Episode:#44 Shaun Boyce and Bobby Schindler

In this episode we talk to Dave Matthews and full disclosure, Dave was my academy coach back in the early 90's when I was preparing to play in college so we have known each other quite a while. Dave is in the GA Tennis Hall of Fame and has run the Dave Matthews Tennis Academy since the mid-80's. Dave is a USTA junior tournament official and has a heart warming story to get us started about a parent interaction which could have ended up in a very dangerous situation.

Watch the LIVE replay: https://www.youtube.com/live/XHz_FhFUiYA?si=tc1IFbR6U3FAk_SO

Shaun Boyce USPTA: shaun@tennisforchildren.com

https://tennisforchildren.com/ 🎾

Bobby Schindler USPTA: schindlerb@comcast.net

https://windermerecommunity.net/ 🎾

Geovanna Boyce: geovy@regeovinate.com

https://regeovinate.com/ 💪🏼🏋️

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In this episode, we talked to Dave Matthews

and Full Disclosure.

Dave was my Academy coach back in the early 90s

when I was preparing to play in college,

so we've known each other quite a while.

Dave is in the Georgia tennis hall of fame

and has run the Dave Matthews tennis academy

since the mid 80s.

Dave is a USDA junior tournament official

and has a heartwarming story to get us started

about a parent interaction

which could have ended up in a very dangerous situation.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

(upbeat music)

I will say hello.

I am Sean Boyce with GoTennis

and the Atlanta tennis podcast.

I'm here as always or as usually

with Bobby Schindler.

Today we have Dave Matthews.

And is anybody asked no, not that Dave Matthews,

the actual Dave Matthews.

Dave Matthews tennis academy

and I will start with Full Disclosure.

Dave has known me since I was about 14, 15.

When he was that I joined your Academy in 19,

right?

Yeah, no.

Yeah, it's about 14, 15, somewhere along in there.

Yeah.

And I was there with a few other guys.

We still know in town.

So the Dave Matthews tennis academy has been around

quite a while.

So you've got some experience with running an academy,

getting some kids like me.

It's actually a testament to your coaching

that someone wanted me to play

on their college tennis team.

So that definitely says a lot.

But I want to start because you're also a USDA official

and that's one of the things we haven't talked about

on the podcast at all at this point.

We've been doing this a few years now.

And we haven't had any questions that lead to,

oh my gosh, that guy might be going to get a gun.

So jumping right in, you have a story.

I have it on good authority.

You have a story where you're pretty sure it got bad enough

at a USDA.

Let me point this out.

Children's sporting event.

They use things we're going to escalate.

I have got to hear this story.

Yeah, it was a junior tennis tournament, you know,

like we, like I've taken you to and all the academy kids to.

And, you know, generally, I'll take, you know,

back in the old days, I would take kids there in a van

and things like that.

Now with, you know, lawsuit and all that,

you kind of avoid that.

You show up and you find the kids there and watch them play.

And, you know, and that's as good as you can do right now.

So, yeah, I'm now a USDA official.

I appreciate the tournaments that we help run up

at the facility I work at.

And me and another gentleman who is also a USDA,

not only official, but he also operates, you know,

does the draws and all that in the background

before the tournament ever starts.

So he's about as qualified as you can get.

I bring more of the player standpoint into it,

being an player and coach and all that.

So between us both, we pretty much seeing about everything you can see.

And there was this one tournament.

It was, it was several years ago, thank goodness.

It's kind of hopefully, you know, gotten out of the way,

but we're sitting there and we, the canopy we sit under

is up on the hill so we can see all 12 courts.

We time all the warm-ups and everything, everybody gets,

you know, we know at the five minute warm-up,

but we sometimes, depending on draws and stuff,

give them a little more time.

So there's this one court right there next to,

really next to where we are.

And I looked up and, you know, the sad,

the bad part about that court is that there are some canopies

with picnic tables right there beside it.

And, you know, some of the parents will sit over there

under the canopies and, you know, when the kids on the other end,

you know, they'll get that to them and think like that,

which is, no, no, we don't want any interference.

We want to, we would rather the kids get us

and we tell them right there to check in desk,

which is right next door to us.

If you have a problem, you know, here's two officials

in Blue, USDA official, you know, shirts coming get us.

We'll come and help you settle it.

We would rather do that and let the kids learn how to deal

with each other and settle it on their own

than to, you know, have outside interferences

and then parents get into it and things like that.

So this parent, you know, had been chatting a little bit

and, you know, well, you know, sometimes we can't decipher

between what is somebody saying, "Great shot,"

or clapping and things like that.

So, you know, we're not trying to listen to your every word,

but this one kind of escalated a little bit

and, you know, we can kind of see what other parents

are getting a little irritated by the infection

or injection of another parent.

And it was kind of getting a little, you know,

it was about time to stop it.

So, you know, I stood up and took about four, five steps

toward the canopies, which then at that point in time

were only about 10 feet away.

And I said, you know, "Excuse me, sir, you know,

please back away from the fence.

You don't need to be talking to your son while he's playing,

you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

and, you know, if the kids have a problem,

tell them to come get me."

And he looked at me and, I mean, literally was,

- I'm sure he's completely apologetic.

- Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

- No?

- Went from zero to 60 in about 0.2 seconds.

- And he looked at me and, you know,

they've got this, it's kind of interesting

to watch society now because they don't go into

in a, I don't want to say in a apologetic mode,

but, you know, at least I didn't know, you know,

something like that.

It's like a defensive mode now.

It's like, "Oh, you're gonna blame me,

and, you know, is there any economic or racial

or anything they can pull on to get in my face?"

And that's exactly where he went.

And the gentleman, you know, the other officials

right behind me, and, because, you know,

we kind of, we've been doing this long enough

to where we can see a situation,

and if it doesn't look good, we both are coming.

And, you know, he's about five seconds,

you know, five steps behind me.

