Conflict Resolution in College Tennis (ft. Tina Samara)

Welcome to season 10 of the Parenting Aces podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Stone. And before we go any further, I want to just remind you that we are now part of the Tennis Channel Podcast network, which, yay us. We love being part of that network. I also want to remind you that the video version of all of our podcasts are available now on parentingaces.com and on the Parenting Aces YouTube channel. So if you want to put a face with the voice that you you're hearing in your ear, go check out those videos and leave us some comments. We want to know how you like that. Also, a reminder, if you haven't already become a Premium Member of parentingaces.com what are you waiting for? We want you to join us. The link is in the show notes, so be sure and check that out. Now, getting to this week's episode. My guest this week is Tina Samara. And Tina has such a vast experience in the world of tennis. Not only did she play junior in college tennis, she also played on the professional circuit. She also played professional golf, which I just found out. And on top of that, she has coached at all levels and especially at the college level, which we're going to talk about and really focus on that aspect of Tina's experience. Experience and her work, because she's now started a company called Transition Coach for Athletes. And she is working with athletes and families as they go through the recruiting process, but also continuing to work with them once they're on campus and actually enrolled and playing tennis, hopefully, and doing the school thing, the college thing. And Tina's got some great advice, and we're going to talk a little bit about this whole notion of what happens when things aren't going as expected in college. What recourse do you have? What steps should you go through? And that's going to be the gist of our conversation today. So sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Tina Samara. I'm going to bring her in now, and I'm going to unmute her so you can hear her. Tina, welcome to the pod. Hi.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, absolutely. And you're based in Colorado these days. I hope y' all aren't having this crazy, extreme winter weather like the rest of the country.

No, we're actually. My parents are in New York. They're getting all that crazy weather. And, you know, we might get a little snow today, but maybe an inch if that. But Yesterday it was 65 degrees. That's Denver for you. It's very up and down. You know, my Norwegian mom's had it in New York, and, you know, it's pretty bad if Norwegian moms had it. So I'm pretty happy to be here.

Well, happy to have you. So, before we get into the crux of this week's conversation, I really wanted to give you a chance to talk about what your life in junior and college tennis looked like.

Oh, depends who you ask.

No, I'm asking you. I'm asking you.

So I have an older brother, four years older, so I kind of just followed him around and did what he did. And I think tennis was probably one of the last sports I picked up because the area where I grew up, until 10 years old, tennis really wasn't a popular sport sport. And when we moved to a different place, tennis was a little bit more popular, and I had exposure to it. So that's sort of how, at about 10, 11 years old, I took my first lesson. And I think I picked it up pretty quickly because of all the other sports. So, like any other kid, I think you enjoy a sport when you enjoy success quickly, and I was lucky to have that. So my parents, like I mentioned, my mom's from Norway, my dad's from Sri Lanka. So we're not talking about two countries that know a whole lot about tennis in general. I shouldn't say about Norway. We've got Casper Rude doing very well right now, but, you know, certainly not known for tennis above the other winter sports in Norway and Sri Lanka. Fair enough. We all know that they're not a tennis powerhouse at the moment. So, you know, my parents just kind of let me explore, really, and didn't really push. I mean, of course, I think they're both competitive people, so they pushed me in a way I thought was pretty healthy for the most part, in terms of, you know, giving your best effort and that kind of thing. But I was innately competitive, too, so it wasn't often that I wasn't trying to win or whatever, but certainly made some mistakes along the way. And then, you know, I was fortunate to do well enough where I was getting some college coaches reaching out and, you know, again, a whole new process for collegiate sports. My parents knew nothing about. My brother didn't play college sports, so they, again, kind of let me run with it. And I pretty much feel like I was like, hey, I'm going away this weekend to visit Tennessee. See you in 48 hours. And was very fortunate enough, fortunate to land at University of Georgia, which certainly at the time was probably the best program that had offered me an opportunity go Dogs. Go Dogs. You know, being a New Yorker, moving to Georgia was. A lot of my friends in high school, small public high school, were like, what, you're moving to Georgia? You know, they were all staying Northeast or California, but certainly can't look back and say I wasn't really happy with the experience. You know, there are ups and downs, like most people I think would say, but I gained some great friends that I still have to this day, and we had a lot of success on the court. And, you know, I think I probably lived what people talk about, that amazing college experience, which encompassed everything, including some tears and rough times and. And things. But certainly what. What I tell parents is I learned a lot of life lessons in those years and, you know, good, the bad, the ugly. And, you know, when I got into college coaching, which was quite a bit later, in my early 30s, I was hoping to really, you know, change some of the things I didn't like that I saw while I was in school and. And to improve on or continue the things in coaching that I thought were really great and certainly wasn't perfect. Look back and wish I made some different decisions, but I don't think that's uncommon. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I probably. I think we talked about this. I probably talked to 50% of my players still. I left college coaching in 2016, was in it for 11 years. You know, 50%, you know, and not all the other 50 isn't because of anything bad. Some people just don't keep in touch as much as others, and that's great. But I see what they're doing sometimes through Facebook or having babies and getting married, so it's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. So let's kind of dive into this whole notion. You said you went through and had, like, the quintessential college tennis experience as a player, which included some things that weren't so great, included tears, included upset. We know that any experience that we have in life is going to have the good and the bad. Right. It's just part of being human. But there are steps that people can take to try and minimize the bad stuff and maximize the good stuff. When you were in college and, you know, I don't know if you can kind of transport yourself back there, but can you think of a negative experience that happened to you and how you went about trying to resolve it or fix it or minimize it, and the parts of that process that worked for you and the parts of that process that didn't work for you? And this is a really long question that then led you when you went into coaching to have a little more understanding of how things needed to work.

