Doubles Only Tennis Podcast

Developing Juniors & Academies, Advice for Coaches & Parents, plus Bryan Bros Stories with Coach Mark Bey

• Will Boucek • Episode 266

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Mark Bey is a US Davis Cup assistant coach and a former assistant coach to the Bryan Brothers. He has coached eight players to the #1 USTA national ranking and 13 players to ATP & WTA career highs. He's been a junior developer for 35 years, currently working at the Glenview Tennis Club in Glenview, Illinois. In 2017, Mark had five players in the US Open.

In this episode, Mark shares advice for players, coaches, and parents of junior players, along with stories from the Bryan Brothers' careers.

  • How mentorship and early wins shaped Mark’s coaching
  • What the Bryan Brothers did as juniors to build complete skills
  • Why doubles margins demand ruthless precision
  • Mark's coaching pyramid from fun to pressure performance
  • The six stages of a match and how to train them
  • Building accountability and independence in players
  • Common mistakes by junior coaches, players, and parents
  • Weekly structure of Mark's academy and why it works
  • Guidance on specialization, scheduling, and tournaments
  • Auditing academies and improving staff, culture, and systems
  • Ideas to grow pro doubles with smart formats and TV slots

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Host Sets The Stage

SPEAKER_02

Every now and then I have a conversation with someone who has so much experience and knowledge that I really like to just sit back and listen and absorb as much information as I can. And that's what you're about to hear. This conversation with Mark Bay dives deep into junior tennis and kind of the principles of developing a good tennis player. Mark has over 35 years of experience developing some of the best juniors in the country. I met him earlier this year at Davis Cup, where he is the assistant coach for the U.S. Davis Cup team. And uh before this podcast, he sent me his resume. And it's way too long to read all of, but I picked out a few highlights for you just to give you an idea of how much success he's had. So he's had eight students uh achieve a number one USTA national ranking. He has had 13 players achieve career highs on the ATP and WTA tours. He has created instructional DVDs with the USPTA, he has broadcasting experience on ESPN, he is in the Midwest USPTA Hall of Fame, and possibly most impressively, in 2017, he had five players in the US Open, including Mike and Bob Bryan. We start out the conversation talking about Mark's story, how he kind of got into tennis. It was not the original plan in terms of a career, so he uh discusses how he had some early successes and how that led to a successful uh tennis career. We talk a lot about Bob and Mike Bryan. He met them as juniors and eventually became an assistant uh coach part-time for them on tour. We talk about David McPherson, who uh was on the podcast recently and was the primary coach for Bob and Mike. Uh and Mark shares uh what made David such a great coach. We also talk about a few stories with uh Bob and Mike on tour as well. And then we dive into kind of the meat of the conversation, which is junior development. Um recently Mark had uh 13 seniors, and 11 of those went and played college tennis, and nine of those seniors played Division I tennis, which is still just mind-blowing to me. I talked to him about what he does differently than most junior coaches. We talk about common mistakes he sees from junior coaches, academies, as well as players and parents. And then we discuss what a typical week looks like for him at his academy, how much court time do the players have, how much of that time is dedicated to drills versus match play and a lot more. He shares advice for parents who have junior players. Uh, and then at the end, we talk about his academy visits, where he is able to go into an academy, do kind of an audit and optimization for a day or two, and help them streamline their operations and improve the uh academy overall. Uh at the very end, we discuss how to make doubles more popular as well. So I think you're gonna get a lot out of this. Whether you're a club level player, um, all these principles still apply to you. And then especially if you are a coach of juniors or a coach of college players, um, this is a really um insightful conversation. And I'm appreciative of Mark uh sharing his time and knowledge with us. So without further delay, enjoy this conversation with Mark Bay. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Today we have Mark Bay on. Mark, welcome.

SPEAKER_01

Good morning, well.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks for coming on. I appreciate you uh taking the time to chat uh doubles with us. Um I want to talk today a lot about junior tennis. Um, I want to talk about your relationship and coaching experience with Bob and Mike Bryan. Um, but first I want to start with you and your kind of tennis background and tennis story. Um, I was reading uh the article you sent me the other day that was published on USTA that said tennis was not your original plan. And I feel like I hear that a lot from uh tennis coaches as well as a lot of doubles players on tour. Um talk about your story, why tennis was not the original plan and how you kind of ended up where you are.

Meeting The Bryan Brothers As Juniors

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Yeah, I most certainly was going through, I think, probably a whirlwind on the academic side as a child. I had skipped a couple grades, graduated high school at 16, and then obviously after four years of college, only 20, and I was was playing a few. Obviously, most people try to play a little bit of the features and qualities and some money tournaments and things like that to kind of test the waters, get my butt kicked there. And I, as a young child, thought I would want to be a doctor, believe it or not. And then when I started going through the the grind of school back in those days, on the medical side, you had to have just a massive amount of math and science forced down your throat. And now it's a lot different. You could be a history major and take an MCAT and you could, you know, go to med school if you wanted, or so chose, right? So I did not enjoy the math as much. The science was very easy to me, the math I didn't enjoy. And so once I was in undergrad, uh, full scholarship at DePaul, I was like, well, I want to learn some things here. And I had a kind of a balanced pre-law actual curriculum. So it was uh econ communications, some English, some poly science, and that was to prepare for that. And so most certainly was like, well, not gonna make it as a tennis player, maybe do the law route. And so I had some connections, started trying to work at some law firms, started teaching a little tennis on the side to stay in the sport, and kind of was like balancing a little bit of both of those kinds of pathways. And then who knew that working at McFetcher Sports Center in Chicago under Scott Sulaway, making$8.96 an hour, coaching eight, nine, twelve people on the court, whatever they gave me, that I would find a passion, a love, and an actual legitimate proficiency at coaching, had no idea. Had zero idea. And so it was a complete out-of-nowhere epiphany. And early on in those McFeschet years, I had Blast from the Pass. Uh one kid, Connor Murnian from the city, who's became a very good player, went to Illinois and was at the championship team of Illinois. Illinois in 2003, Rajastry Curvilla won the Midwest Championship and defeated uh Matt Cove Verbon and Laura Granville who's a household name in Chicago and antennas. And so a star was born and I never looked back. Um, so that's that's how the tennis started.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. So so did you feel like there was a a moment, I guess, in your time there where you realized like, okay, this is it, this is my future, or was it kind of gradual where like you eventually just kind of settled into it and you continued to have your passion for it? Um, that how did how did that process kind of get?

SPEAKER_01

I I think having that home run with those those first couple of students. I I was building a culture in the program, and that was great. We had uh program called JD, which is junior development. It was like a 7 a.m. Saturday morning program. I was in it as a young child and things like that. But I think that particularly those those two children, I would say Connor and and Radistry success, those two knocked it out of the park right away. And so I was very few ironically, after 35 years, I have not had that many players win the actual championship of the Midwest is actually that difficult, believe it or not. Um I've had just as many players win national championships than than the Midwest. Sometimes it can be that challenging because it's playing your peers and tough competitive matches against those that you definitely don't want to lose to. And so I would say that definitely those those two quick client breakthroughs in a very short time, less than a year and a half of time, having that extremely high-level success. And there was a big amount rush more of top, top coaches in the Midwest back in those days. Jack Sharp in the local area, P.A. Neil Hogg in Indianapolis, uh Armin Molino in Michigan. And there were these guys that were the top, top guys that had all these amazing students, and all of a sudden, here comes some guys barely 22, 23 years old, rivaling the best coaches that were out there right away. So I think that I that started giving me some of that feeling and that confidence.