And, the gentleman just looked at me and he came up

and got, you know, try to get in my face, you know,

luckily, you know, like most people,

they're a little bit shorter, which is okay.

But, you know, I think some people are, I don't wanna say,

intimidated, but I am what I am.

And, you know, my voice carries,

and you know that as well with anybody.

And, for the listeners, sorry, I didn't know that.

For the listeners, you're about six six, is that,

I mean, is that about-- - Six five, six six, yeah.

- Six five, six six, you know.

- Can you walk up even as pleasant as you can possibly be,

you're still intimidating presence?

- Yeah, and I'm sorry.

I just am what I am, you know?

And so, you know, we get over there,

and this gentleman just kept going back at me,

and I just said, sir, you know, if we can't calm you down,

because the kids now are trying, they're disrupted.

There's five, the court five, six, seven, and eight,

probably two or three of those are disrupted.

And we're just basically trying to say, sir,

let's just go over here under the tent,

and get you away from the court,

let the kids keep playing.

My partner can take care of the kids

who get them started back, and, you know,

we've only got a hundred matches to play on 12 courts,

which is, if you know, that's easy, math,

10 blocks of, you know, 12 courts at a time,

you're there for 12, 14 hours.

So, we're trying to keep our day rollin' along.

And so, he just looked at us and he goes, well, you know,

if you keep this up, you know,

I think I'm just gonna have to go to my car,

and I'm lookin' at him, right?

And, the boy, you gonna drive away,

or, I'm from the street.

I know what happens when that happens

and I looked at my partner,

my partner's lookin' at me.

I'm like, whoa, whoa, I never heard that one before.

And I just looked at my partner and he was like,

let's just let him leave and we'll call the city of police,

or the martial that comes through this area.

And just tell him, you know,

we may have a little bit of a situation just beyond guard.

Well, luckily, you know, we tell the parents listen,

we want you to stay, but if you're gonna keep disrupting the match,

we gotta get you out of here.

Whether you go sit in the car, turn on the AC, fine,

or if you even come by, you know,

and you got cell phones and stuff,

you can call your kid, tell him you come to pick him up,

or they can call you, take him, pick me up, I'm done,

but you gotta let the matches continue.

And, you know, at that point,

just you know, it was really in my face.

And I was, you know, everybody around was going,

wow, this dude is lost his mind.

And it, it, it, it shot me.

It's on, I mean, it did just shot me to think the parents

that of the kids like you guys, when you came through,

my parents would never show up and say,

they knew that if Shawn Boyce got in trouble,

Dave, if Dave was there,

Dave was gonna make sure he has a level playing field

and everything else takes care of itself.

But, in this day and time, it's like the kids,

the parents won't let the kids play and learn

how to get along with each other and get, you know,

solve your problems.

You know, tennis is like, now, not even the main,

for, you know, not the main thing on the table.

So, so yeah.

- Bobby, I'm sure you're completely shocked

by this parent behavior.

- I wanted to his name.

(laughing)

- Well, you know,

I'm shot a few guesses.

(laughing)

- We're all sure we met this guy, right?

- Well, and the sad part is, you know,

I would like to think, sadly, it don't happen.

You would think that a governing body,

whether it's USDA, UTR, whatever,

these people need to be up there going,

okay, we got a list of people that are problematic.

If it continues to happen, they gotta get going.

You're gonna ruin a good game, a good program,

whoever's it is, it doesn't matter.

These people, and they will ruin it in a heartbeat

to think their kid is innocent.

And, you know, you know, what happens to kids that are led to do,

you know, a parent to do this,

do you get the same thing coming up as a younger adult later?

And that's a whole other game.

I don't wanna see.

- That's an interesting thought.

So, as a USDA official,

do you think that's something the USDA could do

is create kind of a list where you can walk out

and have soccer, you know, when you're yellow card

and you're red card, but I assume you have the authority

to remove someone from a tournament premises,

but it would be interesting to have an ongoing list

where parents at some point say,

hey, you know what, little Johnny,

love to have your tournament,

by the way, but your father's not allowed here.

Or your mother's, you think that's possibly able to be created?

Or a good thing about that?

- You know, it kind of is gonna,

looks like it's gonna have to happen,

you know, because society ain't getting better, you know?

There's a several areas of our, our livelihoods,

but just several areas of life itself,

where it's gotten to be the wild, wild west.

It's almost like, you know, you drive a bigger car,

you can get away with everything, but you can't.

And you shouldn't be able to,

you should be adhering to the walls of the road

so that everybody gets safer, but it don't get that,

and ain't that way.

It's got not a control,

and this is the same thing.

People are getting away with it,

and nobody wants to step up and say,

I'm sorry, you're wrong, you're bad for the program,

you need to go find something else

because we ain't letting you in.

But people are so scared that those people

are gonna start hollering that they let them get away with it.

And to me, that's wrong.

You're letting the good people get badly affected

by the bad people.

And there's a minority of them out there,

but when they start,

they, you know, what they'll cliche now is,

if you hollering louder,

you get more tension, you get away with more.

That's bull crap.

You know, I'm almost to the point now where,

I think looking at your entourage,

I've watched you, I saw it,

and all these people are turning it out.

I like that, I'm like, I never did that.

I turned around, understood there's another point to go.

Let's get over there,

and let's keep the trend going.

I don't wanna ruffle your feathers by doing that.

I don't wanna let you know, I'm not happy if I don't do it.

I wanna keep coming at you 110% every point to win every point.

And if I use that energy,

that's energy I could have used to run down an extra ball

or two a few points like it, 'cause it does, it hats up.

I see these guys, I'm sitting here watching

Isuna and Mo right now on my TV up here in my office.

And I see them doing that like every point,

I'm like, good God, your emotions have just got to be spent.

And a three out of five said, match, I don't know,

if I got that much energy.

- Staying positive is one thing,

but that whole, I have to be overly energetic.