Yeah, it's really tough because I think it's changed a lot in 25 years. You know, 25 years ago, coaches, their word was it like there wasn't a whole lot of dialogue usually about why, you know, I was playing three and they moved me to four and I hadn't lost the match. And there was no, like, explanation. And when I think I remember very well what happened when we asked about it, actually my doll's partner asked about it. She had more guts at the time than me, I think. And, you know, it was not. Not a situation that I remember fondly, you know, so we kind of were wired to just, it is what it is, you know. And I think, of course, for a lot of reasons, today's generation is a lot different. They do ask a lot more questions. They do expect to be. Have things more explained, you know, more which sometimes the coach can be frustrating. There's not always a perfect explanation. And I think that's why when having coached for 11 years now, doing what I'm doing, I can potentially help kids understand what the coach is thinking. It's not necessarily they don't like you or they think you're no good or that you're not trying. There could be. They know the other team's lineup and they know that the game style you have is just not really conducive against the player that plays like that. It could be something that simple. Hopefully there's coaches out there that are still, you know, making decisions like that. But, you know, I think the thing I'd look back at a lot is of two of my really good friends that played there at Georgia. You know, Georgia was 4 in the country when we all went. We were all freshmen. Four freshmen. And maybe picking the school for the wrong reasons, picking it because it was the best school that offered a scholarship and not necessarily because it was the right fit or going to be the place that's you're going to thrive on and off the court. I mean, one of my team is extremely intelligent, could have gone IV and all that kind of thing. Ended up leaving the program in junior year and stayed on campus and finished their degree. You know, at the time, especially Georgia's academics have improved quite a bit as well. You know, back then she probably could have gotten a degree from a little bit more prestigious school. And she went on and did law school in California. Another team had transferred her senior year as well, just because she wasn't playing and didn't feel like she was getting the opportunity to play. And I don't want to get too much into that, but, you know, I feel like she went through all the right channels and really did. No one worked harder than this one. So it wasn't lack of effort and maybe just lack of opportunity. Sometimes I do think coaches get stuck in their decisions and potentially maybe they put someone at six that was winning. So why are you going to change it just to give someone else an opportunity if the other person's winning? So there's a lot of different things that go in, but, you know, those are two of my closest friends. So it was really tough because not only were they fighting for their different reasons, but they were also fighting each other for that six spot as well. So that created some tough as well, you know.

Yeah. And I think it's interesting what you said about you picking a school because they were a top school in the country. And maybe, you know, looking back, maybe it wasn't the best fit for you academically, socially, whatever, but you wanted to be at a school that was winning. And I think that a lot of kids and families make that same type of decision. They look at the record of the school rather than really digging in and looking at, you know, is this really the right fit for me? And even though the school's winning or maybe because the school is winning so much, what does that mean for my opportunity to actually get to be in the lineup and play?

Yeah, yeah, I think it's really tough. And, you know, for me, it made sense at the time. It was the best school that offered me, but also had one of the best veterinary schools, which is something I was super interested in. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out the way it had planned. I wish it looking back, I'm like, oh, what would I be doing? No, just kidding. I enjoy what I'm doing, but I do love animals and, you know, it did to check those boxes for me. But yeah, I think it's really hard for people to step back a little bit. First of all, there's, as you know, there's thousands of schools and there's tons of great schools academically. I mean, West Virginia, where I coached at, had one of the best forensic programs in the country. West Virginia. Virginia is not the school you think of right away when, hey, where do I want to go to school? But if you're interested in forensics, which I was dying to get a player, that was. I didn't get anyone because I was wanted to live vicariously through that, you know, then that might be the best school. And then at the time, if you're a really good player, you probably play pretty high up in that lineup and play in the Big 12, so that could potentially be a great place for you to go. So I think a lot of it is, you know, different circumstances like mine. My parents didn't know anything. My brother went to St. Lawrence University, upstate New York with 2000 students and you know, they had nothing to compare to. I don't think we. They really had a lot of friends. This is something they talked about. My path was so different at that level of playing as an athlete that, you know, they didn't have people to discuss it with. And you know, again, I feel fortunate. I lucked out, you know, for the most part where I ended up. But yeah, I think a lot of it's just being able to take a step back and take off the stereotypes a little bit and really think about, you know, what your. I always tell kids what, what are your negotiables and non negotiables. You know, even if I think that non negotiable is ridiculous, like the temperature has to have an average of 70 degrees all year. Like you're really minimizing your opportunities. I mean, you can go to University of Michigan or Northwestern where that's not the case. And I'm pretty sure it's going to tick a lot of boxes. Right. So. But at the end of the day, if it's a non negotiable, there's no point sending you somewhere where you're going to be miserable because of something that we just overlooked. And that works both ways. Right. And so I think it's being really open minded. You know, I think in a weird way I compare it to my recruiting, which was the opposite, which if I look back, I should have done differently. Sorry, I don't know why I keep coughing is I cast a pretty small net when I recruited and felt like I wanted to spend a lot of time getting to know a few kids rather than having 50 kids. You know, in tennis you're not usually recruiting for more than two to three spots on a big year. But in my work, I really want to cast a huge net and let us decide where we don't, what we want to cross off the list, as opposed to that being decided for us, if that makes sense.

Absolutely.

I think what happens a lot of times is these kids end up talking to coaches and players on the team and they learn Things they never thought of. Like, even if they don't end up going to that school, they're like, oh, that's a great question to ask the other school, because they never mentioned something about, you know, team building and we go hiking for two days in Yosemite or whatever. Right. So it's not about that that's going to change your path, necessarily, but it's going to certainly give you more ammunition and ideas to find the right place, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's. You know, I always tell people you've got to interact with the existing team members, and you really need to reach out to past team members, because those are the ones that are going to really give you the truth about the program. Right. And, you know, we know there is a coaching carousel that happens. I mean, coaches change jobs all the time. So to choose a program only because you want to work with a specific coach can be a big mistake. Because if that coach leaves and the school isn't the right school for you, the team isn't the right team for you, then you're stuck and you're put in a position of either having to suck it up or having to transfer. So speaking of sucking up, let's kind of. That's my segue to get into the crux of this week's podcast, which is conflict resolution on campus. And what happens when a player, a student athlete, has a situation, either with the coach, with another teammate, or, I don't know, with another team? What are the steps toward conflict resolution? What are the proper channels to go through to maximize the opportunity to get a resolution that is acceptable and pleasing to the student athlete and to minimize the risk of making everybody angry at you and making the situation worse.