SPEAKER_02

So, how did that lead to where you are now running your own academy in Chicago?

SPEAKER_01

I had strong success with that program at McFetter's in the city for four years. And then Steve Wilde, who runs a club or owns several clubs, but actually r ran uh the Libertyville and eventually purchased Lincolnshire Clubs. They reached out to me. I was communicating a lot with the clubs in the suburbs of Chicago because I had my to get my best students competition, I would challenge some of the other suburban clubs, for example, on a weekend, play like a Saturday night little scrimmage and things like that. So that quickly, because of those, and and then maybe the results of my students, my name was getting out there. And then they said, hey, we we really want to have you come and consider starting to build a program and an academy there. It was 45 minutes from where I lived in the city. It was a big commute and adjustment. But they sweetened the pot a little bit, obviously put enough on the table for me financially to make that jump. And so I took that leap of faith and started working for Steve and his organization at Libertyville. And then I spent 17 years there. So that was where a lot of the big results and and um major awards initially and things started coming because I had that background. Steve himself is was a trench developer in the 80s, had amazing success through the 80s and 90s and early 2000s. And Steve um had his his stepdaughter, Linda, uh Harvey Wilde. Now Linda Seacort was top 20 in the world, and Robbie Weiss, who Steve worked with, was an NCAA champion. So Steve had done it, been there and done it, had the t-shirt, and so now he's owning the club and then giving me the space and the freedom to be able to do it my way. And that was a great time and a great partnership uh relative to that piece. And then congratulations to Steve now because here he is some couple decades later, and his uh grandson uh Jack C Cord just signed a big scholarship deal with Stanford a few weeks ago.

Inside The Bryan Coaching Team

SPEAKER_02

Oh, very cool. Yeah, it's it's funny how these like when I have these podcasts with with coaches or players and I talk to them about their kind of path, it's never uh super clear from the beginning, right? Like these opportunities just kind of arise and uh the best coaches and players to just take advantage of those opportunities and seem to uh be able to make the most of it. Um at what point did you meet uh Bob and Mike Bryan?

SPEAKER_01

So because my students were doing well, I was immediately going to all the major national championships. And then as you start doing that, that's an entirely different culture and infrastructure and group of people that you start becoming aligned with. And so you go to those tournaments, you now meet the trench coaches from Boston and from New York and from Florida, and and you start becoming friends with them. And some of my best friends in tennis now come from those early years of of those trench battles at the national championships. And so the tournaments around Christmas time, so the ones that are coming up now that are now currently called the Winter Nationals, they weren't called that before. Back in those days, there were two tournaments in Arizona, one that happened in Scottsdale called the Fiesta Bowl, and one that happened in Tucson uh called the Copper Bowl. So they were back to back. So I would take for over a decade a big group of juniors, eight, twelve, thirteen, sixteen kids with multiple coaches without parents, and go down to Arizona on Christmas Day, start practicing, eat at a Denny's, get ready, and start playing this Fiesta Bowl on December 27th. And that's where I obviously first met and saw the Brian brothers, and they were obviously incredibly nostalgic and different and unique, and obviously two brothers, identical, unbelievable players, games. And what happened was they also play music, and so the dad offered their band to the tournament to play as like an opening player party type of festive environment. So the dad was playing, and then he brought me and some of my players up on the stage to add some pizzazz and dancing and singing and being silly and frolicking around. And so that's one of the original moments that uh we actually met there. And so over time, my best students would play Mike and Bob in the tournaments, and unfortunately, we would lose to Mike and Bob, but he gave them good matches and singles, doubles, whatever, and and there was some respect earned. And his parents one day said, Hey, let's go out to lunch. And we went out to lunch. And at that point, back in those days, Kathy Bryan was very visible at the tournament. So we ain't Kathy together, and I went to lunch with them, started talking shop, talking coaching things. They believed a lot in what I was coaching and believing in. They liked how my players were playing. And so then that transitioned to them actually inviting me as a guest coach at their academy uh in Cabrillo in Camarillo, California, called the Cabrillo Racket Club. And I would come there, start practicing with them. And then later on, some of my students, I would bring them in preparation for the Easter Bowl. Like I'd bring two boys and we'd play Davis Cup, you know, singles, reverse singles, doubles, things like that. I've had multiple students train and stay in Wayne and Kathy's house, Connor Murnian, Sean Zuckerini, many kids over the years. So it just grew and evolved. That picture that you saw that I shared with you, I think might be 1995, uh, a year where Stan Smith and Ramsey came as well. And so that picture has Ramsey Smith as a current due coach in that photo. And obviously, Mike and Bob and myself and and Wayne and everyone, and we're all a lot uh bigger smiles and a lot thinner back in those days. But uh yeah, that that's all of us. And I'm pretty sure that's that's a 1995 photo, so that would be some 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_02

What were they like as juniors? And what what about like their development led them to to become the best doubles team of all time?

What Makes Doubles So High Pressure

SPEAKER_01

Well, Kathy was very involved in the technique part. Wayne is was the boss, the manager. He was a technician, but he also was the promoter, the the boss. The uh he Wayne just was a jack of all trades, like a football guy that actually played tennis himself at UCSB and just an all-around athlete and just understood sports very well. So Wayne was always kind of the overarching soundboard for it all. And then Kathy just took a lot of real personal time with it. They were doing a lot of half an hour privates. The guys were getting out of school around 1.30, 145, so they could be at the courts and they could play from 2 to 6. And so between 2 and 4, back at that academy, they would get private lessons, half an hour private lessons, and they'd play sets with other kids. And then Wayne always had a big program with 85 kids from four to six, where the kids would do all the different drills that Wayne practiced and singles and doubles. And then, contrary to a lot of programs, what Wayne would do at the end when all the parents were coming up at 5:40, 545 to pick up the kids, he would finish on these massive game, synergistic highs, and just playing these fun games that everyone walked out having a blast, and it was a lot of merriment and camaraderie, and and then the kids would walk out of that, get into the car completely jacked. And what parent wouldn't want their kid to keep coming to that place and keep patronizing there and having the fun and all that? So the fun is a big part of what Wayne did. But again, the the technical part was right there. So Mike and Bob were extremely late bloomers in terms of physical growth and development. So they were, I can't remember now if it's 5'6, 105 or what their like what their driver's license weights for is. I have to check with them and ask that, but but you have to ask them what it was. At 16, it was it was slight and thin, and but they had all the skills. That's the truth. The truth is that if you want to have a great player by the age of 14, they need to be able to do it all. They need to be able to slice a ball, kick a serve, take balls out of the air, uh attack, play defense. Like you just need to give them a well-rounded set. So they had to play more counter-attacking backboard defense with an occasional net appearance, is what they probably played like because they were so much smaller than everyone physically, but they just never missed the ball. Just never missed the ball. And they had the one-hand backhands and they would hit them, but they would probably be 50-50 in terms of hitting and chipping and just tactically playing what they needed to do to uh to beat the players at that age, but they they just never missed, and um, but also had all of the skills. So I think that's really the most important thing. And then obviously they got bigger and taller and stronger, and everything just kind of come into place. But if you look at them, you go back and look at tapes of even their pictures at freshman year of Stanford, they could they couldn't even fill out a shirt there. And and and if you go look at the video, for example, of when they have the US Open Wildcards, there's as easy video that you can YouTube where Bob's playing Rafter and Mike's playing Agassiz that opening day, and you could still see how from a physical standpoint they didn't look anything like the actual doubles players that you come to know them as uh on the tour, you know, for for say all those years.