And I don't coach at the ATP level,

so I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

I've got my thoughts on, could be a waste of energy,

but I like that positivity.

I wonder at some point though,

from a tennis point of view in the kids,

we end up punishing the kids because you're dad's a jerk.

And I use, I guess dad,

maybe it's more often than not the males,

'cause 80% is probably,

probably how that usually plays out psychologically

is to who that is.

But I appreciate you starting with that

because I know we haven't talked much USDA tournament-wise

and now I wanna go back.

So I wanna take a step back.

Can you tell the listeners, tell everybody who you are,

you started, if I have my numbers right,

you started Dave Maddie, you started the Academy

in mid to late '80s, '87s somewhere around there,

which means you met me in '90s, something.

And in that case, you were also a player,

you're in the Hall of Fame somewhere,

give us a little bit of who is,

who is Dave Maddie.

- I like that somewhere.

(laughing)

Yeah, my junior tennis academy,

actually I started in Denver, Colorado,

where I lived at the time.

I worked at a nice little club there.

I had about 15 kids traveled around

to the Intermountain region tournament and stuff like that.

My oldest player that I have right now is,

God, he's gotta be getting near 50, that's pretty bad.

Yeah, I was 25 or six and he was 14.

So yeah, I'm only 10, 11 years older than him.

So he lives in Phoenix, Arizona,

but then I moved to Atlanta in '86,

started the DMTA, which is that logo right there,

started that in '89 and then you got,

you John Jeffrey, Danny, a whole bunch

I came in there over at Circle Stone

and then at Hidden Hills.

And that, so basically then, while that was happening,

I was also playing international events.

Plades started playing Nationals when I came off

the satellite circuit in '89,

started the 30th and over division in seniors.

And one, I don't know, half a dozen or so,

a little bit less than a dozen national titles.

Representative USA, a couple of times on the,

senior Davis Cup teams did win a world title

in about half a 205.

So you know, met my friend God for it,

too, son is doing pretty good right now on the Pro Tour.

That's right.

We first heard about Taylor Fritz from you

'cause you had to do a kid who was supposedly pretty good.

- Yeah, he's pretty good, yeah.

He's actually now in the third round of the open now,

so he's doing pretty good.

But that's the, the sum of the nutshell,

I did get inducted into George Sennitz Hall of Fame in '13

and that was an honor.

They represented all my kids and the family,

DMTA family, you know?

'Cause no matter who was hitting with me,

whatever, everybody had part of it.

You know, it wasn't just me.

That was, that's such a facade.

You know, there's so many parts to that puzzle.

It's crazy, but, you know, I'm very thankful

and luckily, a little bit of my talent and hard work,

you know, with all the belief and from all my players

and stuff and hopefully I transform some of that

into some of y'all, you know?

You're doing pretty darn well and working hard,

got a good family and that's what life's about.

It really is and that was one of the things you talked about a lot

when I was a kid and it sounds like you're the same way

where you say you get to know the kids inside and out

and you really say, hey look,

maybe I'm not the greatest tennis coach in the world,

I don't know who is, but I'm as good as I can possibly be.

And in that case, if you like what I have to offer,

it's more than just the tennis.

My mother still quotes you when I was a kid

and it's just things that stick with you.

And I as a coach and I know Bobby's cognizant

of how he speaks to kids as well.

When it's adults, you can kind of loosen up a little bit,

but when we talk to kids, we're cognizant

of how we speak to them and the things that we say,

I remember being a young coach and kind of a little more off

the cuff and a little more I can say whatever I want

as opposed to realizing how much we affect these kids

and the things, so many of our rules,

my family life rules we have are worded the way they are

so they can scale.

I want to be able to follow the same rules

or most of the same rules as the five-year-old

that we talk to, it's the hey, here's rule number one,

I follow the same rule as opposed to having different rules

for kids and adults, but being that role model

makes a huge difference and that's hard to do over 30,

35 years and stay consistent.

So I didn't need to downplay and say,

"Hull of Fame somewhere, I know you've got Alabama ties

and Colorado ties."

So I went through and checked it all out

and I wasn't sure how many of those you have.

I didn't know you won a world title, that's really cool.

- That was a very, very, I knew those guys,

for like I said, I've been playing on the senior tour

for 15 years, Mike Federley, Val Wilder,

he was in Dallas, in the Federley's in Palm Springs,

and Egan Adams, who's in Florida,

we were the four that got selected ago

and went down to South Africa.

It was a great trip, took my whole family

and just had a blast.

And one, the world title, the world seemed title down there

and it was an awesome feeling to represent the US

and it was a very good trip for culture reasons,

to experience that.

We did get to go on a half day safari.

It's kind of neat, the trophy that we got is not that big,

but it's a glass and etched in the back of the glass

of the big five animals, you know, the rhinospheres,

oh my God, it's unbelievable.

So people, people look at my national titles

and then they see that little glass thing

and they're like, "Oh, what is that?"

And I'm like, "That's my world title."

And look in the glass and they're like,

"Oh my God, that's the elephant and the rhinospheres

and the lion, I'm like, yeah, the big five."

And it's how that, it's very unique, trophy,

but it definitely my highest, you know, honor, for sure.

- That's a cool story.

It reminds me of how good of a player you were in my memory

even as a kid thinking I was good

and just being tortured by you as though I was nothing.

And I have to play against seven year olds

to feel that good.

So you don't know.

- Oh, you don't know.

- Upcoming college players is a nice feature

to be able to say, "Oh, you know what?"

Yeah, you're pretty good.

All right, watch this.

All right, go run that down.

Be able to talk to you. - Or try it.

- I remember all that.

But it makes me wonder now,

because like I said in the pre-stream

that I don't know if you and Bobby

had ever been in the same room at the same time.

I'm sure Bobby's brain, Bobby, your brain's gotta be running

if you guys know any of the same people.

- Well, my first question, David,

and you can pass on this one,

but do you take responsibility for Sean's forehand?