Yeah, that's definitely a complicated one. You know, I've been on every side of that, both as a coach and a player. My feeling is, I always think, unless the conflict is with your coach, and it's of really serious nature, but you go to your coach and you offer the opportunity for the coach to have an open conversation about what's going on. When I look back at the different jobs I had, I think the best place I worked for this issue was West Virginia. And that was when Oliver Luck was the athletic director. And anyone that knows him knows he's had some pretty successful athletes in the family, including Andrew. And Oliver was quite the athlete himself and a Rhodes Scholar finalist, so he wasn't a schlump either. But, you know, I think there's. It's complicated because I Found that some schools, the kids would go past the coach and go right above the coach. And that creates a lot of conflict for the team and the coach because then there's a lack of trust. And you're like, wait, I didn't even get an opportunity to work on this with you. This didn't need to escalate to that level. Unless you first give me the opportunity and then I'm not willing to fix it or we can't. And then, you know, my way of looking at it is my perfect world. It's to be collaborative. So I think at West Virginia with Oliver, the team knew that wasn't going to fly. So the first question he'd ask, did you talk to the coach? And if they hadn't see you later, come back when you have, you know. And I think these are young kids and they aren't always getting what they want. And often it's for the right reasons because they aren't working hard or they haven't done what they've been asked to do, whatever. There's a million different reasons. And then they're forced to face it as opposed to circumvent the issue. At the same time, I have no problem, and I don't think any coach should of sitting down with an athlete and the Oliver Luck or the. The athletic director that oversees your sport. So that way you can't say things in front of someone that are completely not true and get away with it, or you're gonna be a lot more careful choosing your words than otherwise. But because I really find from the situations I've helped with that almost always 90% of time it's communication or lack of. And, you know, I think in fairness, you know, you do have a coach that's invested quite a bit of money in women's tennis, mostly full rides at the Division one level that you at least the common courtesy to give the opportunity to deal with it. And if it's a team conflict, then, I mean, I think it's a good idea to have a team meeting and try to stay pretty out of it and let them have conversation going. And you're going to get some ugliness usually in the beginning, but they're often able to figure a lot of that out in a lot of ways. To try to fix this before it happens is, you know, first few weeks of the year is to sit down and come up with team values and things which I've had work really well. And I've had it not work well. That all comes down to kids that Say their values are one thing and don't actually follow through with them. Which is really frustrating as a coach, because we're like, we let you pick the values, and even if I don't love them, it's up to you all to decide what you want them to be. But then if your values are like, okay, we're going to make sure we do all of our rehab properly, and then you find out half your team's not rolling out or, you know, or they don't bring, like, that's the kind of thing that can, you know, I mean, there's so many little things that can add up, but I think you do need to try to nip them in the bud because they can grow quickly.

So let's take a couple real world examples of conflicts that come up on college tennis teams, men and women. So, for example, let's say that we have a situation like you talked about before, where a player feels like they should be playing higher in the lineup. They're in the practices, they're beating the girls playing higher or the boys playing higher than they are. But when it comes down to match day, the coach continues to either put them down at the bottom of the lineup or not put them in at all. What would, as a former coach yourself, what would be the preferable way for that player to address that issue?

Yeah, I think the first step, again, is to go asking the coach. And what you, I think, need to be careful of is how you ask the coach or how you communicate it. Because if you come in very confrontational, that usually doesn't go over well for a lot of different reasons. So simple changing words to, hey, I feel like I deserve to play, as opposed to, I would love an opportunity to play, or I would love to earn the opportunity to play and make sure that you're saying, hey, no one deserves anything. I understand. Eight girls are on scholarship in only six place. So doesn't everyone deserve to play because they're on scholarship? You know, and I had a situation like that many, many moons ago, and, you know, my mentality was, I'm gonna keep playing where you put me. I was lucky enough I wasn't out of the lineup, but I'm gonna keep winning until you don't have a choice. And, you know, I was competitive enough that I wasn't gonna go tank at four because my coach put me there, and I should be playing three because I was just too competitive. Now, not everyone is the same, you know, and. And at some point, I mean, I'll be the first to say. And all my Georgia teammates, I'm sure would admit, at some point, you know, you're like, hoping the kid above you loses. You want to win the team match. That's. That's the foundation. But after that, it's a free for all. Or like, if I want to play three and I'm winning at four, I'm kind of hoping you. You tank a match. Not tank, but get beat a little bit. I think you're not telling the truth if you don't. If you don't say, tennis is an individual sport. It is.

At the end of the day, yeah, that's tough loss.

So. But I think, yeah, the first step is to talk to the coaches and, you know, maybe you have a better relationship often with the assistant coach. And we all know that that happens a lot. And they're not the bad. The bad guy or girl.

And often the assistant is younger, you know, on the team, the assistant is the younger member of the team and maybe closer in age to the players. So there's a little bit of that peer to peer comfort.

Yeah, 100%. And I think that's fine. You know, as long as a head coach, I think you have to make sure you have an assistant that you trust, because that can get ugly, too. But that's one other story. So I think, yeah, it's more about, okay, well, what do you need? What can I do to get an opportunity? Do I need to come extra? Do I need to lift more? Do I need to go for. Get quicker? Like, so that you have a tangible list of things so that you could come back in three weeks and say, I've checked every box. So, you know, then. Then the conversation could change from, yeah, like, what else? Because now I feel like I've done everything you asked. And I think any decent coach would have to give that kind of player an opportunity. Again, the hard part we talked about a little bit earlier is if everyone's winning, it's hard to change the lineup. Like, it is competitive. It is about getting the win on the scorecard. And it's like, well, you know, then there are other teams like uva men's team that I'm, like, blown away by over the years that, like, they have guys in and out of the lineup all day, like, but they're all, like.

Top because they have such depth.

Yeah. And I guess they don't seem to care. I would care. Like, as a player, I would have been like, whenever I'm playing, if I'm winning, like, why are you pulling me out so it's. I don't know how they make it work. And, you know, guys team may be a little bit different than women's, but, you know, they often carry more people than the women's side as well. But it's a tough one. And maybe that's something that I just thought off the top of my head, that you talk about in the recruiting process. You know, how would you handle, again, looking back, I wish I'd said that a few times, because then you have it kind of documented, we talked about this could happen, that you might not be playing. And how are you going to handle that? Are you going to work hard or are you going to, you know, are you going to, you know, create divisiveness?

And so one thing I want to point out is the word parents hasn't come up once in this conversation about conflict resolution. And this is often a really difficult thing for parents to deal with, right? They're on the phone, their kids complaining, coach isn't letting me play. Coach isn't doing this, Coach isn't doing that. You know, help me, help me, help me. What is the parents role here?