SPEAKER_02

That's so funny. Yeah, I'll see if I can find some of that and link to it in the show notes for people listening. Um, at what point did you start helping them out on the pro tour and join the coaching team?

Stories From The Tour

SPEAKER_01

So I I was always just a big fan and supporter of them. I was I was close to that family for all those years. So we'd never stopped that bond. I was always just kind of a fixture. I was I was part of the family. I ate breakfast at the table and Kathy made it and played Risk and then and spent the nights in their houses with no video games and played Nerf Hoop. And I wasn't great at music back then. Since then, they've taught me a little bit of drums, so I'm a hack drummer now, but uh I just was kind of part of the family. But as they went to uh for two years at Stanford, and then in 1998, they won the NCAAs as a team at Georgia, one of the best college teams ever assembled, ever played on on paper and probably just factual. I was there, and so I've been in every NCAA team championship now since 1998. I've not missed one. Obviously, there was not one in COVID. So I've been there, but in '98, they beat Georgia at Georgia for love. And the the Goldstein uh played one, Mike played two, Bob played three, Ryan Walters played four, Jeff Abrams played five, and Alex Kim played six, who went on to be top 200 in the world. So just an unbelievable team. They won it, and then Mike and Bob won the doubles, and and Bob won the singles. And so I was around even in those moments, right? Because of the college and that connection. And ultimately, they went out on the tour, they started struggling a little bit in the beginning. And I was invited, there was a tournament called the RCA in Indianapolis. So I was invited to come over because of a couple hours from Chicago, and I helped out a little bit with the twins there, and that was right around 2001. And in that particular tournament, they didn't win it, but they had a decent result, and they liked some of the things, some of the scouting and some of the practice on returns. Some of the things I was mentioning and offering at that point. So Bob was like, hey, yeah, we should have you out some more. And I just said, Well, I'll start trying to come out around as best I can around my junior schedule, which is very busy, but let's try to do something. And so ultimately that's how it started that that discussion. And then that led to the point where in 2003, I guess one of the first big wins was um in Cincinnati. They won the tournament in Cincinnati, that Master Series. And again, that's a period right after junior nationals, and things are kind of dead there. And so I started going there. And then it became a little bit of Miami over spring break, Cincinnati just after nationals, US Open, and then it grew from there. So ultimately by the end, I was probably doing four or five tournaments, six weeks, and some Davis Cups. And I was working that around my junior schedule and I kept going. And obviously, Dave McPherson came on in 2004. So Phil Farmer was there with me in that 2003 year where they won that Cincinnati. And then Dave McPherson came on in 2004. So Macker obviously was the ran the ship there. Again, I just was always a bug on the wall, an assistant guy, speak when spoken to, not try to rock the boat, just try to help the ship. And really uh with Dave, I thought one of the more interesting things, what one of my nicknames, some people that know me and know me in tennis, my nickname is Baywatch, what people call me. And um, I just have a really good eye for things, being observant, not just tennis life in general, but I, for example, would go and scout and I would scout separately from Macker. I would never go scout with him. I would scout separately, and then I'd bring him everything that I saw. He would synthesize that with everything that he saw. He would make the decision, the plan, then this is what we're gonna practice the next day. That's gonna be the game plan for the match. He would tell the guys in the locker room I would stay there on the bug on the wall, say nothing, and just be there to support. But I was always offering the information that would help the game plans and everything, and then obviously be on the court to do some of the repetitive hitting or primarily do a lot of right-handed serves because they was left-handed and try to mimic some of the serving patterns that you might see of the players that they might play and things like that. But ultimately, uh, I would say a returner, a server, or a scouter, a team supporter, uh obviously my own my own eye. Technically, if I saw anything and they asked if they needed help, I would I would interject then because it's not good coming in only five or six weeks and trying to you know make a huge change or something, then I'd be gone after a couple of days. So ultimately, my job was to support in any way I could, like, like a little jigsaw puzzle piece without rocking the boat. And I think I tried my best to do that over the years, and and working for them is some of the best work I've ever done in tennis.

SPEAKER_02

That's cool. That's really well put. I I think that's great advice for any kind of younger aspiring coaches listening, because it sounds like you did a great job of you know providing as much value as you could, but also having like the self-awareness um to not interject too much, as you said, um, because it that just wouldn't have worked, only being there, you know, six weeks a year or whatever it is. So that's that's really um impressive that you were able to do that. Well, what did you find was the the most difficult part of coaching them or being a part of the coaching team?

The Philosophy Behind Junior Development

SPEAKER_01

Well, I just felt that the the doubles is a just an incredibly stressful place. And once they went to noad and super breakers on top, it it just it's air, it's super, super stressful. And let's face it, doubles money is one fourteenth of singles money. So you're trying to perform, you're trying to do well, you're trying to win titles, you're you're you're you're doing the best that you can. And and any little thing can tip the scales. The margins are so slim in doubles, even as good as Mike and Bob are and were, let's face it, they still they lost just as many Grand Slam finals as they won. There was a ton of people that there were very difficult rivals and challenges for them along the way, and they just stayed with it. Uh again, their parents built it. The parents built a winning product a long, long time ago. And then everybody else just added, right? Dig Gould added some more magic, and they're just more people that added, but the momentum of what they had and who they were is just it was already pretty much a force to be reckoned with, and they were just going to be an avalanche going down a successful hill, right? But I think that from where I sat, it was trying to take a look at some of the nuance um of their game and say, okay, how can we make Mike serve 10% better, or how can we get you know Bob's backhand return to be a little bit more lethal, a little bit more punch on it, or what what type of strategy can we better do against and coverage against these this team or that team, right? How to solve the the Nestor and Zimenich challenge or whatever it was. There was always something, and there was always a challenge, and it was always it was an ongoing set of successes and triumphs and disasters all the way through, and just just trying to be great when things were bad, right? Keeping things normal there because it the tension, the competitiveness, these guys are twins and brothers and competitive. That there's there's gonna be some tough moments. And so I would say that just just keeping the ship righted is is what it was about. It wasn't like there was a an issue or a problem because the the professionalism that these two guys exhibited, like you can go out and watch the U.S. Open Practice Courts for 20 years. You're you're gonna say, okay, Nadal was unbelievable on the practice court. You're gonna say um Monica Sellas was unbelievable on the practice court, you're gonna say a handful of people were just like, oh my gosh, these people were some of the most focused and driven that you've ever seen on the practice court. And Mike and Bob are right there at the top of that. They never missed balls into the net. They teared through six balls in about 14 minutes. We'd have to change them because they hadn't missed. And and missing a ball, if I missed one or two balls in practice, they would be like, hey, were you out last night? Or like it would be a question. Missing a ball or two was like, you know, you're on probation, sir. So I'm not gonna say that that pressure was real. I'd say the only time other than that, that I felt that kind of pressure was was warming up Bob with Martino Navacilova for a mixed doubles final at because Martino and Aviculova is one of the most intense practice human beings I've ever been around. But I'd say ultimately just the the mandatory necessity of giving them enough reps and quality balls to make sure they felt good so they could go out and do their thing. That that was the the number one job and task and pressure.

