or change I did think about that question when

you ask it to me and I tried to think like well do I go real big or do I kind of think smaller to

to our market and you know if it's if it's real big I think it's got to be that we make it a little

more you know a little more fun I think you know the intense tennis that was here in Atlanta did kind

of bring that out with the music that was playing in the lights and in the kind of the sound of the

way that it kind of fits a little bit better with some of the younger generation people coming up

that are looking for more excitement and not the quiet and sit real still the whole time but you

know I kind of landed on hey if I if I had to change something in the market where I am if I'm in

the Atlanta market and I got to be King of the Atlanta market for a day what I would say is we've

got to call out on and I won't I won't play favorites I will let somebody else decide which one we

got to call out one of the seasons of either alto or USDA because right now that the problem that I

see with it is we have spring summer winter fall right we play year round and everybody's coming in

for lessons everybody's coming in to try to improve but everybody comes in on Tuesday to improve for

their match on Thursday everybody comes in on a Wednesday and says I got to be good by Thursday they

come on Friday I got a match on Saturday I got to fix my serve in in one hour and so nobody really

has time to get better at the game so everybody gets to about mid B low A in alto terms and they just

flatten out and they stay there for 30 years like like tennis in Atlanta and I really feel like if

there was one season where people could just say hey we're not going to have matches for the next

three months and you actually had time to say hey we're going to have time to actually work and

develop our game and work with somebody to say hey I don't have a match I can actually change the

grip of my serve I can actually learn how to hit a slice backhand I can actually learn how to hit a

pop spin forehand you know those kind of things where people could actually grow in the sport

I think that it would be way better and I think people would enjoy it a lot longer because I think

where we lose people in tennis is they start out at a low level and they see this great incline of

play they see this great increase in their abilities and then they flatten out and once they flatten

out it gets a little bit less exciting for them and if their friends all saying it they stay in it

but if their friends start to dis-pay too then we lose them because they don't they don't have that

time to actually work on their game because they're so afraid they might lose their next league play

match which in Atlanta happens every day so to me that's what I think would be my thing is I would

call out one of the leagues from one of the seasons and have three league seasons instead of four

in the Atlanta market so there's actually a time to work and improve your actual game and your

play Bobby a social tennis offseason what do you think I used to say more white columns but

longer as you say like USDA is the season we practice we want to win dinner plates like matchup

we're probably every play sells it might be different but here Alta is king so we would play for

the dinner plates and I would say the same thing because and I completely agree and Matt we cut

it alluded to it before we went live so they don't know exactly how old we are but you know in the

80s there was a business term called the pita principle which within an organization you would rise

to your level of incompetence I always base that's what Alta is based on you know you're gonna go as far

then you're gonna plateau and now it's up to you to decide do we improve or we happy with the

social aspects of it and I'm fortunate with the dynamics of a neighborhood changing people coming

and going you lose if you know the dynamic of the social changes you lose tennis players and that

hurts our income so I think if we could create that environment where learning becomes just as

as much fun as playing you know yeah and I think the leagues even been done but not really a great

job in Atlanta to where there used to be some gaps between the leagues where when Alta ended you had

about three weeks or four weeks or something of break between that when USDA started well now

city finals Alta's one Thursday USDA starts the very next Thursday like then they've spread out

the leagues to where there's for some reason now we play one USDA match and then we take a break

the very next week in May and then we go back like why don't we just start after that break instead of

having that one match in the middle of May that would give three weeks so people could actually

work on something I think that's something that they could we could really work on because people just

don't get better because they're not willing to make a change because they're so worried they're

gonna lose their next league play match so yes it's hard to keep what you're I say you know I'm a good

pro not a miracle worker I can't fix everything in your game in one hour uh-huh well and so in that

case Matt just quick question you're king can't you just implement a non-season at your club and say

I'm sorry guys you are not a let we're picking winter whatever it is right we're not allowed to play

league we're not gonna do it here are they just gonna go somewhere else and find it like is that

the problem because you could just say this is our club this is how we do it this is time to get

better now if I'm gonna be king I gotta be king of the entire city so I can just shut it down city

why I just got it down in my club you're probably gonna be seeing me looking for a new job next week

just asking you see where I can go next next time because if I take tennis away they're gonna be

they're gonna lose their minds but yeah so I would have to be king of the entire city where I could

just say hey city wide this is not happening yeah that makes a lot of sense I'm good with that this

has been a lot of fun I really appreciate it Matt and I apologize a little bit for my uh my pixelation

I'm traveling and Bobby you never know his his network sometimes works but uh that's why I like

doing this because we don't have to be in the same room but we still get a chance to talk to guys

like you and I really appreciate it we really appreciate you making the time and coming to talk to

us between all of us thank you so much Matt I really appreciate your time thank you Matt

no problem thanks for having me I was a lot of fun

well there you have it we want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio and signature tennis

for their support and be sure to hit that follow button for more racket sports content you can go

to letsgotennis.com and while you're there check out our calendar of events great deals on

racket sports products apparel and more if you're a coach director of any racket sports or just

someone who wants to utilize our online shop contact us about setting up your own shop collection

to offer your branded merchandise to the racket sports world and with that we're out see you next time

[Music]

[Music]