Again, I think depending on what the conflict is, there are times that I think parents have more every right to get involved, depending on what kind of issue. But I personally think with the regular kind of athletic playing, Division 1 or whatever division athletics, that it's time for the parent to really allow their kid to work on conflict resolution on their own. It's a skill that you're going to absolutely need to be successful later. And at least again, I think they've had to go through all the channels which would be going assistant coach, head coach, athletic director that oversees the sport. And then you wouldn't really go beyond that, I think, unless it was something that would involve parents, which is maybe some laws are being broken or abuses or things like that. But I think it's a slippery slope with parents. And I think as a head coach, what I got better at in the last few years is I sent out and I learned this from the Wisconsin volleyball coach. You know, I kind of sent out a letter of expectation to the parents when kids were being recruited. This is what the expectation is going to be. We love having you come out, we love having you support bringing Brownies, whatever you want to do. But it changed over the years, even my 11 years. I mean, because again, when my parents came to Georgia and they flew from New York, they came and watched, and then they. They were like, if we don't see you again, we understand I think parents today are a lot more interested in coming to the team dinners and things like that, which I had a tough time juggling that for various reasons. I think sometimes you want to have team meetings at that dinner. You want to talk about things. And I personally didn't really want the parents at the end of the table. That's a personal preference. I certainly was not the most popular coach sometimes with parents because of decisions like that. But I don't know, I feel like, you know, I have a lot of. Of course, all my family's outside of the US except for my brother and my parents. And so having these conversations with my family in Norway or. Or England, they're. They're blown away by the parental involvement. Like when I'm like, oh, this parent called and they threatened. They're flying in and they're like, what? They're like, aren't they 19 years old? And I'm like, yeah. And, you know, it's. And that's why I think a lot of coaches will say sometimes international kids can be a little bit easier to deal with. You don't generally have mom and dad flying in from Europe because the kid's not in the lineup, you know.

But to be fair, there are issues that do warrant parent involvement. This specific issue that we're talking about at this moment, which is, you know, I'm not getting enough playing time or I'm not playing high enough, and I'm not happy about that. That would not be an issue that would warrant parent involvement. The parent involvement in that case would be having conversations with your child and helping them role play and talk about, you know, what, let's. Let's talk about what words are going to be effective here and what questions are going to work and, you know, what are your goals. Let's be very clear on what you're trying to gain from having this confrontation with your coach. You know, pretend like I'm your coach, talk to me, then let me give you some feedback about how I would respond to that as your coach and how that would make me feel about you. Right. That's the role of the parent in that type of situation. So it's not that the parent needs to be uninvolved. It's that the parent needs to not be calling the coach in that particular situation.

Yeah, no, I. Absolutely. I think that the parent plays a really important role. And I think that role, which we joked about earlier with my parents too, is like, oh, thank God you're someone else's problem now. Like, their role is to be my parent, which was hard to do when we were competing as juniors because they're paying the bills, they're driving, they're spending the hours in the car. They're, you know, and so any normal parent is going to have a tough time separating the two. The few that make it with parents like that, it's incredible what they're able to do. So it's really a great opportunity for both sides for the parent to now step back and really enjoy the competition and not have to deal with all the in and out problems of the day to day. But 100%, and that's part of what my business is about, is like, I might be talking to a parent about how to help their kid as opposed to, you know, so I don't just do college placement, but it might be okay. They might call me and say, hey, like, my kid's calling me every day crying, because this, this and this. And, and again, I think often, you know, it's, it's kid. If you sat down or if you talk, if you have the kid talk to the coach, there are usually, unless the coach is just a jerk, which happens sometimes, good reasons and that. Okay, well, do you remember, like the last three weeks you didn't show up with your jump rope and like, you know, yeah, those are little things that are going to add up and everything. If you're equal in every other way, no different than going for a job interview and you're dressed sharp and the other person's not, but everything else is equal, you're likely to not get that job because the other person was dressed more appropriately. Like, that's the way the world works. So it might not be, oh, your forehand's no good, or you're, you're not, you know, it could be nothing to do with, on court stuff or your, maybe your behavior, you're chucking your racket in practice every day, you know, and you know, you got to own it a little bit. And I think sometimes if the parents get involved right away, you're not, you're not even getting the chance to own it, which is an important skill to be able to say it. You know what. And you know, the kids that I've had success with, every single one, literally is like, oh my God, like, I was a nightmare. And like, thank you for not like putting, you know, like, and those stories are so funny now. And those, all those kids I do talk to all the time, you know, and I think we talked about this. Two of my favorite kids I coached in 11 years worth, like three and 16. At six, they were not killing it. Right. No one tried harder, you know, and as a coach, unless again, you're just a complete jerk, you can't not love that kid. I don't care if they're winning. How can you not love a kid that's running through the fence to try to get a ball back? Like, you gotta appreciate that, right?

Of course. Let's look at another situation. Let's look at a situation where a player is having an issue with another player on the team. What is the best way to handle that type of situation?

Again, I think a little bit depends on what issue. But most often I would say again, it would be similar to what I'm saying with the coach is like to. To confront them again, how you confront them. And I think an important thing that, that, that I learned over the years was, you know, doing personality tests, right? So my personality, if you come at me, it's like, I'm like, right. I react. Right. I've worked on it many years, but I think it's still in there a little bit. And so that's not the best way to resolve a problem. Like, I need. Even with coaching, since I was a kid, I needed a coach that, like, tricked me into thinking like, that. They weren't making me run, but they tricked me into making me run. I don't know. That's what a good coach figures out and how to motivate. And kids need different types of motivation. So I think, like, I had an. I have an example. I remember from my 11 years where, you know, my 1 and 2 are really competitive, but my 1 was outwardly competitive. Like, there was no question my number two was sort of that quiet competitive. But whenever they played practice sets and things, they played a lot because they were quite a bit better than the rest of the team. They needed to play each other a lot. Plus, small team, you end up playing each other all the time. She struggled a lot competing because the other player was so outwardly competitive. And it got under her skin. I can. So I spent a lot of time on the. In the office or on the phone with her, helping her. I'm like, you need to confront it, like, and say, look, like, I really admire your competitiveness, and I think you're such a big part of why this team is having more success. But is there a way we can find, Is there common ground we can find when we compete that will also allow me to bring out my best? Because at the end of the day, if I'm Winning. And you're winning. We're pretty close to winning those matches. And, you know, again, it's so much how you communicate, which guaranteed. When I was in school, there was no way that was how I was having a conversation.