(laughing)

- I like to say, as far as I'm good for his two-handed backhands.

He got a pretty dang good one.

- I got the question, yeah.

(laughing)

- You notice how scooted on by that one?

(laughing)

Sean had a good game,

and we knew what to exploit and what to stay away from.

And that was the beauty of coaching and having kids.

At that group that I had back then,

you talk about some very acute listeners, man, they were.

They were on everything that I said,

and they, most of them learned very well

and went on to play some pretty good tennis,

and I was very proud of them all.

- I mean, you look at that age group, Sean,

you're close to Ricky Bowers, right?

Did you ever play Ricky?

Or, I feel like,

- I know that name, I can't play.

- Well his dad is, he would've been one of the ones

that you might have met up with later in life,

because his dad is a big corporate developer.

- But Ricky played Spencer Reed.

They're probably all just a little old,

you can use Fralik, John the Fralik,

some a little bit older,

but you were in a pretty hot bed

for a Georgia tennis turn that time, that time per.

- Well yeah, we were losing to the 10-year-olds

in John Williams, and the problem is we were 16

and getting smelt by the 10-year-olds,

so we knew we weren't going too far in tennis.

- Yeah, I do know that, Sean.

I used to say, "I didn't need to play tournaments,

"I was 17th in my club,

"so I didn't need to go out to lose any place."

I was quite easily losing right at home,

so I didn't have to travel.

I am surprised, I'm like, especially your over in the neck

in the woods, do you ever know Dennis Horde?

- Dennis Horde, no, I'm not off my head, no.

- He's a little older than you,

but he was kind of like my mentor,

and he was over at Swannie Station,

all-town and Duluth.

He was brought down by Ralston Gorman

back in the early 90s to run their academy

behind Lennox Park,

and that's how I got in back in the tennis,

meeting him and Billy Payt got me back going.

And, but, you know, you two are outside of the accent,

which I knew you weren't from Colorado,

so I was leaning toward Alabama,

Georgia Hall of Fame, just from the way you sounded,

but yeah, just curious who you run up.

And I think we've met, I'm looking,

but I'll tell you what, you look like my father-in-law,

you look like Stuart Russell,

I think we get to a certain age where tall,

where the glasses real start looking like.

I'm 28, or about to turn 58,

and I got Stuart Russell by two weeks,

so he's right around our age, so.

- Yeah, I'm a little bit older than that,

but, you know, not too much.

Like thank goodness, but yeah, I know Billy Payt,

where is he?

He worked at Notre Dame for a while, or a while.

- He noted Dame went to Alabama,

and now he's at Princeton.

- That's what I thought.

- Yep, yep, yep.

- I keep a Facebook ever down, and yeah.

- We went to grad school together,

but he's the person that got me back into tennis,

so I could say, there's not many people

you can point to and say, he changed my life.

He changed my life.

- Right, well that's good, though.

- And you remind me of my old coach was King Benostrid.

I don't know if you ever met King in your travels,

but he was the same way, now again, a lot older,

but he's been literally like number two in the country

since he was in the 40s.

- Yeah, yep.

- His son was John, who Mary Carillo speaks up,

and his daughter Molly played,

and made a Twitter fund as Wimbleton, great player,

one of the first two handers on both sides,

but she just had a lot of it, but same thing, love.

And he's probably, he's still a lot of God bless him,

and he's 90s, and I still think he's playing tournaments.

- And that wouldn't shot me, yeah.

- Him and he's not, he's,

- Him and Hugh Thompson,

and the only two guys left.

- You and his wife, all white.

- I've played you a couple times.

These are a few years older than me,

but we played back when they did the case-wish thing.

And me and Hugh played right over it

at the Old Olympic tennis center, a couple times.

First time they put us out on that center court,

and I was like, oh, this is gonna be a great novelty.

And then we go out there, and after about two games,

I look to you, and I went, I don't know, homie.

I think I hate this court, and he goes, why?

I said, could I put the ball on the back wall?

It's about 60 feet to the back wall.

It's only 39 feet to the net.

And he goes, yeah, you got that right, mate.

And I said, yeah, I'm gonna put this extra ball on the net.

We, he won't, he won't, he won't let us get it.

He started laughing.

So the next year we played in the finals again,

and they said, oh, I'm gonna put you on the center court.

I said, no, you're not, and Hugh went, no, you're not.

We're going over here right behind the,

right behind the pro shop.

We're gonna play right here on this sunken court,

and this'll be fine.

(laughs)

And so, you know, it's just a funnier thing, but hey, you know,

we were just trying to make a match simple, you know?

- We are, Bobby, I was curious to you guys know each other as well,

but you're running, you're running some kids,

less of an academy, Bobby, and you're not,

you're not sending kids to college

out of your academy in the same way,

because you're more in the high school target, right?

And Bobby, you're at the, in the four-site,

four-site area, I think Dave's more view-ford.

I think the park he referred to earlier

might have been a view-ford city park if I have that.

- Yeah. - Fixed it in my head.

So, I think if you're over closer to me,

but even back in the day when Bobby was,

Bobby was in that area being around,

you mentioned Dennis Hort, Bobby,

you were still out of the white columns area,

so you weren't even over near us anyway,

so I don't know how often you guys would have run into each other.

- Right. - I think, I think I'm over this time

until about what, 10 years ago,

it was 2013 when we started, we came over,

and like I said, I don't wanna say with who,

because I'm a strong feeling it might be the father

of the problem child, but,

(laughs)

he's the heroine that involved in tennis

and had a daughter who was very successful.

But, yeah, we came over, we're close.

I mean, as far west as we are, far east,

we're real close, we board a line view-ford.

But yeah, we have a little bit different.

We tried, we did a little high performance,

I just didn't have the patience for the parents,

and it's unfortunate.

And one thing I wanted to ask about,

'cause you brought up a good, you know, the way we speak,

and I find, and going back to what you said earlier,

as well, we have to be so careful that,

you know, so I don't get light around the parents very often.