SPEAKER_02

Um, if I asked Bob and Mike what makes you a great coach, what your best quality is as a coach, what do you think they would say?

SPEAKER_01

It's a good question because I know I've never asked them that, and I don't know if they've ever been asked that. Uh obviously, I I I'm just my relationship with them is just as strong as my coaching background and knowledge. So I think that it's easier to take information from someone when you've had I I just think that I've just been there. I've just been there as a solid set of information, springboard, support from when they were young children all the way through. I've I've cared about them, cared about their success, and then offered everything that I could to help the situation be better for the next day. So yeah, I think you should ask them the question. It'd be interesting to see what they would, how they would answer it. But I just think at uh yeah, my my academy at Libertyville those years was called Care Academy, and it was more of a concept, not an acronym. And I would say that just the the attention to detail and the care that I have and exhibit on a day-to-day basis is partly why I'm I've gotten good. And I'm also, I think, one of the best mentored coaches in America. I think I've done a really good job. And not just their dad, Wayne, but but many others. You could go to the Mount Olympus of all the best coaches that have ever been there. If you said Bolotari, you say Macy, or you say Saviano or Wayne Bright, whoever you say, uh Dennis Vanderman, you name the Mount Olympus of coaches, then I've got a mark-based story where I I learned this from them or spent this time, or they took that time to help me. And so I think I I I've just kind of been a synthesis of all that. But I think I've also been very judicious about saying what I need to say, what I need to say, being a man of few words, but still having a wealth of knowledge is maybe a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_02

That's really well put. Yeah, that's that's actually one of the reasons I do this podcast is to have coaches like you on who are so good at what you do and have so much experience. And, you know, I even if nobody listened to this, I would probably still want to have I would definitely still want to have all these conversations because I love learning from from people like you. And um, it sounds like you did a lot of the same thing.

SPEAKER_01

The learning part is is the hard part because you start getting some success in coaching and you start believing that you're all that in a bag of chips. And you have all the answers. Yeah, sometimes you you really are on the top of it. I've had some amazing years in coaching and some great successes, some some things to really be proud of. But I I tell you, I I was just speaking in Arizona to 100 plus coaches at the collegiate convention in ITA, and I'm telling you right now, I have six and a half pages of notes that I took from the seminars of from the people that I learned from. So I my job was to go and and make a contribution, and I think I came back even more knowledgeable than what I share.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, always always keep learning. There's always more to learn regardless of what level you're at. Um, a couple more on the Brenn Brothers. Uh what made David McPherson such a great coach? I had him on the podcast recently and he shared a ton of knowledge. Um, but in your time working with him, what do you feel like made him such such an effective coach?

Six Stages Of A Match Explained

SPEAKER_01

Macker is tireless, tireless. The guy was 100% from the the moment he woke up to the moment he went down to bed, he he just was always doing the little things without being told. Like his work ethic and his his his willing, it's just it's just an just good old school Aussie values. He he let's have a good practice, let's get something out of this, let's work hard, let's be focused, let's figure it out, let's give everything we have. And again, he he was successful on the tour, and actually had a win against the twins, believe it or not, uh, once when the twins were very young. Like I think I'm gonna say that first year on the tour, maybe maybe 99. Don't quote me on which match or which which um tournament, but I think Macker had a win over over them, and the twins obviously remembered that. But was obviously short in stature and got a lot out of him, got a lot out of himself and got a lot out of his game. And so being able to just just 60 seconds worth of distance run every day to to to quote a little bit of kipling there. I I think that he was always about that. And and let's let's scout and let's get some balls and let's get a practice match against these guys because they play a little bit like who you're gonna play down the road, let's keep it light, let's keep it fun. And I just think that there was an amazing amount of consistency over the years, and he was obviously there all the time. So for him to do 17, 18 years of that, where me, I'm coming in for five or six weeks, I'm the pinch it guy then out and here and out, he was really on the lowest of lows and in the highest of highs, and had to be right there to pick those pieces up when those guys were going through challenges off the court, right? Mike had some life challenges off the court and with health and different things, personal life, and then Bobby had to have a surgery, and it there's a lot in all those years, and then challenges with each other. And so he was just always what like just equilibrium with that good, old-fashioned, Aussie, hard work, and and just every day making sure if there was if Humpty Dumpty had fallen, then he'd put the pieces back together to put them back up.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Uh let's move on to juniors here in a second. But last question on Bob and Mike. Um, do you have any kind of favorite stories or behind the scenes stories that you can share from uh your time working with?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. See, your your operative phrases that I can share. Yeah. Yeah, safe for public consumption for the young viewers. Uh I I would say that that though that these guys I would say they're incredibly competitive with one another playing baseline games against each other. And and you would think, oh gosh, why are they playing baseline games? Well, to some extent, they would do that in the offseason like for a little bit of fitness and just for camaraderie and fun because they played with each other all the time as kids. And so me having to be a line judge for some of those baseline games, I'm gonna tell you that that that was yeah, that though those were epic. Those were were challenging and difficult, and uh, oh my gosh, just too much. Um trying to manage that and make sure they weren't gonna tear each other's heads off um in those kind of instances. Now, they they did tell the story on Roddick's podcast about in Australia when uh Bob got a little bit sick of Mike and then he hit him in the head in the Australiano. They they did tell that on Roddick's podcast. So that it wasn't like intentional, it was like a just a reaction kind of hit, but hit him pretty hard, and we were worried that that Mike might be concussed there. He ended up being okay and they ended up making a run to uh the second week of that tournament. But uh that that was a crazy story that they did tell on Roddy's podcast. But uh yeah, I I would say that the the some of the baseline games, I would say some of the the the great stories are just the the good old times or or like um when they first started making their their first million, they bought a Mercedes-Benz, and um we used to hang out in their their their townhouse and and eat this wood ranch barbecue, and they blast Dave Matthews in the house all day night long. I I was not a Dave Matthews guy, I learned all the songs. Um and then they ended up gifting me that car when it was time for that car to just be keep be completely like just run down. Like they said, hey, you know, Bay, you want this car? And I had I paid a few bucks to them and got it transported and sent all the way over across the country, and I kept it, and and the the license plate was bros MB. So B R O Space M B. So like bros, Mike and Bob, bros, Mark Bay, whatever. And I kept, and I still have that license plate till this day um at my place. Uh so that was that was neat. That car is now unfortunate unfortunately deceased now, but it stayed between them and me for quite some time. That was a very unique and special uh story and and obviously speaks to the bond over the years.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, what a story. Um, all right. So I want to move on to uh junior coaching, which uh you've had tons of success with. Uh you sent me some uh content and uh kind of your resume, I guess, uh before we started recording. And I was reading through it, and there was just too many accomplishments to go through. But one that stood out to me um that I think I read in the UST article was um in 2024, you had 13 seniors in your program. 11 of them were going to play college tennis, and nine of them, so nine out of 13 going to play Division I tennis, which is kind of mind-blowing to me. So, how have you had so much success with your academy? What do you feel like you do differently, maybe, than other academies or other junior coaches?

