Player Advice
Practice Makes Perfect: Good Habits For Transition to College
by Tom Whitten, 5 June 2020
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The timeless adage “practice makes perfect” is alive and true in the world of competitive junior and college tennis these days. However, with ever increasing demands on student athletes’ time it’s imperative to determine which aspects are most important to college coaches when determining the best practice habits of players. Players that are best able to balance all of the areas that they need to be successful in will be able to maximize the time they have for practice and make the most of it. Those able to master this will see the most gains in their abilities on court and likely with match play results.
As a coach of multiple performance based and high-level junior players, I found myself wondering which tools I could gather to help my juniors’ transition successfully to the college level. The result of my endeavor is threefold:
1) the study I have conducted is a guideline for what players entering college tennis should have from an expectations standpoint from their coaches based on actual evidence of what their coaches expect from them.
2) the habits as outlined serve as a modeling tool for my own high level junior practices.
3) the information gathered can serve as a learning tool among college coaches as to what their colleagues’ standards are.
Considering this, I reached out to multiple highly-successful Division I men’s and women’s coaches and asked them to identify the three most important aspects they are looking for from their successful players at practice. In addition, I asked them to list their teams’ cell phone policies, as all know these distractions can have adverse effects on practice time.
Ten coaches contributed to this article, all representing Power 5 conferences. The coaches are from both men’s and women’s teams and combined have accounted for more than 20 national championships, 2,000 college matches won, and have coached over 75 All-Americans. Below are their responses to the aforementioned queries:
Brian Boland (Baylor men)
Please list the top three positive traits successful college tennis players display before, during and/or after practice.
1) They live a disciplined life and walk into practice ready to give their best effort mentally, physically and emotionally. They have the clarity to realize that all of their words, attitudes and behaviors make themselves and everyone around them better or worse cause you never stay the same.
2) If things do not go as they expect they have the ability to adjust and adapt and that the player can embrace adversity.
3). Practice with a growth mindset, humility, competitiveness/grit and be grateful for the opportunity to develop around people that care about you.
What is your team cell phone policy during practice?
When you walk into a meeting, meal, the gym, or practice we have a cell phone box where ALL staff and coaches must turn the phone off and put it in the box. No exception and only the medical staff can have a phone on hand.