They see me on the court, they'll get my sarcasm.

But when, you know, we have a conversation,

it's, you know, they're gonna get my good vocabulary,

they're gonna find out how the masters degree,

and they're gonna find out that, you know,

we'll have an adult car,

and that's what your kids are gonna get,

because I want them to see what they're getting,

because it is so hard.

I mean, we live in, you know, ESPN is crippled sports,

and we always laugh about what you said as well, Dave.

You know, the idea that tennis can be, you know,

you can't come out of the locker room,

and win the first quarter, and win a tennis match.

You can, you can win the first quarter and hold on.

Tennis, you'll be dead, especially in a three out of five

so you match. - Absolutely.

- So, yeah, and you wonder,

and nobody talks about it, because it's taboo.

What is the long term effect?

When did we ever have mental health issues

when we were playing?

We have never been. - We never did.

We just didn't tell anybody.

(laughing)

But I don't think we needed the constant affirmation.

We knew we lost, like essentially, you know,

people talked about when you, you know, my last match,

I lost, but you know what?

It was a heck of a journey.

I was trying to come back, because I didn't play,

and you know, I did everything I could,

and you know, I put the racket down,

it felt good about it.

It wasn't some, I was angry, you know, I was somebody beat,

somebody beat me who deserved to beat me,

but I had done a lot to get to that spot.

I was proud of myself, and it was the work

that I would use to further in my life.

Today, I just, I agree with you.

I just, I get so nervous when I see these kids all pumped up.

Oh my gosh, it's a point.

You just won a point.

You can use four points in tennis and win the match.

Don't get preoccupied about a point.

- That's right.

Yeah, they, yeah, they,

yeah, it's that constant immediate gratification,

and I tell my kids all the time,

even some of my, you know, intermediate kids, I say, listen.

You know, we're in a group of six or eight kids,

and you hear me tell somebody, good shot, good stroke,

things like that.

You know, if you don't hear me say that to you,

it's not 'cause I don't like you,

it's because I've given you some direction,

and I'm waiting on you to tap into that

and heading that direction.

And when you do that, I'll tell you,

good shot, but keep working at it.

And because I don't tell somebody great shot too often,

because great shots, you know, I don't use that phrase

for somebody who hits a, you know, beginner stroke,

I'll just say, hey, good shot, keep going,

you know, work at it, work at it.

But they want somebody to say,

oh, great shot because it's an ESPN moment.

I'm like, no, you're getting that one to me,

but that's where we are, kind of the same thing, you know?

- Yeah, and unfortunately, I do feel like it permeates

into they're all filled with a bunch of trigger words.

And just like, guys, you're reading the wrong,

wrong sometimes, man.

Stay away, you know, not making your life, you say,

I try to make my kids, my father was great,

he gave me two choices,

gave me the feeling that I had a choice,

that I was making a decision,

even though he controlled all the variables.

It's kind of what you try to do as a coach

with your kids when you have them.

Yeah, you might think you have a choice here,

but I'm controlling all the variables

that go into that choice.

So, and relish that because,

as this is as easy as life gets.

- You got it.

- That's exactly right.

- Like I said earlier about the children's sporting event.

Guys, this is kids playing a game.

And if you're threatening to go to your car

because you're angry enough to decide you need to be armed,

yes, we're in Georgia, I get, okay?

That's not what I'm talking about.

This is just a children's sporting event

when the official actually politely to come sit down,

just do it, it's not that hard.

- Yeah. - For the kids.

And that's one of the things we do with Gotenis

and with the podcast Dave is we're here for the kids.

We're here for the players.

And one of the things we wanna do

is help everybody with that.

And with you coming out saying,

hey guys, maybe we need to make some changes,

is the change really that we need to start

with the black listing parents?

Is it getting that bad?

Is, I mean, in soccer game, you can yell and scream

and yell at your kid, kick that guy in the ass.

You can do that and the other parents are gonna look

at you funny, but nobody's gonna ask you to back away

from the sideline because what's the difference in tennis

that we can hardly clap anymore?

What's going on there?

- Well, I think, you know,

and I was, I talked about this, you know,

the other day is that, you know,

you have to be careful that, you know,

what I loved about the game of tennis,

growing up playing football, baseball, basketball,

and then I picked up tennis,

and there were no lessons where I was at.

I just, my mom wanted some exercise

and went out and bought the ball around,

you know, everybody does when you first start.

And after about six months,

because I was a decent athlete,

because of all the other sports,

still do me and what you need to go find some kids to play with

because you're just too fast,

you're getting just too many balls,

and I ain't got that kind of exercise.

And so I said, okay, no problem.

And I still get with her, but I think the thing

that I loved about the game of tennis is that

if me and Sean are playing, it's me, my game,

my strokes at that moment against what Sean has to offer.

And I got to figure those problems out.

And I don't need to worry about other outside

and apprentices like coaching and all that stuff

because that's what tennis does at bring to the table.

And it's, that's the beauty of the game of the sport of tennis.

And I'm afraid, you know, I laugh now because, you know,

your coaching is supposed to be

when you're on that side of the court.

Oh, give me a break.

They're harming 400 yards away.

Hey, go to the net.

I mean, different languages, you know, here we go again.

You give people a little bit of a,

a little wiggle room to coach now,

'cause we think it's better.

Now we're gonna just take it and you can be anywhere

and to stay to him and hall.

Well, then the fans think they can do that too.

Well, now you got people hollering

when they throwing a ball up to serve.

And that's why I got an internist

was cause I could actually concentrate on me,

Sean, our strokes, what we got to do to get a win.

Now I got to block out everybody else.

It's in the room too.

And you did that anyway, but it's getting harder

because we're letting more people power,

which is symptomatic of other sports.

Not what the gentleman's game was about, you know?

- So in that case, we've been doing this

for thousands of years and therefore we should keep doing it.