Yeah.

But my team, too, I think we were a little bit more like the stereotype. Like, guys, we could, like, rip each other and then walk off the court and have lunch and be like. But that's not that common. And it wasn't always like that. My mom's like, oh, I remember some. And I'm like, oh, really? I feel like that we just like, oh, maybe not. But, you know, I think conflict resolution skills, meaning that might be something that would be a great thing to add into the curriculum for a program, is, okay, this is how we're going to handle conflict. And that way you have, like, a roadmap a little bit, and it's expected. Because I feel like my teams that had the most success, I didn't even know about the problem. They just handled it. They handled it, you know, And I found out later, I'm like, oh, man, I had no idea. But they, like, took ownership and they were like, we're gonna. And you know, I was. And that's the team that had. You're gonna have a lot more success when that's how you deal with things. As opposed to one kid comes to me. I had a kid come in my early years and say, so. And so was out last night and got so drunk and threw up everywhere. And I was like, you gotta get out of here. Like, granted, if we have an alcohol problem, like, where someone's going out and that's. We need to deal with that in a different way. But it is college. It's your first few weeks. This kid definitely made some bad decisions, but this wasn't a pattern, at least at the moment. So I said, don't come rat on your teammate. Like, that's not gonna bode well for team cohesiveness. Now, again, if there's a legit problem, obviously we. That's a different conversation. So it was kind of funny because this girl, another one that I'm still very good friends with, we joke about it now, and she's like. She just was trying to, like, get in good with me. Right, Right. And I'm like, that's not how it's going to work here, you know?

Yeah. All right, let's look at another situation. Let's look at a situation where a coach is playing favorites on a team and playing favorites so much that the Other or some of the other members of the team feeling borderline abused. You know, where they're, they're not being treated fairly in terms of opportunities for private practices or lessons with the coach. They're not being treated the same when they're on the road. You know, maybe this, this favorited player is, is getting to meet boosters and the rest of the team isn't or whatever the case may be. You know, we know lots of situations like that that have come up over the years, unfortunately. What happens then? What do the players or player or players who are feeling slighted, what's their course of action there?

That's a tough one. And I've been on both sides of this as a coach and you know, and, and I've been in meetings about this as a coach. It is super difficult because I guess it depends on how you define favorites. Like I said, two kids that barely won for me are two of my favorites, right? Like, and that was based on just their effort level and their attitude, not winning. So I think if it's based on like that word's a tough one because if it's based on kids that win and don't win, that's completely a problem. Like, because if I'm doing everything I can to win and I'm losing, you recruited me most of the time, maybe I was a, came from a different coach, whatever. But Dan Day, I'm on your team and I'm doing everything I can and not winning. And then you're not one of my favorites because you're not winning. That's a big problem. This is a loaded question. So I think it's really tough because if you look at like a football team, your third string quarterback's not getting the same attention from the head quarterback coaches as the, the head lead quarterback, whatever you call them, right? Just there's only 20 hours in a week. So if you have carried 10 players and you can do 20 hours a week and you're doing privates and individuals and you know, you hope you have a great assistant coach that can coach as well at a high level. But are you going to spend the same time all the time on kids that you know aren't in the lineup? Walk on that. You know, it's like it's really difficult with the limitations on coaching staff to player. So I think, I guess the first question I would ask any players with that issue is like what do you feel like you're not getting that my favorite players are getting. And number one, let's see if we can talk through it. So maybe it's individuals. And if that's the case, I think when I've had things like that come up, I've tried to move it around a little bit, but it's super hard because again, in tennis, you have all six matches going at the same time. Right. The reality is, as a coach, you do have certain players that your coaching works better with. And my assistant is way better with that kid. And sometimes it's random, or sometimes, you know, the kids with more of my mentality, which, again, if I could go back in time and get a little better at this, I would. But it's like, well, this kid's not buying into my. What I think should be happening out here, you know? And so if I'm on the top court, does that mean they're my favorite? I mean, I'm gonna go in the courts I think I can impact the most. And over the year, it's going to generally be a lot of the same kids, because you're gonna figure out through the practices and things, okay, well, these kids definitely love how my assistant's handling them, and. Awesome, you know, but at the end of the day, there's two of us and there's six them of courts going.

And.

And I said, don't think of it all the time as favorite. Like, my goal as a coach, which I try to share with the teams all the time early on is freshman year, sophomore year, I'm going to be dealing with you a lot. Hopefully by your senior year. I'm not. Like, you're on your own, like, other problems to deal with. Like, you should already know how to play and, like, handle yourself, you know, and that's ideally the kind of culture I think a good team has is that number one player is not mad at me because I'm not on their court. It's actually. It's. It's. It's actually a. What do you call it? Like, it's a compliment.

Right. Kind of an honor.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.

But let's take this one step further, Tina. Let's take it to a place where not only is this kid not the coach's favorite, but the coach is actually saying things and, And. And making the player feel bad. So things like. I mean, we've heard of situations where coaches will say, you know, you've put on too much weight.

You're.

You're too fat. You know, you. You need to run more. Why are you eating that? You know, those kinds of issues. What's the protocol? What is the player to do. What are the parents to do in a situation like that that that can and often does call real cause real emotional upset and even long term emotional damage.

Yeah. I mean I'm blown away sometimes when I hear about coaches talking about players weights.

But it happens, it happens.

Like I'm amazing.

Not just to females, it happens to men too.

Yeah, yeah. I mean that's so off, off limits in my world of 11 years. I mean if there's anything like that going on, I mean that's a conversation I often have with the strength coach. Like how can we implement things that are going to. Because again, if you have eight kids lifting exactly the same, my body type and your body type aren't the same. The way I'm going to react is not necessarily the way you're going to react. So you're getting all these great results and I'm not. And what's going on and so that comes into play is like, how can we individualize things a little bit? Or at some of the bigger schools is that we had more resources. So a nutritionist, like, you know, the first question would be like, how are you sleeping? Are you getting enough sleep? Like, because, you know, that was an issue at a lot of schools. Like these kids would stay up till three in the morning studying and they have a match in the morning. And I'm like, it's a tough one because obviously we, you know, I was fortunate. I think everywhere I was, my kids were top one or two every semester, gpa. But it's like, where do you draw the line like that? You can't study past midnight when we have a match 8am or 9am and so how do you really monitor that?