Training Accountability And Independence

SPEAKER_01

A lot, actually. So that that's a whole podcast in and of itself, but I'll be I'll be brief. I do have a philosophy. John Wooden has his pyramid. I have my own that that that has fun at the base with desire and dreams and tactical understanding, technical foundation, self-evaluation, obviously a lot of match count and competing, and then obviously physical development, accountability, independence, moving up to dealing with adversity, and then to the top, pressure performance. So I have this pyramid that I train everybody on from ground up. And I really believe in that. I I have a lot of concepts that I train them on in terms of I won a contest once on uh at a coaching convention for this one article called Six Stages of a Match, where I take a tennis match and I break it into six components. And if you do a good job on all these match components, then you end up winning the match. Train them on that. I think I I've always been a big all-court coach, big believer in all-court tennis. So we do 15 minutes of doubles every day. The double skills translate into the single skills, and so my product may not be, I may not have as many 12 and international champions, but I've got a lot of kids that went in the 18s and and have done very well in NCAAs and obviously beyond. So I feel like it takes longer to bake the cake that I make, but I think it's a much better and more complete cake at the end. And so I feel that it's um it's a combination of all those things that I I learned, but it's also just my background. Obviously, my my my my dad, you know, um and and parents have helped me a great deal, mom and stepdad, that just in terms of being able to put the right sort of my mom said, never do um a half job, always apply yourself. Like these all these things that are just like who I am as a person, and then that bleed bled into my coaching, right? And then also if you take a look at who's mentored me, and then the the product of the experiences, and then obviously that period where I was under Steve at Libertyville and growing and turning into a monster there, and then now for 14 years, I'm currently at the Glen View Tennis Club here for 14 years and now this is a different vibe. It's a municipal park district facility, but still I've been able to build champions here. So when you get the blueprint and you get it right, I think you can always do it. But it it really starts with the relationship and the connection with the kids and the hard work and getting out there and going to the tournaments and watching the matches. So you deal with the triumph and the disaster, and then you come back home and make them better and build them back up. And so my my all court model, the products, the management, I think all of it collectively is probably why I've had these successes and been able to keep it going.

SPEAKER_02

Can you share maybe one or two of those six uh elements that you need to win a tennis match, and then how you train?

SPEAKER_01

The six stages of a match, yeah. So the the first the first stage is like warm-up in the first three games. And so there is an actual common thing that happens there, and then a suggestion, and the second stage is like upper break or downer break, those middle stages, that's seventh game and middle stage of the second first set, rather, and the third stage is the first person to get to five, and then the completion of a set. Because in tennis, a set is actually tangible towards a win. So it doesn't matter in football if the Packers are up 14 to 3 on the Bears, right? It's who wins at the end. But in tennis, if you win a set, it actually matters. It's tangible, it's in your pocket. So often when somebody gets to five and it's just time to win a set, then the other players may do game style changes, they may be cheating, there may be all these different types of things. So you have to be able to get through that stage three to get the set. Stage four is in and of itself one game, not just the first game and the second set. You have to be able to you you you win that set, you get on top again, you lose. That set you you hold serve or whatever, you get you get a lead, and you start some positive momentum the other direction. The driver's seat is up a set and change, like you know, up a set and a break or up a break in the last set. Uh, some separation score where you can see the finish line, but you're still not there yet, and you still have to keep going. It's like Usan Bolt running in a hundred-yard dash. He's the only human that could be ahead at 70 yards and look back a little bit and still win. Most people, once you start looking in your rear view, you end up getting tripped up, right? You end up losing. And then the last stage is closing it out, what you do at the end, match match games, last set tiebreakers, et cetera, et cetera. And man, so it just kind of gives you a little bit of a blueprint of how to work through all of those different pieces.

SPEAKER_02

So, do you train each of these stages for all of your juniors? And if so, can you share an example of how you train like one or two of them, maybe?

Common Mistakes Coaches And Players Make

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. You you you train it. So with younger kids, I'll have some of these programs on the weekend where the courts are more quiet, like late Saturday afternoon, bring in 16 kids, 20 kids when you have eight tennis courts, and now you can put them out there and they can be playing parts of these stages. You could you could have a little grab back, and then two kids come up and then they pull a piece of paper out of the grab back. And now, okay, the person that pulled it out, you spin a racket, okay. I'm up five, three in the first set, start from there. Or this this these guys are starting from three all in the first set, and then they're gonna finish the set and then finish stage four and then come back. Or somebody can say, okay, we're starting at four all in the third, crunch time finish. So ultimately, you you you can work on stages independently of itself, but it's nice to be able to just give them the system and work on it and have them work through playing from start to finish as much as you can. So in the summertime or in the weekends when you have more court time and more space, that's when you want to work on it. So you let them let let it matriculate and evolve because there's nothing like the emotions that you have to go through to build a momentum and a crescendo to an ending. And and because when you don't have that, I just had one of my top players lose the final on Sunday. She was up a set in 5'4, she was up a set in 6'5, and then she ended up losing it in the third set tiebreaker, and she kind of fell apart a little bit. She she was feeling the nerves and she let her emotions get the best of her and she didn't manage herself very well at the end. And so that was a big part of yesterday's private lesson talking about how she's going to work through that.

SPEAKER_02

And then the other thing you mentioned was the pyramid. And it sounds like there's maybe at the base of the pyramid some kind of core values. Maybe you have a better word for it. Um how how do you train some of those values, some of those kind of soft skills that aren't really about a serve or a foreign end or a volley, but it's more about work ethic and ownership and accountability?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, I think that uh accountability, that rung, it's independence, accountability, responsibility. That's that rung. And you with children, you have to give them bite-sized pieces of responsibility, and then you have to see if they can execute it. So you might give a kid a basket of balls and say you're gonna go down there and you're gonna serve until you execute 20 serves in the box. But every time you miss one into the net, you're gonna take minus one. And now, okay, go. Now they have to go down there and problem solve that. Or, hey, we just had a great lesson on your backhand. Now you have to go out and you have the ball machine on that backhand, and then you have to go get another friend of yours, and you need to play that friend baseline game and a set and work on that backhand, and then come back and report to me. Like you have to be able to give them things to do and see if they actually follow through. All my students at the end of a tournament have to check in, call in, leave a message like a press conference, like media training, and say, Hey, I played Will Buchek, I beat him two and three. The first set I was a little nervous, I got through it, the win was a little challenging. I double faulted a bunch, but then I moved my toss back, I figured it out. Like they have to be able to walk me through what happened. So I understand. Their parents can send me their feedback in an email or something separately, but I want the pure feedback from the player and what they saw, because in tennis, it's the most dysfunctional sport of all sports, because you have all these great coaches and they're not at the competition. In tennis, the coach is at the competition 2% of the time. If it's football, the coach is there. If it's soccer, the coach is there. If it's baseball, the coach is there. The coach is always in real time helping them. And then tennis, even if the coach is there, now I'm sitting there and I can't do anything. I can prepare them, but for the first two sets, I have to sit there innocuous and not be able to make an interjection. And then if they split sets, then I can actually say something. So even if I'm there, I can't make an impact unless it's preparation, right? And scouting. And then even when I'm there, I have to be quiet. So tennis is incredibly dysfunctional and it takes a longer time. So if you don't have players that have independence and you haven't trained them in some of these other skills, and they don't know how to fend for themselves, if you will, you can't call a 20-second timeout and say, Come here, Kobe, come here, Caleb Williams. You can't do it. They have to figure it out.