Or do we need to make the switch

from the generation before to what Tiafo says,

let us use him as an example most recently.

- Sure.

- But let the people walk in like a basketball game.

Let the people walk around, let them scream.

If you can't handle it, go into your crying closet

and have your space, have your safe space,

but out here we need to have it a little less mono-emano

and a little more yelling and screaming

and he wants that interaction.

But then I just think back to happy Gilmore.

Go, okay, are you really just screwing up the sport

or are we just old for worrying about the evolution

into the next thing?

- I don't have a problem with evolution into the next thing.

Like I said, I don't think everybody is meant to play tennis.

You know, you get all these other people,

all these organizations trying to get more people to play tennis

and what you want to look, you want to,

you can check this when you leave.

Go look and see how many senior tournaments you see now.

What's happened, and I told this guy,

he was on the committee for senior tournaments.

This has got to be 50, oh, probably 25 years ago

when I was in the 90s

and I was playing my national tournaments.

I was ranked 1 or 2 or 3 in the nation

in my age category, the 30s.

And my sponsor wanted me to play a local tournament

in Marriata over on the other side of Marriata.

I lived over in Lythonia, so that's an hour and 20 minute ride.

Easy with no traffic.

And I said, you got to be kidding me.

I'm gonna walk over there, probably lose four games

of whole tournament, three rounds.

I'll probably see you in no problem.

La, la, la, la, I did.

And I talked to the guy, the second round person I had,

and I said, why is it we got to play one match a day?

I'm in the 30s division.

I'm not 50 or 60.

I'm in the 30s.

Why are we playing one match a day?

Well, people can't play two matches a day.

And I said, go play something else.

If you tell me a competitor that I need to play,

if we got a 16 draw, and I'm gonna play one match

on Friday night, two matches Saturday

and the finals on Sunday, I will get prepared to play that.

Now, if I decide I want to enter more events

if there's doubles and things like that,

that's my choice.

I'm not going to get in the way of somebody else

that doesn't want to do it by, you know,

making them conform to me.

I want to play, if I play singles only, this is what I want to do,

and I don't mind playing two a day.

But don't make me take off work two days,

and that's what I had to do.

Monday to Tuesday, it was a Saturday Sunday Monday,

Tuesday tournament.

I had a bow on Saturday.

I played one match Sunday, one in like 40 minutes.

I drove two and a half hours to play a 35 minute match.

And all of a sudden, from that year,

that year, back then, we were having a senior tournament

somewhere in the state of Georgia,

every weekend from literally probably third weekend in March,

those tournaments in March would be down like in Savannah,

South Georgia, things like that for weather.

And then in April, they would start everywhere.

I mean, it was crazy.

You could find a senior tournament, usually with,

I'd say at least 12 to 16 or sometimes even a 32 draw,

and you could find one every weekend,

all the way through, probably the end of October.

I look last year in Georgia.

I think there were 10 senior tournaments the whole year.

I found one in May this year.

That's what I'm saying.

So one is--

I'm not sure if you've lost it search,

but I'm with you that there aren't that many.

Because what's happened is the running of people,

because they can't take off work.

Nobody wants to play you.

We got to play you.

We got you.

We got you.

We got you.

We got you.

And Hugh Thompson, nobody wants to play you guys.

Sure they do.

We laugh on.

But that's the, you know, the, that's the saddest part is,

we've literally eliminated the senior event in lieu of what?

And now we're, well, and I'm sure Pickaball has a draw to that,

and that, but that's, so what?

So did we miss that boat?

You know, did we create that by eliminating senior tournament?

You know, you're going to, you're not going to stop some of the people.

Because Pickaball did, it's on fire.

But it's going to moderate just like everything,

not market everything.

But where does senior tournaments go?

Because I remember when I played the 30 National Grass Courts in Santa Barbara

one year, the tournament director was like 85 years old.

Van Zurvey was his name.

And we're sitting at one day in one range of like we had in like four years.

And I looked at Mrs. Zurvey and he, I told him how to fix it.

You know, I said, I'm from Atlanta.

We have range of it all the time.

We just get to did it.

And he's like, oh my god, that's awesome.

So I said, Mr.

you still play in tournaments?

He goes, yeah, he goes.

I think I'm a win one next year.

I said, why is that?

He goes because I think my biggest competitors going to pass away.

I'm like, whoa, whoa, you kidding me?

He goes, hey.

If you cannot live him, you can beat him.

I was like, oh, Mr. Zurvey, you're so mean.

But part of longevity is at the end of the rainbow, you might win some gold balls.

Who knows?

But it was interesting to know that there were people still playing at 80 years old

in National tournaments.

I think he said his role was 12.

And I was like, you know, that has got to be the biggest reward you could ever have.

Forget all the titles and all of them.

Just think of your plan at 80.

How awesome that would be.

That's like a trophy in itself.

And in that case, I can see why you want everything to be quiet.

But in today's world, are we, are we just kind of stifling the parents?

Are we, are we pushing back so much like the cat that wants the door open?

He doesn't actually want to come in.

He just wants the door open.

Do we give a little bit with the parents thing?

Why tennis?

Well, I think I think.

I will have to say this from a physics standpoint.

Oh, you, you like that one?

I knew you'd like that one.

From a physics standpoint, we as tennis players do rely on the saddle of the ball more than

other sports.

Yeah.

You know, football, you throwing it, you, you see it in that ball, you say, you can have

all the hovering you want.

That's why baseball, a foul ball is not, a fair ball is not called.

It's like tennis.

A fair ball, the referee points in toward the inside of the baseline.

He doesn't have a reason.

He only hollows on a foul ball.

And it's because of cloud noise.

So my point is, is that I can tell you now, Sean Boyce hits a serve.

I don't care.

I already say 110 by 15, 20 miles an hour.

That sound is to me before the ball is.

And I rely on that sound to be able to respond.

I know how you hit it.

I hear it.