But I'm talking more about not a coach like you, but a coach not like you who is employing these types of tactics to shame a player into making changes or shame a player into quitting the team, which we've heard those stories too. What are the proper channels for that player to then go through?

We have to go to the coach's boss, so the athletic director for that sport. And do what? And tell them what's going on. And again, I think in a good system then you have to be willing to sit with the coach and that boss and say, okay, well on Thursday you told me I couldn't run fast because I'm fat like, or whatever. That's not funny. But it's crazy that that would happen. I know it does, but it surprises me just because I feel like in my 11 years how much things have changed. And how careful it was made very clear how careful we needed to be about our language around especially things like that and especially on women's teams. Not to say, like you said, it doesn't happen on men's teams. So that just blows me away. But yeah, I know plenty of stories that I was like, if I even like whispered that I'd be like on the streets begging for food, I would lose my job. That's how I felt. Right. So I think you have to go to the person above the coach and say, look, I didn't go to the coach because clearly this isn't a topic that I felt comfortable sitting with him or her and discussing when I mean with the content of what this is. And again, I do think with a good supervisor, you need to then be willing to have a three way meeting and say, look, this is what happened. And if you do need to, you might potentially need to pull players in because they're witnessing some of this and to find out really again what the truth is. Because I think sometimes I've had kids in 11 years say I threaten their scholarship. I've never said to a kid, I'm gonna take your scholarship if you don't. But that's how the perception or that's how they perceived what I did or said. So often it's, you know, again, a communication thing where, whoa, I would never, like I was just saying like, you know, this is the expectation, you know, this is how we expect, you know, this is a scary one too. Or the summer, like of course the division one athlete expect them to train over the summer so they don't come back and haven't hit a ball in three months and then they get injured two weeks in because. But you have to be really careful with that language. So I think that's where that third person becomes very important because it's going to clean up the truth a little bit as to what really happened. Now again, if it's straight up, hey, you're fat and you're like, there's really not a whole lot to discuss other than that coach needs to really be held accountable. And I think for something like that, it needs to be pretty serious because we all know, I mean, when I studied this 25 years ago, I think 60% of female athletes had an eating disorder in college. So I mean, it's not a joke. And it's certainly something that's long lasting potentially forever in your life. And at the end of the day, this is, it's a sport like it's not supposed to create problems for you for the rest of your life. Right.

I mean, and let's be clear. You know, you talked about bringing other players, team members into the conversation with the coach, with the athletic director. You know, there are going to be cases where team members are scared of repercussions, you know, against them personally. So they're not going to be willing to necessarily speak up. And maybe it's somebody that, you know, the person, the player being filing the complaint, maybe, let's say playing at line three or four, they want the team member that's number seven on the team to speak out against them. But number seven sees this maybe as an opportunity to get in the lineup. So, I mean, there's so much going on, you know, that we have to think about these things. Nobody wants to talk about it because it's ugly and it's gross, and we don't want to think that people think this way, but they do. And, you know, again, this whole notion of where do the parents come in with stuff like this, Obviously, again, you know, you're advising that the player go to the athletic director to say, hey, I'm having this issue. I need some help navigating through that. But it's not time to bring a parent in at that stage of the game. But let's say that the athletic director says, you know, sorry, there's nothing I can do. That's between you and the coach. Then is it appropriate for a parent to get involved? I mean, you feel really helpless when your kids on a campus and you're not there with them.

Yeah, no, I think so. And I mean, I think another avenue, too, is compliance, because that's a place you can hurt an athletic department, honestly, like, is if they're breaking compliance rules. And part of compliance rules is conversations like this like that. That's not really compliant to talk about weight and, you know, specific. So I think if you're running into issues this kind of level or more, then you start talking about compliance. Well, like, you know, this is actually against NCAA rules. This is, you know, and it's helpful in that case, which a lot of tennis parents who are pretty educated have come to the table knowing is, like, read up on some of this stuff and know your rights a little bit. I mean, it's unfortunate because my gut is always like, gosh, like, I mean, athletic director should take care of this. This shouldn't go further than that. This should be, if I'm an AD and you're the coach, I'm sitting you down and be like, if I hear one more complaint, you know, or, I mean, again, depending on resources, have someone out at practices that's just sitting and listening and watching and. Or randomly showing up and, you know, find out, like, what's going on when no one's around.

Right. But again, the parents role at the beginning of this is to have the conversations with their student athlete, role play with them, offer some guidance, maybe read up on the NCAA rules, the compliance rules, look at the hierarchy at the particular school and understand kind of the chain of command and guide your child of first you go here, and if you don't get an answer that's acceptable, then you go to this person, and then, you know, go up the food chain. And then if nothing is working and your child is still experiencing that verbal, it's abuse. I mean, let's just call it abuse. It is abuse. If your child is experiencing that verbal abuse and not getting help from anybody at the university after going up the food chain, then it's appropriate for the parents to get involved. How? What does the parent do at that point?

Well, I think that the more important question is what is the end result you're looking for? Because if the situation's that bad and if you've already gone to the AD and they're not probably getting rid of that coach, it seems like they're protecting. So do you want to fight and fight and fight to keep your kid on a team where it doesn't seem like that is changing? Which is a really difficult thing because you feel like, why the hell should my kid have to leave a school that they love? Everything else about it, but that's the reality. And the only good news behind that is there's tons of great schools where you're gonna have a great experience. So it's not like, oh, my gosh, now I'm gonna have the worst life ever, you know, because I'm not staying here, though.

It feels like that in the moment.