SPEAKER_02

What are some of the most common mistakes you see from junior coaches or academies? Um, and then also from junior players. So I guess a couple of separate questions in there.

Weekly Structure Of Bay’s Academy

SPEAKER_01

I think with coaches, it's just too much about what am I getting for the hour? They they don't understand. That's something that I'd say I learned at Libertyville with Steve, but the value-added service provider, being able to give more value than even what people think that they're monetarily paying for. And how do you do that? Ultimately, over time, you need to be respected for your time, you need to be paid, you don't need to be a doormat. But right now, it's a little too much of people they didn't pay me for it, then I'm not going to give that. And that that's where the problem comes. You don't make anything great if you don't put the extra time in. Think about anything that it that that's that's great. It doesn't matter. Make a bake a great cake, uh, put together a jigsaw puzzle, whatever it is. You do something, you write a research paper. It takes time. And sometimes it's not, it doesn't fit in a nice, neat one-hour box. And so, how how do you, how are you willing to do the extra things that it takes? And when I was a young coach, I would say I was I'd say I was better than I am now. I'd say right now I'm wiser and more accomplished, and I can get to the root cause of problems quicker. But when I was a young coach, I was just voracious. I was just out, I don't know how I did what I did. I have no idea. Like in 2006, and then some of those look back on some of those years and some of the results and amount of players, and it's absolutely mind-boggling what I did back then. I was joking last week with a family. There's a girl that's gonna come, uh four girls that are all in their 30s that have children are coming to take a group private for me to remember the fun that they had in a little clinic that they used to have with me back when they were young. And they said, We want to relive that feeling. So this Monday night, I'm gonna have four of my former students come back together as women in their 30s and actually take a class, and I'm gonna run the same things that I ran for them back in those days. But I I took seven girls in a suburban to Cleveland, Ohio by myself, no parents, and ran a tournament for a weekend. There were 12 and 13-year-old girls. Figure that one out. How did I pull that? Yeah, that's how exactly, right? With with training, proper man, just I'm just saying, like the things that I used to do, I was Superman. And now I'm I'm I'm a wise old man. But uh I'm okay. I I think that I'm still capable and and still doing a lot of good contributions in tennis, and and until I hang up the the junior full-time job, I'm gonna keep trying to make as many great players and as many champions as I can. But uh here's a really funny piece of irony. One phrase that I'm known for in junior tennis and been known for for 27 years is proud and not satisfied. That's that's a phrase that's on the back of all my slogan, all my player shirts, everything. People have known me forever. I'm at the Hall of Fame with Mike and Bob, and they in their speech mentioned about Dick Gould telling them to never be satisfied. And that Dick Gould always told them the same thing that I have always been telling my players all these years. And so we walked outside, and I have a brick on the ground at the Hall of Fame that is Mark Bay proud and not satisfied, that one of my close, close friends that have known me for over 35 years, um, put that there and in honorarium of me and my career and everything I'm doing. And so, how crazy was that that really Dick Gould and myself were saying the same things to them all these years, and we didn't even know it. Didn't even know it. And I was yeah, joking with Dick Gould about that at dinner that night, and and obviously it's just very it's a kind of a neat triage of of uh collective slogan history on that one, but that's something that I I really do believe in.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's wild. Um what about from players? Uh when you're going and taking your players to junior tournaments, what what are some common mistakes you see from other junior players?

SPEAKER_01

Uh I I would say the the preparation piece isn't very good on the beginning. So if you go to a place and you've never been there before and the courts are a lot different than your own place, if you can get three hours of hitting on the court, then that is better. Some people go in there, the parents drive them in the night before, they don't even warm up, and then they're trying to adjust to a court speed that's different. Think about it. When pros go someplace, right, they're training for five, six days just to be ready for the speed of a court, right? And then juniors, the parents just throw them out of a car, barely any breakfast, and expect magic because they spend a bunch of money on their private lessons that week. And that's just not how preparation works. So I would say if I was going to play in a tournament in Ohio and the courts are faster than my courts here at Glenview, I get out of school, I take a half day of school on a Friday and I get out there early and I get a court from three to five or two to four or something like that, and spend plenty of time practicing, hitting, playing some points, that whole bit. And then the next morning have a really good quality 40-minute warm-up too with some points. So not just hitting, but actually trying to deal with the dynamics of normal tennis in that environment and then go play someone. I think that that's that's something that people just don't even ever get or figure out. And obviously, if it's outdoors, right? I'm taking a bunch of curls uh down to the Winter Nationals in Orlando. Some are going to play on hard, some are going to play on clay, and now we're gonna have to go down there and be prepared on December 28th to play with college coaches there and a lot of pressure for recruiting on the line. And so that preparation is important and how we warm up. And I think that a lot of coaches neglect wind. They don't coach the wind very well. So I'm constantly always changing in all the time, every seven to nine minutes to get the feel on the breeze. I think that uh another thing that I do that's unique, that no one does. I've never seen anybody do this, but every time I'm doing a singles drill, I always have the single sticks in the actual net. Most people just practice, they don't put the single sticks in. Uh, they don't make sure that the singles players are practicing with that down the line shot being a high net. The single sticks makes a down-the-line shot 78 feet over three and a half foot net. And then your cross-court shot is obviously 82.5 using the Pythagorean theorem over a three-foot net. So just something like that. Letting kids practice down the lines when they don't have the single sticks in is giving them a premature feeling that they can go down the line and be successful when there's another six inches that's going to be there in the tournament. Um, so so yeah, it's on and on and on and on. But there's a lot of little things, and I do sweat the small stuff. And I think that all of that is baked into the casserole of why I've been able to have students do well.

SPEAKER_02

What does a typical week look like at your academy? How much time are the kids spending on the court? How much of that time is dedicated to drills versus match play versus whatever else you have them do? Um, how does that kind of break down?