People don't give that any credit, but it's huge when you're playing to be able to hear

the ball.

So I'm not saying we need to stop it.

Maybe I need to wear my, my AirPods and just put on, you know, noise reduction from the

crowd.

I don't know, you know?

Well, I see the players now with the headphones as they come on trying to stay in their own

world, trying to block your head.

And I really appreciate one of the things you did for us was teaching us how to handle

that pressure.

And one of the things I mentioned a lot is the things that tennis does being an individual

sport, not the team sport in the same way where you just kind of follow the crowd and everybody

else.

But an individual, the 10 year old that walks through, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,

hi, I'm Sean.

I need to check in for my tennis match.

I think that's awesome.

And I say that a lot, but I really do think that's really cool.

But now there's so much, I struggle with that.

I'm kind of battling my way through the parents to get to the check in.

I'm closing myself off because I'm afraid of everything.

And I think that's an interesting combination coming from like a guy with T-O-Fo who's

a basketball guy.

So he's used to that kind of thing.

Absolutely.

Maybe he likes that idea.

I just don't think it's going to spread in the same way where we do have, you know, we

mentioned the safe, the safe spaces in the, in the mental health challenges.

Well, why do these people really maybe play tennis because it is a quiet, sometimes inwardly

focused?

Absolutely.

100%.

I think that's why I like it.

You got it.

Don't forget now.

I did play college basketball.

So I totally understand the crowd noise.

You know, the one thing about college basketball is you also, you also feel, here we go again,

Sean, you also feel the ball when it's being dribbled on the floor, not just with hearing

it, but you feel it through your feet if you're tuned to what you're doing.

And so me knowing where the ball is is not only a listening thing, it's a feeling thing

with the floor itself.

Uh tennis, you know, you don't get to feel it with the ball on the asphalt, but you do hear

it.

And that sound, you, we know when a ball is hit, not clean.

We know when I hear a miss hit ball, I'm moving forward because it's you to going to be

up there near the net somewhere, whereas it's the crowd is hollering.

That's a, that's a lost opportunity.

And I don't think, you know, you're a lay person who pays, I ain't doing it, you know, hundreds

of dollars to sit and watch a match and holler.

I don't think that you understand how much they're impacting the game by hollering.

You know, they think it's, oh, I'm cheering, but you're, you're definitely in the sound of

what I need to know.

And that is the sound of that ball clean or not.

And you know, you hit a ball, you know, what, I'm watching these guys hit 100, 100 nine mile

hour forehand.

Do you think I don't want to hear the sound of that ball coming out?

I know ain't got a chance, but I got less of a chance if I don't hear that sound, you

know?

That makes a lot of sense.

I like that a lot.

Bobby, you got anything else for Dave before I give him the king of tennis question?

No, I love it.

I always say, today's the same thing, Dave, I use all my senses when I play.

I tell it's too human outside, you know, so yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, hot and

as low as hierarchy, but it goes back to another conversation, another day.

I love what you've opened up.

I think tennis in its quest to become more popular, sacrifice to a lot of what made it great.

And you know, it's that fine line in Mark Cuban here when you watch Shock Tank, everybody

always goes in there.

Well, if we make this check and we make it more accessible to the masses, and Mark Cuban

one time said, why would you want to do that?

Keep it high priced and people will pay.

You won't have the same, but it is a lot of truth to that.

You know, there's a, it's okay to say the pros are doing it at a completely different

level.

You're a recreational player.

Enjoy what they're doing, but you know, do what you can do and don't try to aspire, especially

in today's world.

These kids are bigger, faster, stronger.

You're, there's never been a greater distance between what's going on on television,

what's going on in the park?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Don't, don't sit there and say what's wrong.

You know, I remember I gave a tennis etiquette class at Whitecom's one day and they said,

what is that?

I said, what are you kidding me?

I said, that's more, and you know, I'm the, I'm the other extreme, you know, I'm a poor

kid whose dad was a longshoreman.

I got into tennis because it was close to boxing.

You know, my coach was able to convince my dad, what's boxing and he won't get beat up.

And I was small, so my dad's like, all right, I like the idea.

I mean, we went to the club, the club would let us play.

We weren't allowed to turn on the TV.

There was backgammon and there was chess.

If you wanted, while you were waiting for a court, you were doing something because you had

to realize that you weren't winning a match with your pawn.

And you know, it drives me crazy today when I see kids rifle and return to serves on faults.

It's like put it into the net.

Somebody is going to get hurt, but we gave it up.

He gave away all the, I think he can make it exciting.

You know, Jimmy Connors was a get a pump up guy, but like you said, watch Connors, Connors

never got pumped in the first set.

He got up when he was about to, the news was almost firmly on the guy's neck.

That's right.

That's right.

He knew when it was ending.

He was getting real close to the ending point when he got there to that, that's right.

It's so hard today because there is no Evan flow to these matches because it's so

all over the place.

Right.

Absolutely 110%.

Yeah.

I mean, you didn't have to tell me when, you know, when there was a swing point coming up.

You could tell by, you could tell by the motivation to, you know, do my thing right there.

Clean, effective.

One, two, three, you go and bro, you go and I'm now going to step on you.

I'm going to give you about five or six points in a row to let you know this ain't yours.

And then I'm going to run away.

And I'm never going to look back.

But now it's like every point, you know, like I said, I'm sitting here watching Mo and

isn't or in the, in the foreset and, you know, the close, the close set, but you just got

a wonder.

How does that wear in terror on you?

Because you know it does.

It would meet.

Yeah.

I don't think, I don't think any of us, the lay people are, I guess we're out in between

the lay people.

We're, we're considered insiders, right?

We're the insiders in between the professionals and the lay people.

But we don't want to, we don't want to have to do three out of five.

That just, that just doesn't sound good to, to matches in a day.

Hopefully we can still pull off, but I think the typical player doesn't want to.

So Dave, I will finish us off.

