Life as a Tiger

I have heard from several parents, coaches, and college recruiters that – now that my son is a high school sophomore – we should be combining tournament travel with college campus visits, either official or unofficial, so my son can start to get a feel for what he likes and doesn’t like about various types of schools.  This past weekend, we finally did just that.

We were in Baton Rouge for our Designated (Bullfrog) tournament.  A couple of days before the tournament, my son emailed the LSU coach, Jeff Brown, to let him know we’d be in town in case he was available to meet or come watch my son play.  And, it just so happens that a friend of my son’s, Harrison Kennedy, is a freshman on the LSU men’s tennis team, and it just so happens that the team was scheduled to play at home, so we took the opportunity to spend some time with Harrison picking his brain about life as an LSU Tiger.

Harrison graciously spent about 2 hours with us, showing us his apartment in the athletes’ housing quad and walking us all over the campus.  We saw the dining hall, various athletic facilities, the student union, and the very cool building where Harrison takes his business classes.  Harrison talked to us about a typical day and a typical week, stressing repeatedly how full his schedule is and how much tougher his training is as a college player versus during his junior tennis days.  He also talked about how great it is being part of a team and the challenges of working his way into the lineup as a Freshman player.  When he got to the part about the team’s track training – doing sprints and running the stadium – I could see the expression of horror on my son’s face!  I don’t think he realized how intensely these athletes train day in and day out, even though he had certainly read about it on the Twitter feeds of the college players he follows there.  There’s something about standing at the track, seeing how big it truly is, then looking up at the stadium and seeing its massive size, too, then hearing from a guy who’s doing it, to make you realize how tough it can be.

Harrison also talked about the academic requirements of being a student-athlete.  He showed my son a couple of lecture halls and a couple of smaller classrooms and told him how the professors don’t care whether or not you show up for class.  But, he added, the Athletic Director DOES care and has “classroom checkers” monitoring the athletes’ attendance.  Harrison then explained the mandatory study hours and about the tutors available to help.  He emphasized that the coaches WANT their athletes to be successful academically and will do their best to provide whatever assistance is necessary to achieve that goal.

Shortly after returning to our hotel, I saw a quote on the JBMThinks Twitter feed: “Obstacles are put in your way to see if what you want is really worth fighting for.”  How timely!  I couldn’t help but think that hearing about how tough college tennis life can be would give my son pause, would make him really stop and think about whether or not this is truly what he wants.  My husband and I have always told our son that where he takes his tennis is 100% up to him.  If he wants to play in college, great!  If he doesn’t want to play in college, great!  If he wants to try playing professionally, we’ll support that choice, too.  But, we want him to make his decisions having as much knowledge and information as possible then committing completely to the path.  Of course, if he changes his mind and chooses another path after giving it a fair shot, then we’re okay with that.  We just want him to go into it with his eyes wide open.

The next day, I spent some time chatting with a junior coach at the tournament site about the training he does with his players.  He invited my son to join them for some track and stadium training back in Atlanta.  When I mentioned it to my son later that night, I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I would get – would he take the coach up on his offer and see how he handles the challenge or would he say no thanks and leave it at that?  I was relieved and happy to hear my son say, “Cool!  Sure, I’d love to go!”  Looks like he’s up for the fight!

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Dealing with Disappointment

I know.  You saw the title and expected to read about how to deal with your child’s disappointment after a loss . . . or something along those lines.  But, this piece is about dealing with your own disappointment when something doesn’t go quite right in your child’s tennis-centric world.

A fellow tennis parent wrote me last week, telling me about her child’s recent tournament schedule.  He has some important tournaments coming up and so decided to play a low-level local tourney just to build some confidence.  The child figured he could get a couple of easy wins and feel ready for next weekend, which will be a much tougher tournament.

Well, as I am sure you can guess, it didn’t go as planned and the child played the worst tennis of his life.  This was odd because the coach had just gotten done telling the parents and the player that he’s playing the best he’s (the coach) ever seen him play. Now he goes out and loses to a kid who is (according to the mom) awful, who he beat 0 & 1 a year ago, who has no serve, no strokes, and probably very few tennis lessons.  The mom wrote, “He was supposed to play a second match and I did something I’ve never done before.  We took him out of the tournament because given his mental state, all he would have done was go out and lose to another player he shouldn’t lose to.”

Mom went on to say, “I don’t usually get upset by these things but this whole thing has been really bothersome.  First of all, how could he actually lose to this boy? Second, how does a ranking recover from such an awful loss — does it? And third, why is this bothering me so much?”

The #3 part is what really got to me!  We tennis parents invest so much energy, emotion, time, and, yes, money in our kids that I think it’s perfectly normal to take their results personally.  The important thing is the face we present to THEM, the words we use when discussing their results with them.  But, again, I think it’s perfectly normal to FEEL disappointment when our child doesn’t live up to our (or their own) expectations.

My advice to the parent who wrote me was that it’s okay to feel the disappointment and even to vocalize it every now and then if you feel your kid isn’t putting in the necessary effort.  But, at some point, we have to let go and let our kids own their tennis.  In this particular case, the mom reported that her son did a very healthy, mature thing – he shrugged off the loss as “having a bad day” and then proceeded to let it go, going back to work on the courts the next morning.  The takeaway from these types of experiences should be something along the lines of:  I have taught my kid well, he has been a willing student, I have to trust him with his tennis.

I’m going through something similar with my son right now, but it has to do with his academic performance rather than his performance on a tennis court.  Having two older children for whom school came pretty willingly and naturally, I really don’t know how to parent a kid who only wants to play tennis and who hasn’t yet realized the importance of balancing that with a good education.  Every time he brings home a grade that I consider less than stellar, I feel let down, like I’ve somehow failed him as a parent.  Should I have read to him more as a baby?  Was homeschooling him for part of  middle school a huge mistake?  Should I move him to a small private school for the remainder of his high school career so he gets more personal attention?  How did he miss getting the I-Love-To-Learn gene?  What did I do wrong???

And, then, I take a deep breath (okay, maybe 100 deep breaths!) and realize that my son is now at the age where he HAS to take responsibility for his dreams and goals.  I can’t – and shouldn’t – do it for him.  If he wants to have a shot at playing tennis at his dream schools, then HE has to buckle down, study better, and get the grades necessary to be a desirable recruit.  Grades do matter.  SAT/ACT scores do matter.  He heard that from the horses’ mouths this past weekend in Athens.  Now, it’s up to him.

That doesn’t mean I won’t feel disappointed if he doesn’t figure this school thing out.  That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t feel disappointed if he doesn’t figure it out.  And, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to my disappointment or that I should down-play it as unimportant – my disappointment matters, too!

But, as disappointed as I might feel when he bombs a test or loses an easy match, I know it’s nothing compared to how he’s feeling inside.  The on-going challenge for me is putting my own disappointment aside and being his firm support when he most needs me.  So far, I haven’t been all that successful in that department – I’ve let my own feelings show way too much.  But, I’m working on it and will continue to work on it, both for my own sake and for my son’s, so I don’t disappoint either of us.

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