Second Serve Tennis

Captaining Still Sucks!

• Second Serve with Carolyn Roach & Erin Conigliaro • Episode 255

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Captains, courts, and chaotic schedules! 🎾 If you've ever played on a tennis team, this episode on the challenges of captaining is a must-listen. What’s your biggest pet peeve as a captain?

With more than a decade of experience captaining teams, Erin and Aileen have encountered it all!

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Carolyn:

Hi, this is Carolyn and I'm here with Erin and this is part two of our episode with Aileen discussing why captaining is so hard. Both Aaron and Aileen have captained teams for more than a decade. If you haven't listened to part one, we hope you go back and listen. But here's part two.

Erin:

Let's talk about flipping courts a little bit, and everybody calls this different. What was the other term, carolyn, that someone used?

Carolyn:

Not rolling Rolling. Are you going to roll courts?

Erin:

Rolling courts. I don't even know what that means, but that sounds like bowling or you know, bocce to me or something. But anyway, we call it flipping.

Carolyn:

Yes, that's because she said did you roll?

Erin:

Yes, are they going to roll?

Carolyn:

on you yeah.

Erin:

We call it flipping. So I was asking Aileen, before we started recording as a captain, if you're going into a match. So at our 4-0 level and at 3-5, I think everything except 2-5, I think 2-5 plays three courts only. So they play one singles and two at least in our area I don't know about every area In our area two fives play one court of singles, two courts of doubles and everything above that plays five courts. So two court with a caveat two courts of singles and three courts of doubles, except for now the 40 over, which is only one singles Nonetheless.

Erin:

Do you quote flip? Would you consider flipping, like if you have a really strong singles player and maybe a weaker one, would you maybe flip those two courts and put your stronger one on, let's say, singles two, hoping that the team you're playing against is playing straight up to win a singles court, to kind of guarantee nothing's guaranteed but to hopefully win a singles court, and then maybe, you know, flip your doubles courts to just try to get two of your doubles courts so that you get three out of the five. And I know other areas count points. I don't think they do it exactly like us. We're literally just win the majority of the courts right. So we have to win three out of five courts each week for a team win. So what's your philosophy on doing that?

Erin:

For the most part, I play straight up and the reason being I feel like it would be that one time that they decided to switch for some reason because odds are, if they're scared of us, we're scared of them, kind of thing, or it's getting tight, you know, in the rankings and it comes down to this match, or for whatever reason. Having said that, I do, especially for playoffs and things like that I will look at every team and I will put every person and what court they played and when and I think that happened this last spring for playoffs or no, we didn't make playoffs For some team I captained that made it to playoffs at some point this last year. I went through there and did that and it's like, yes, and somebody was telling me you need to switch, you need to flip, you need to flip, you need to flip. And I'm like, yeah, but look, they flip. This time they flip that Honestly any, and when playoffs come, people could do things that they've never done before.

Erin:

So I think if you just play straight up, then your conscious is clear yeah, and not only that, but I have. Sometimes there's a big disparity in my one and my two, or my one and my three on doubles courts and I don't want anybody to feel like I'm throwing them under the bus. You know, now, having said that, if it is a tight match and I had a team that realized they were a weaker team and came to me and said this is what I think you should do, put us there, then I would probably do that Right. But I think it would have to come to them and I've heard of that done to other captains, you know, and things like that are teams. I've been available, I've been on. People have come up and said I think you need to switch.

Erin:

Aileen and I also talked about, if you like there are some. So what you have to think of as a captain. There are some players that just mentally don't want to be on certain courts, right, some players think they're really good and they get mad if you put them on three. Some people think they're really bad and if you put them on one, they just mentally break down and you might think they're a court one doubles player, you know whatever. So you have to again, as a captain, you have to constantly also think about people's mentality and what they think of their own play and where they feel like they should be. And I'm sure you've had people say just don't put me on one, yeah, and they might be like your. You know your best player. So, anyway, that's. That is a really good point. I am one of those people, carolyn, that likes to play on one because number one, I feel like I'm going to get the best tennis. Whether I win or lose, I'm going to get.

Erin:

you know, if someone's playing straight up, you're probably going to face their toughest play, your opponent's toughest players, and two it takes the pressure off me because I think if I win my court, yay me, and if I lose my court, I'm like well, I just played the best person, so y'all need to clean it up on the rest of the court.

Carolyn:

So, and people don't realize their strengths necessarily. Oh okay, I have a quick question what's your number one pet peeve as a captain, from a player's perspective? Just so that I know what's your number one pet peeve that people do. Is it not responding? Is it telling you after the fact how you should have done the lineup?

Erin:

Oh, I have one for this.

Erin:

You go.

Erin:

It's saying, when you're in a group or something, oh, we really want to play together, we really want to play together. And then getting the text or the call right afterwards Okay, I know I said that, but I'd rather not play with her, I'd rather play with somebody else. Again, Multiple times, again, different people, multiple times, again, different people, multiple times, doesn't?

Erin:

happen in men's tennis. Oh, I don't know what would be my biggest pet peeve, I think, just feeling like when I have made lineups and thought them all through and people give me their availability and then I put out a lineup and then they go oh no, I'm not available that day.

Erin:

And I'm like yes, and that happens more in makeup matches. Regular season is like but you'll get if you do a makeup match. Let's say you know you get a rain out, and then you say, okay, give me three or four dates that I can then go to the other team, and then you take half of your day it seems like four hours out of your day or something. You're working with the other captain and you've you've scheduled the match, and then you go back to your team and you're like okay, you're playing, you know these two players at this location on this day and then someone goes oh, I can't actually play that day. I'm like, I feel like I'm being punked, like my head, literally, like emoji, explodes. So that is definitely my number one.

Erin:

But having said that, on that, which that's a whole nother podcast in itself, is dealing with rain makeups. But sometimes it takes a long time. It's like, okay, you've got your lineup, you think you can play these courts, and you go to the other team and you tell them and then it's crickets for a little while and 24 hours later you hear from them and by that time you know it's rained for three days straight. So another team that this person's playing on has already booked a match and so now you're out. It's kind of like, okay, you got to take it off, but you don't know it's tough yeah.

Erin:

Yeah.

Erin:

That's why captaining sucks yeah, that part's tough. Yep Checking courts that's yeah, you do the best you can.

Erin:

Exactly, we do the best we can.

Erin:

For the pay grade. For the pay grade.

Carolyn:

Thank you to all the captains out there. Listening to Erin and Eileen discuss this has made me very appreciative for all my captains. If any other captains listening have any other pet peeves, please let us know. You can message us on our website, which is SecondSurfPodcastcom. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon. You.