I will say, oh, I'm sure. I mean, in my teammate who transferred senior year, that's a big year to transfer with one year left. But I know that she look. And so happy she did because she had a great experience where she got to play a ton and she was part of building UNC Chapel Hill, like, that was right before they became the powerhouse that they are. So she's sort of like that footprint. So, yeah, I think you have to that point start looking at, you know, again, look, we can talk about this in the corporate world. We can talk about, like, there are just places that are Toxic and, and you're not going to shut the business down. It's just, you know, all you can do is tell your truth and hopefully hope over time again, if it's systemic and you have another player the following year, that's, you know, at some point they're forced to do something about it. But the odds of it happening at the moment aren't very likely if you've already gone through all these channels and a whole lot hasn't been done. Yeah, it unfortunately, just part of, part of, unfortunately some people's experience and you know, the problem is, I think is you're going to have players usually, I mean, although I've seen some crazy teams but that say the coach is amazing. And like they, you know, you don't generally have the 100% team saying that the coach, you're going to have some kids say that's totally not true. We've read these stories in the New York Times about different basketball programs and whatever that you have other kids coming to bat for the coach. So then it's like the reality is you want to get your kid out of that toxic environment if that's the environment that they feel like they're in. You know, players that played a girl in particular who's on tour now played on A team, Division 1 that won national titles. I was shocked when she called me. She wanted some mentoring help on the tour and she was talking about how much she hated the coach. Like I was like, no way. Like I never would have guessed. And I know the coach and I'm like shocked because every indication I get is not that. So I was like, wow, you know, you never know what's really going on.

Right? Right. And I will say that like you said, you know, if the person, if the student athlete is in a toxic environment and the university is not going to change that environment for that student athlete, the options are to leave the team and stay on campus as a non student athlete, just a student, maybe play club tennis, maybe get involved in some other sport or activity on campus if that's, you know, important, or to transfer. And both are options. Both are good options. What's not a good option is to stay in a TAK toxic environment. Because especially if college tennis is the end of the journey for you. Right. You're not going on to play professional tennis. College tennis, is it. Why on earth would you subject yourself to a situation that's making you unhappy and miserable and you know, maybe gonna have long lasting effects on you? So I think it's really important the Parents role in all of this is to act as a sounding board, to act as an advice giver, to do your homework as the parent and understand the procedures in place, to understand the rules and laws in place and to guide your child and to help when they are struggling with a decision where they've gone through the proper channels. Nothing's changing. Making that final decision of what do I do? Do I stay? Suck it up. And if it's my senior year, maybe I'm just going to suck it up until I graduate. If it's my freshman sophomore year, do I really want to spend two or three more years dealing with this? Or maybe the coach is going to leave at the end of the season and just nobody's telling you that yet. So it's a tough call. But again, the role of the parent is to support the child, not to do the work for the child. And the university, we all understand, doesn't refer to them as children because in the university's mind, they are adults and student athletes. And we as parents have very little that we can do on behalf of our children once they are in college. So it's a tough one. But, Tina, you've now kind of morphed into this role of, like you said, mentoring these players. Talk to us a little bit more about this transition coach for athletes business that you've started and specifically what you're offering to these players.

Yeah, so it was kind of grown out of my last few years of collegiate coaching that I felt like these kids are just not having a great experience. And I feel like I didn't know how to fix it. And I think a lot of it was circled around stress, anxiety, you know, again, every day at Georgia when I was there wasn't perfect. But overall, I look back and like, right away I start smiling and laughing. And again, I'm thinking of the stories that had nothing to do with playing tennis, but, like, times we got in trouble or we showed up late and, you know, like, how do we distract the coach so that someone could sneak in the back door? And I was like, wow. Like, I felt like these kids are gonna leave here and not have any stories. And the stories, again, you don't go to college, or at least you learn quickly to go win national titles and have conversations. Like, I've never talked to my teammates about anything that we won ever. When we get together and, you know, one of my teammates lives here in Denver, and, you know, we're just talking about froze there, talking about, you know, just stupid things that college stories and and so I was like, how. How can I potentially be helpful to this, this clearly real issue? And of course, a lot of it, we joke, we say all the time, thank God we didn't have cell phones in college. And like, Snapchat and like, we'd all be in jail. No, we wouldn't be in jail. But, you know, my parents would not be so proud of all my decision making back in the day. So thankfully, there's no documentation of it. So there's a lot more stress around, you know, keeping up with everyone and keeping appearances. You know, we all. So many studies on how, you know, people make their life look perfect. And we all know everyone's life is not perfect. And. But when you look on their Facebook, they look like, you know, you strive, you want to be who they are. So when I left college coaching, I just started doing it, like, nonchalantly, just because I really enjoyed being able to help. And when I had a lot of feedback from student athletes I had over the 11 years, I didn't realize, like, anything else. Like, being a teacher, you find out that your third grade student still talks about you like, you're the teacher that changed their love for reading or whatever it might be. And you're like, whoa, I had no idea. And the reward of that was really, you know, what makes you do what you do. And I guess I was at a point now where a lot of my kids had graduated and gotten jobs, and again, they live all over the world and I started reconnecting with some of them. And, you know, my friend, I call her now Bridget, who, oh, my gosh, nightmare. She was a nightmare, like, fighting about everything with me, you know, and now she's, you know, she was working in New York and she's so into tennis development and, like, the research behind it and all the different stages and, like, she's so into it and so methodical. And now she lives in Italy because she wants a new experience. And, you know, when we get together and chat, whether it's in person or not, which we do a little bit of both, it's super cool to see her journey and to feel like, or not be told that I helped her on that journey or on that path because there was a moment where she's like, I'm going home. And she lived from. She's from South America, came from very modest means of, like, would have probably not been doing a whole lot of stuff if she had gone back then. This was when she was a sophomore in college. And now to see, like, her transformation in Every way. I mean, she was definitely not super into staying fit or cared too much. Like, she was making bad decisions left and right. And now she's like. Like a marathon runner. I'm like, who are you? I wouldn't want to get on a track with you anymore. So, you know, anyway, that's sort of where this idea came from. Like, well, maybe, you know, now that I'm out of it. Because once when you're in it, you can claim whatever, but there's always going to be some idea that you have some bias toward one side or the other. And the fact that I played collegiately and then coached and then did for a year work for a company helping play student athletes and felt like, okay, I feel like I have, like, the knowledge from all different sides. And even playing competitive golf, to preface, I never turned pro, but I did do Q school twice, and I did play one lpga. But I wouldn't walk around saying I played pro golf. That's, you know, But I gave it a good. Gave it a good shot.

It's way better than I ever did.