Straight Talk For Tennis Parents

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's it's very unique, actually. And we don't play nearly as much as a Florida Academy or California Academy would play. So we have to be very good with how we do what we do. Uh, I would say that uh Monday and Tuesday is well, I would I I can't break it into any generality. Uh Monday is a little bit more about volume, repetitive volume and movement and technique and volume types of things in practice. Tuesday is a little bit more like you're practicing um in a small group with actual specific skills. So Monday, the actual practices are genders mixed. Tuesday, you're separate and you're you're playing like in a college team environment. And then Wednesday, uh the the very best players in the club play at an earlier time where they have more space to be able to get some more sets in, and then there's the the up-and-coming younger kids are playing together, and then there's some high school players playing later. So Wednesday almost has like uh the very best, and then the up-and-coming younger, and then some some high school players that don't make the cut on the earlier. So Wednesday is stacked a little bit. Thursday is more just the best of the best, playing a lot of points against one another to get ready for the tournament. Friday, I don't have any practice. The kids are traveling and going and playing or taking the day off, or I don't believe in practice on Friday. And then the Saturday, we we offer practices once a month. It's kind of an all-star practice where we get kids from the around Chicago to come and join with our own students to actually train, and that's more gender uh specific. And then Sunday, we we have match plays later on Sunday evenings on certain weeks. On big tournament weeks, we don't have it. And obviously, everybody will take one or two privates. And so I believe that it's like a little bit of a developmental wheel. Um, you need the quality tournaments, you need private lessons that really are working on the right things to develop you in in totality, but also deal with what didn't go well over the event the last weekend. I believe that you gotta have group lessons where you can be at different levels. This is one of those fallacies that a lot of parents selfishly just want their kid to be the bottom of a class. They don't want their kid to ever be one of the best in the class. But sometimes being the best in the class gets you some more extra preferential treatment, gets you some one-on-one attention in a group lesson situation because you need to be isolated. So integration and segregation is very important there. And then sometimes when you're working on new skills, you need to be able to have time to organize yourself and beat on somebody to build the confidence and the repetitive trust and things. So it's it's a definitely a misnomer that you have to always be the bottom of a class. What's nice is to have a mixture of where you're you're the top dog, you're in the middle, and then you're fighting to tread water. It's not always easy in different clubs and academies to achieve that, but I think people get that wrong all the time. Very selfish market tennis. Uh and then I I believe in non-paying practice. That's the fourth part. So being able to go practice on your own, set up a so if I don't have practice on a Saturday and you want to have some practice and you're not at a tournament, well, then you get a buddy and go out and practice. Or so there's there's that ability to do that. So I think a lot of major academic college tennis is a 20-hour week responsibility. I'd say that junior academies typically are 15 hours in a week. Um, and then most homeschool after-school programs, people that go to regular school, are playing between seven and twelve hours, depending on this the program and and and the amount of money and everything else. And obviously, our students are doing a la carte fitness, so we don't have fitness as a part of the program. There's two or three trainers that work with the players in our program. So obviously, a big academy would have 15 hours of tennis plus and fitness baked in there. College is 20-hour commitment. So we're trying to ramp our kids up to the point where we get the best quality 12 hours in a week, get the best results, and then hopefully they're able as they get older and stronger to be able to make that adjustment and go into what college tennis would, the demands of what college tennis would put on you.

SPEAKER_02

Super interesting. Um, I want to be respectful of your time. So I'm gonna skip a couple of these, but I do want to ask um what advice you would have for a parent who might be listening to this who has a junior uh tennis player. What question should they they be asking their coaches? What should they be looking for in an academy to make sure that their child is in the best position to succeed?

Auditing And Optimizing Academies

SPEAKER_01

Sure, it's it's a tough question, actually. I I think that parent, there's no parent manual. Not to plug Wayne Bryan, but I definitely take his book, championing you know, uh children and athletics and academics. I do make that a required reading for a lot of the young parents that first started my program. So right away, it's not that I'm necessarily just saying that it's Wayne Bryan's principles that are the only thing that I believe in, but I think that Wayne did a nice job of putting out a simple uh book and a blueprint there to help some people. But there's nothing. There's so many mistakes, so many pitfalls, so many problems. A kid loses a match, and the parents chew him out in the car on the way home, and they they they make residual damage emotionally on a child that lasts for years. So there's just so there's no people are just guessing or they're looking at who their friends are or who the most successful kids in their kids' peer group are, and then they try to mimic that and they just don't know. And so it's just a bunch of parent chatter in the lobby that a lot of times is counterproductive and not best for their child. So it's it's a double-edged sword because you want them to trust the coach. But what if the coach is completely clueless and all he is is on the take for the money? So you really need to get a great coach. If you get a great coach, then it's much easier to back off and trust and and let take the training wheels off and let the coach and the kid go. But I think you have to do your homework first to really be able to find great coaching and understand who the better coaches are in your area and why they are, and and try to align yourself there. And then I feel that there's a lot of discussion and disparity on the information about specialization. And so uh I'll I'll put it like this if your kid is a true athletic stud, right? Most parents are misguided and they believe their kid is more athletic than they really are. But if your kid is a if your kids are Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant or somebody like that, they can be a late bloomer, they can do less and pass people up and all that. They can. They can. But there's so few of them. There's so few really, really star athletes. And then how many of those star athletes are choosing tennis and not choosing baseball or football or basketball or something else? There's much cheaper with a whole bunch more glory now in NIL and all the stuff that they see going on, right? I'm I'm Peyton Manning's, you know, I'm I'm Archie Manning in Texas, and I got 6.8 million in NIL. It's a different world. Like am I dreaming, right? To do that. Obviously, Coco and Alcaraz make a whole bunch of money and endorsements off the court, but they have done an unbelievable job for where they are to get to that spot, right? So that's much more difficult. I would say that the specialization is the challenge because you need the other sports can make your child a better athlete. And if your child's a better athlete, they can be trained to be a better tennis player. But there's a really difficult line where now the other sport, if it's taking away every Tuesday's two hour clinic, well, now that's 74 hours you just lost over the course of that season to trade. Like, so you have to be careful when you're robbing Peter to pay Paul, what are you? Getting. And so when you're doing the multiple sports, you got to understand that if they haven't specialized in tennis by 13, then you're going to be extremely far behind. I think that you have to make sure that they're doing the right tournaments and get themselves put because the tournament culture is where you learn. It's where you learn how to compete, learn how to fight, learn about yourself, and ultimately matriculate to the point where you have the right rankings and ratings to get looked at for college and pros and everything else, right? So you have to get them in the right tournament matrix early on. And it doesn't take a ton. I would say if you play twice a month in the summer and once a month during the school year, that's 15 tournaments, and that's like your starter kit in terms of events. But some people aren't able to even do that. And so I think that that there's a real strong challenge, and every situation is more individual, but being able to use the other sports. I was a late bloomer in tennis. I didn't pick up a racket until 1979. Um, with a wood racket and an ant that played, but I definitely had a very strong baseball background and then very good basketball background with great basketball coaches. And so that baseball and basketball background, I leapfrogged and I had full scholarship offers, and I passed up a bunch of people in three and a half years. So am I a Bo Jackson or something? No, I'm not. But I was a very hungry inner city kid athlete that didn't have a lot of means and definitely had a two-sport background before tennis. And I most certainly passed up a lot of kids that put a lot more money into that sport than I did to get uh full rides of DePaul. So I I I'm trying not to toot my horn and I'm trying not to dis diss dissuade or misguide people, but multiple sports are good to a point, and and and you really have to make sure because tennis is such a technique-intensive sport, you need to log the hours. The 10,000 hour rule, I don't know if it really is necessary in tennis, but it's gotta be pretty darn close. And I definitely think Mike and Bob had over 10,000 hours.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Really good advice. Um, so we'll finish up with two questions here. Uh one thing I saw with with uh all the information you sent over to me was the academy visits that you do. So talk about the process for when you go into an academy. Um, do you have kind of a framework or system you use to help optimize an academy when you go there for a weekend and talk about kind of what that looks like?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thanks for mentioning that. So obviously, I'm towards the tail end of my career, and and giving back is something that's very important. I like doing that. Uh that's why I'm always active at the conventions and the conferences. I'm always going and trying to help people because, again, people did that for me. It's only fair to pay it forward. But I felt that there's a lot of people that are struggling with basic core uh team building and junior lesson dynamics, adult programming, financial structures and models. And so just taking some of my background, the econ and the communications background from college and all my tennis experience over 35 years, I've decided that I'm gonna have a consulting project that's gonna be with me now. And then obviously, after I retire from junior tennis full-time and try to keep helping people go. And so, yeah, academy visits, something I started. I started it late in 2023, and now here we are a couple years down the road on this. And I must say, it's I've gone now to 14 different academies. I I think that each one of these visits are unique. I don't go necessarily saying I'm gonna tell everybody the same ABCD. I talk to the managers and I try to do a great job of listening to the needs of that particular facility. Do they need more staff training? Do they need more parent education? Do they need more uh economic revitalization of their profit-loss statement? Do they need more fancy fun games and drills to make their practices more fun? Do they need all of it? So we script it, and typically they the places have me for a day, some places have me for two days, and I some people I only go one time and then I'll never go back again. And they're they're good. Some people want me once a year, and some people want me on on odd and even years. So I've built up an amazing already rapport with a lot of clubs, coaches, and players, and and helping them. And it's not that my way is the only way or the highway or anything, but I definitely uh after 35 years of fixing cars, I'm definitely a pretty good mechanic now. And I've got some some some tools and things that that people can consider and use, and that's helpful. And I just I don't feel like there's I've I've yet to see a coach that I would consider on sort of the upper tier of coaching. Um again, I I've had some results and some successes, so I would consider myself in that room somewhere. I don't often see too many of those people really doing that much sharing and definitely not doing uh maybe they go to a convention once a year or something, but but this whole like getting underneath the hood and going to someone's place and watching them work and taking notes and helping them and helping their customers, clients, and pros and people feel good about that. That right there with the clubs have had such an amazing response to having me there. The people have been welcomed. I obviously go in there and I don't try to step on anybody's toes and try to work with the coaches, not try to step on top of anyone's toes. And and I've had nothing but positive, I've not had a bad visit yet. And I look forward to having more and continuing that particular product. But it's it took me a while to figure that out. But I think it's it's one of the best ways to uh make a contribution in tennis and and also touch a lot of people in a lot of different places.