And I've got a question that is fun for me to ask because I think I should be able to

predict this simply because I've known you a long time as to where you'll go with this.

But what I've realized is I can't.

And predicting the future is hard.

But in this case, if you were, we want to go with my favorite question, which is the King

of tennis question, which is if you are King of tennis.

And this is for either Atlanta, the United States, the whole world, the universe for a day,

however long it takes.

Is there anything you would do or change?

We've talked about some of the USDA tournaments and some of the things we might like to see.

But if you had that, you had that magic button or that magic wand or just being king to

say, this is what we're going to do.

And you would do or change in the world of tennis?

Well, it's kind of like we hash back and forth about old school versus new school, which

is traditional versus I call it basketball mentality around the tennis court.

It's very hard to go in between.

You're either going to get the crowd totally involved and that minimizes the players' effectiveness

of what he is and puts it all on what he sees.

And I will have to say, my eyesight at 20, 30, 40 years old was, I don't know what their

best is, but it was 2020 plus some.

I mean, I could see things that, I could see six, seven courts away, school boards.

And people are like, how do you know it's going?

I go, well, number one, I'm watching the match.

Number two, I'm kind of can see that part.

But, you know, I don't know if there's an in between phase that we're going to, we're in

it already, whether we like it or not, we're in it.

I don't know what the governing bodies are going to want to do because that's going to

start appealing to a different segment, not just at a different segment of the population,

but just a different mentality of a population.

And I don't know if that's what tennis was really started for, invented for, I don't know

what you want to call it, but I like the old school, you know, one on one.

That's why I've got into tennis.

I play team sports.

I love team sports, but I didn't like, you know, one of my favorite movies searching for

Bobby Fisher.

You know, Bobby Fisher, well, actually the kid's name was Josh Wateskin.

He actually didn't like the side of Bobby Fisher where he was vindictive toward his opponent,

or his opponents.

Contempt, that's right.

That's right.

I'm glad you brought that quote to that.

I don't have that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I did, you know, my brother, my brother said at one time that the part of me that he

did not like was that the part that if me and Sean are playing and you know me well

enough, if you're serving and I'm hitting you the balls, I'm going to get the ball.

Get that ball, those extra balls near you.

So you ain't got to walk nowhere.

And then all of a sudden you turn around and when it's my turn to serve, you hit the one

in one corner, one in the other.

I had this side of me, my brother saw it a lot to where I was going to like my dad's

first sergeant kill mode.

And it was a motivator.

And he said that the thing he did not like about me was the fact that I had that side of

me to find something I did not like in my opponent.

And I would seize on that to motivate me to kill.

And that put me in an area of mental and physical awareness to where I went is like a shark

with real red meat in the water.

You go.

And you know, we all have that.

If that's what we want to do is win, we have something that we can use to trigger it.

And that's what I use, but you know, Josh Wayskin said, I don't have that.

And you know, it was very, it was very poignant that I was the same way with baseball.

I hated that my right field of suck every time he played.

The ball would get hit out there.

The ground ball go right between his legs and I'm in a short stop and I can feel that sucker

and I felt so bad for that kid because he was giving it all, but he did not want to put

in the time that I put in, you know, to be a short stop.

And I understood it, but I didn't like the feelings that everybody had towards him.

And that's part of the reason I got out of team sports is because I was willing to do that

work.

I was willing to work like a madman to be up there, to be the guy, but I also hated the

side of people blaming that kid.

I hated it.

And that's what drove me to play tennis and I loved tennis for that reason.

It is an individual sport.

And when you've got, you know, like an art day, six guys on the singles team and three doubles

teams were made up of those sticks, you still are an individual out there against that other

opponent.

Singles or doubles.

And that's the facet I really still enjoy, you know.

And to change the hearing part of it, I think would be detrimental to the game itself.

I think we somehow need to turn off the propellers for the parents when they come to junior tournaments.

I think we, I hate to say, put a sign up, drop your kid off, let them check in and all that.

But it gets done better if they do that, you know, they've all got cell phones at 10, 12

years old already.

And so what's the problem?

You know, so I would like to see a little more of a traditional game stay in place because

I think those are the avenues that I loved about the game of tennis.

And to take them away, I think changes the dynamics of the game and just call it something

else if you want to.

Here's tennis and here's a tennis sub-tennis or whatever.

Tennis sub-tennis is in a part where you can honk and horny and party and all that and

you know, it's kind of funny.

I heard Zraev talking about several of the players talking about a New York with an open

marijuana state.

They're smelling marijuana while they're playing.

And I'm like, oh my God, I never thought of that one, but that is true.

It's an open state.

So you can do it in the park right next door and you know, and you know, deciphering

when Mother Nature carries that cloud, bro.

So let me interject here.

I grew up in New York.

I associate going to my first Yankee game.

There's always something I associate with a Yankee game.

That's a fight and the smell of marijuana.

So that was in the 70s.

I'd be like, man, we just got here.

It's so pretty.

Now that it's me, I read the same article you did.

I laughed, but I was like, well, that was every sporting event I've ever went to in New

York.

That overwhelming plunge in aroma.

I was like, I'll show you a way to get here.

Yep, that's right.

So in that case, Dave, your king of tennis is not something you would change, but it sounds

like it's something you actually wouldn't change.

And I can definitely appreciate that to say, hey, let's keep this one on one.

Let's keep this mono-emano and whatever the phrase is for women that is mono-emano.

We'll insert that later.

I'm sure.

But Dave, Matthews, thank you so much.

I really appreciate your time.

And well, like I said before, we're going to get you back on with the 10 minutes of tennis

for the what to do, what to change.

And we will get that you have to change is thanks for by the body after 60 years old because

we just did the 40 years old one with Justin Yell.

So Dave, I really appreciate it.

Bobby is always.

We'll see you guys next time.

We'll see you guys.

Take care.

You too, Bobby.

Take care.

See you soon.

Well, there you have it.

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