My parents just said I was postponing reality. You know, that's two immigrant parents. Like, what are you doing? So I felt like, okay, my experiences. And again, I think I've mentioned a few times, I don't look back and say, oh, I did everything right. And the kids that didn't like me or still don't like me, we're idiots. Like, I mean, there are a few. I might think that, and there's few. I wish I had made some decisions or had different conversations and have learned, you know, through trial and error. Like, oh, man. Like, maybe if I had tried this, you know, and I don't think I had the skill set to deal with everything at the time. You know, unfortunately, we. We get older and wiser, and sometimes it's too late to go back and fix some of those things. But that being said, I feel like now I can be more helpful for people even potentially speaking with a coach. Like, hey, you know, depending on the comfort level, obviously I would never reach out to a coach without the player knowing. But, like, hey, I've been talking to so and so, and I'm just trying to figure out what's going on because I know you well, or I've heard, you know, I've followed you for many years, and I know that this typically doesn't sound like maybe there's just a lack of communication or this is what she feels or he feels. And I have a feeling this is a Pretty fixable problem. So I just want to get your perspective, you know, because I think that happens often too. I've said, and I am maybe a little biased having coached for 11 years, that sometimes they're not. Coaches aren't given a fair chance to like, you know, you know, go straight or like I said, up to the parents or up to the ad and you're like, whoa, I didn't even know we had an issue, you know. And you know, you are dealing with a lot of kids and sometimes you do lose track of who's what, like even like academics. I. An example I could give is like, I didn't start practice every day and go housing school going like, we had two hours to get out. And you know, once in a while kids like, oh, I don't think coach cares about school. Like, what do you. We had the highest GPA in the school. Like, so I didn't really think that was something I needed to discuss. But to some kids, they felt like my not asking about it was me not caring about it, you know, and that's just a completely. Where no one's right or wrong. It's like, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize you wanted to be asked about. So those are the kind of things I think now that I'm out of it, I can see from more perspectives and kind of hopefully, you know, get these problems solved before they become huge problems. And again, there are going to be some that are way out of my wheelhouse that I'm like, yeah, not, not my territory, you know, that need to be dealt with other ways. But I do think, you know, and it's fun, it's fun to feel like, okay, you have a kid, freshman year is having all these issues and they finish and they had the best experience and they're like, I'm so glad I got through that rough patch. And most people are going to have a rough patch. You know, I don't really know any four year athletes that say every year was perfect. And it's almost impossible because between coaching changes and lineup changes and graduating kids and bringing new kids, I always joke my first two years at Georgia was like, my team I would take a bullet for. In my last years, I might have shot the bullet, you know, like, you know, the dynamics had changed and players had left and come and different relationships. So. And as long as you are, you know, you have to be okay going in knowing that. Right? Like, and that's part of it too, with players, like, you know, oh, well.

I think that's a big issue, Tina, because I think tennis and I can only speak to tennis because I don't know other sports like, I know tennis. We don't tell the truth all the time about what the expectation should be or what the experience is. Actually, you know, it's, it's that social media issue again, where we're only seeing the pretty parts out front. We're not seeing the soft underbelly of conflict and distress and, you know, days where you are sick or injured and having to navigate through that, or days or weeks where you have a tough academic schedule, maybe you have a bunch of exams or papers due and you still have to show up for your team and you still have to show up on match day, you know, with that same level of competitive spirit and drive. We don't talk about those things. And so I think we do a disservice to student athletes and to parents who have this expectation that college tennis is going to look a certain way. And when it doesn't look that way, they think it's a failure. And in reality, it's not a failure at all. It's part and parcel of the package. And we have to learn how to communicate better. We have to learn how to manage conflicts and resolve conflicts. And thank goodness there are people like you out there who can offer us kind of a reality check and some guidance on how to maneuver through these things. And that's why I really wanted to do this episode that this week, because we are starting to hear, well, not starting, but it seems like right now we've got a lot of things in the news that aren't so positive about college tennis. And I don't want college tennis to die. I want it to thrive and grow from all of these things that are coming out right now. Coaches have things to learn. Players have things to learn. Parents have things to learn. Recruiters have things to learn. Our governing bodies have things to learn. And we need to use this opportunity to do better and get better as a sport and as a collegiate sport, so that we are still here in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years. And so I really appreciate you coming on and being so straightforward with us this week. For those that are interested in getting more information on you or getting in contact with you, what's the best way to do that? And we will have that in the show notes as well.

Yes. So my webpage is Transition Coach for Athletes. So it's with the number four, so you don't spell it out. But I'm sure even if you just Google my Name, it will come up. I have a Facebook page for it as well, but should be pretty easy to track down. My number's been the same since the first cell phone I ever had. I refuse to give up my New York cell. But the other quick thing I wanted to say as well is, you know, make sure you listen to what you're hearing when you're in the recruiting process because there are times, oftentimes you hear, oh, you heard something about this coach. If there's enough grumbling about it and that's good, it doesn't make them good or bad.

It just might.

Like, you hear, this coach is not cool with missing practice or injuries or whatever it might be. Because on the flip side, coaches, I guarantee you any coach, coach, decent length of time will say, we all made that mistake with the player. Like, like we heard this player is difficult, blah, blah, blah. But their UTR is really high. And I'm like, ah, we'll fix her, you know, no problem. That boom, blows up the team and it's a nightmare. So I think just like you hire a junior coach, like I worked with Tony Falfox, Coach McEnroe, who for me was awesome because, like, I threw my racket and then he threw his racket and then we just stood there with no rackets. Like, that is not what every coach would do to handle a player like me. They make me run or they. That wouldn't have worked. He wasn't the best coach for player that needed someone to get on them and yell at him and blah, blah, blah. Some people need a little more of that. So just the same way, every college coach isn't going to be perfect for every player. And, you know, it just. You might not fit in that system. Some coaches, when I'm helping them with placement, are looking for players that hit the ball 500 miles an hour, 2 inches over the net every shot. You know you're not going to fit in that program. You know, that's not what they, they gravitate towards for right or wrong. That's just the way that coach likes to see things. So I think don't close your ears to all the things you hear because I think you hear a lot more than you sometimes are willing to admit or you block it out because you really like the school or you like sometimes even the colors. Like, you know.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's true.

Yeah.

Well, Tina, thank you again. Really appreciate your time. And I want to urge all of you listening or watching to check out the show notes for link links to Tina's website and how to contact her. That will be again on parentingaces.com and to all of you tuning in, thank you so much. We will catch you next time on Parenting. Aces.

Thanks.