SPEAKER_02

That's cool. That sounds super valuable for academies, um, just to be able to have somebody with so much experience to come in and I'd imagine a lot of the decisions for them are they're kind of grappling with should I go this way or this way. And for you, it's a little bit more obvious since you've probably made that decision, you know, a couple dozen times at this point in your career.

SPEAKER_01

So well, also what happens is I'd say, well, is that I just have such a width and breadth of what everybody does. I know how Boston runs business, I know how San Diego runs business, I know how Austin, Texas runs business, I know how the National Tennis Center in New York, I know how everybody is doing pricing and programming and staffing, and like I understand all of it in such an umbrella of way that now I can sprinkle whatever little piece of pixie dust I need to in relation to having that. So that's the advantage of also being out there so much. You you just have the clear understanding of what's in real time going on in so many different places, and that is now it's not about Utah being like Boston, it's about Utah being the best Utah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, last question for you how can we make pro doubles more popular?

How To Grow Pro Doubles

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's a great one. We we talk about this one all the time on the road, and and I've heard a ton of great arguments. Uh I think that to take a look at, for example, the hype around the US Open Mix Doubles um project, I guess, or that pilot that they ran initially that got everybody excited, right? And then when you ended up looking at the manifestation of it, the real doubles players actually won. Um is it good for all of the top pros to play a little bit? It most certainly is. How about Rafael Nadal playing with Mark Lopez and winning Indian Wells, one of his buddies, just because it's kind of fun to play a little bit, and the tour wanted some of those guys to play, and then Rafa goes in a couple years later, wins the US Open going 19 for 19 against Kevin Anderson at the net, including a certain volume of match point, go back and watch it, right? Rafa playing doubles, and then look at how that translated into what he did. So there's something to be said for that, and so to have some star power in there isn't a bad thing. I don't want to take jobs away from doubles players. So to me, if it was a situation where a 32 draw didn't have four buys, and the 32 draw had 28 regular doubles players jobs and just had four all-star teams of Novak and some of these different guys that are playing in all over, that does become interesting. Don't think that when the Bryans played against Nadal and Robreto, that wasn't exciting. Yeah, it was, right? Or if you had some guys that were combination guys, right? Jack Sock and Isner were combination guys, and then they're playing the Bryans. Yeah, that all of those things become compelling, right? Because people want to see the contrast, and also people love the big names. But the tough thing is that doubles players were never really publicized well. That's my problem. They ruined the opportunity. Mike and Bob are about as marketable and nostalgic as you could have ever had people play a doubles court. No disrespect to Macaroo and Fleming or the Wooddies or anybody, but you can't get more of an apple pie, you know, just two kids, two American kids, twins, great guys, good fans. And they did not get prime time minutes on the stadium courts on TV. And that's a shame. Because if they had done that, taken advantage of that and utilized that and really pushed it and made it mundane, then it would have been easier. Now you don't have that, and those guys are gone. And now somebody wants Arani and and uh I'm forgetting her partner, um, PLOVISOR. No, Arani and Pielina. Those are great girls. They're fun, they're energetic, they have a good time, they're they're spunky, right? I like watching them, but would they would you put them on a TV match and then tell Rabakina that she's got to go to court three? I don't know, right? I don't know. Like they might not because because they have these slots for the actual TV courts, and they're always giving them two singles. Could they give some TV slots a little bit to doubles? Not a lot, but just a little bit. Well, maybe they could. It could, but now with these major master series of men and women combined, it's like a men's match and a woman's match, then a men's match and a women's match, and the women's match goes first and the men's match. Then they flip, you know, they have that going on. So there's all of these situational and obligational things now. And so you you have the TV aspect of it, you have the draw impact aspect of it, and then you have the just on the ground, right? The doubles players need to go, they don't start till Wednesday or Thursday. Half the time, they need to go and have more, many more programs and clinics and and raise money and have fun ways where the fans and people get connected and get to know them, right? Back in the day, we we had like Leander Pays and Nestor and Knowles, and we we had some of these, you know, Martina and Pam Shriver and like the uh uh um um Gigi Fernandez and um Natasha Zavera, like you had these incredible, like fun people with great personalities that you could have like magnified. And we just for sake of ratings and singles have just never really ventured in. And when you had those opportunities and had those people that were capable, they didn't take advantage of it. So now it's much more difficult. So that's the challenge. That's the challenge. I'm happy that they've given more money to Qualies and they've given more money um to some of the doubles guys in the early rounds, and and they've they've done some things to try to allow people to make a better living. So, congratulations to Joker and all of the top players that were part of that, so that they found a way to make it more reasonable at the bottom for a lot of people to try to make inroads, but to actually make it more popular without touching people, without getting eyes on TV. I I just think it's much more difficult. And and we we lost a little bit of an opportunity, uh, I think, in my opinion, selfishly with with Mike and Bob. They were just as good as it gets, and and we didn't leverage them enough to kind of build momentum after they retired.

SPEAKER_02

For sure. Yeah, those are great points and some really, really great ideas. Um, Mark, this is awesome. Uh really good advice for players, for parents, for coaches throughout this podcast. Hopefully we can do it again in the future. Um, maybe I'll see you down the road at uh another Davis Cup match sometime. And thanks again for coming on.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, thank you. I appreciate all that you do. Those little insights and tidbits that you gave us down at Delaware was very helpful. That doubles match was magnetic and amazing, and and obviously a little bit of uh everybody went into making that a great success that Saturday, but you were part of that. And congratulations. I know that there's a lot of respect for you, not just from the Davis Cup team and Mike and Bob, but just industry wide. So congratulations on you, what you've built, and and obviously you continue doing what you're doing. And I'm very, very honored and appreciative that you took the time that to ask me on today.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. Uh that means a lot to hear that from you. Thanks a lot. Thanks well.