For 38 years beginning in the fall of 1966, Dick Gould was the Stanford men's tennis coach. During that reign his teams won 17 NCAA team championships. For thirty-five years every four year member of the team earned at least one NCAA team championship ring. The most well recognized names from these teams being John McEnroe, who became #1 in the world in both singles and doubles, Mike and Bob Bryan, who are the current #1 in the world men’s doubles players.
In 2004, Gould retired as head coach but remains active on campus as the John L. Hinds, Director of Tennis.
SZ: You’ve said, “Great players have tremendous egos.” Through the years how did you manage these talented players with egos and keep them focused on the team goals?
Gould: When you say, ego’s I don’t want to mistake that, they had tremendous belief in themselves. As a coach I wanted to continually try to help players become better. To do that I had to continue to pump them up and help them feel good about themselves. It was hard for me to take a player who was already very cocky and had supreme belief in himself and try to bolster them. I felt one thing I was able to do well was to make the team part very important. It’s a very important lesson for them in life because they were going to be a part of a team eventually, whether in business later in life. If they couldn’t function on a team, if they couldn’t give up for the team, if they couldn’t sacrifice for the team, if they couldn’t make the team better, by what they do, if they couldn’t lead the team, they were not going to be effective with what they did later on. This is a really big thing for people who are involved in individual sports to learn.
I was with these players all the time three, four hours a day six days a week easy days, tough days, stressful days, all kinds of situations for most of the year and I really got to know them well. One of the beauties of coaching tennis is you can treat each player differently. My greatest strength as a coach is that I could be flexible with the team and the individual needs of my players.
When I first began coaching at Stanford my goal was to win a national championship within five years. I was so caught up in winning the national championship that I was not a good coach because I made that the team goal. There are so many other things you’ve got to do before you get there. Once I won the first championship in 1973, I became a much better coach because I didn’t care if I won another one, but we did. Then I stopped talking about winning national championships and I just started talking about trying to be sure that my players felt that they were improving individually. If you ask me for a blueprint for winning national championships I couldn’t give you a formula. Every year we did it differently, but I think that flexibility and adaptability as a coach is relevant.
I'd like to thank Coach Gould for taking the time to chat about his team philosophies and his many years of excellence as head coach at Stanford.
*Featured clients are not former nor current clients of Susan Zaro
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Alcemy of Excellence
Parents and juniors frequently ask me, “What skills and dedication is required to become a really great tennis player?” There are many paths to reaching the top tiers of junior and professional tennis. Nick Saviano, who is one of the leading developmental coaches and founder/director of Saviano High Performance Tennis Academy, in Plantation Florida, reflects on his formula for helping players achieve excellence.
Sz: What are the favorite parts of running a world class tennis training academy for players who aspire to compete at the collegiate and/or professional levels? Are all the players training at the academy striving to achieve the goal of collegiate or world class play?
NS: Virtually every student is a tournament player even in the early stages as young as 8-9 years old. They are all aspiring to play at least collegiate tennis. Most will play collegiate division 1 tennis others have a dream of playing world class tennis.
To understand what I enjoy most working with these young people, you have to understand my philosophy. My philosophy is that working with young people is a sacred trust. It’s a sacred trust to the children and it’s a sacred trust to the parents and you always have to honor that trust. In that context, what I enjoy the most is helping the young people learn the principles of striving for excellence and learning life skills that will help them through their lifetime. Tennis in this situation is the vehicle by which to do that. It’s a long process.
If you are out on the court and if you are just working on forehands and backhands and neglecting the bigger issues of work ethic, of appropriate preparation, of dealing with adversity, all those life skills that are required to strive for excellence, then you are missing the most rewarding part. So in a long winded way it’s teaching the young players how to strive for excellence. Educating them on that and then the enjoyment comes from seeing the growth and the relationship over the years, particularly as the kids get older and you can see there is a deep appreciation and understanding for the fact they know you never steered them wrong. That you never took advantage of them, and that you were always trying to make decisions in their best interest.
Sz: It must be incredibly gratifying at this stage in your career to see how many kids have come through your academy and experiencing that growth in relationship through the athletic process.
NS: Yes, it’s immensely gratifying. You take some players that, and I don’t profess to be the only person that’s worked with certain individuals, I don’t take ownership of young people or as they’ve grown into adults, or whatever, but people who I’ve had a significant influence and involvement over the years, when you see someone like Jim Courier whom I’ve known extremely well since he was fifteen and spent time with him, and traveled with him starting when he was fifteen. I spent fifteen weeks on the road with him when he was seventeen and remained close through out his career. He was gracious enough during his induction into the Tennis Hall of Fame to fly my wife and I up to the induction ceremony. And now he is the Davis Cup Captain. It’s neat to see the cycle. I’ve maintained close relationships with a whole host of other player’s through-out their careers as well.
Sz: Tennis is a great sport for individuals. The sport promotes an environment of making decisions for oneself and owning responsibility for the outcome. This is both the beauty and the challenge of playing tennis. It’s not unusual for developing juniors, particularly teens and professional player’s to hit ebbs and flows of confidence and motivation. At times breaking through to new levels of skill and achievement take longer than anticipated. What types of strategies have you found useful for players when progress becomes stuck and the confidence and motivation in their game falters?
NS: If progress is stagnating that’s a red flag and there is a reason. Progress should not stagnate. If it does something needs to be addressed. In my opinion healthy goal setting is predicated with far more emphasis on performance goals as opposed to the outcome goals and therefore if the goals are working properly you should see good and steady progress. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but it should not stagnate. If it is, then you look at; is the training appropriate, is there something going on in their personal life, are they fatigued? Whatever it is the onus is on the coach when he sees that progress is not developing at a healthy rate.
Sz: Do you look at a player’s progress, statistically? How do you track the progression of a 12 year old girl who is competing in tournaments and doesn’t feel she is getting to a new level of ability?
NS: You can get lost in statistics. If someone is struggling with a stroke or something, that’s different. If you are talking about specific performance and how they are able to perform that skill I look at, is the player performing and competing well? Are their skills becoming more consistent? But I also focus more generally on what I see when they are performing in a competitive environment and also how they are performing skills when they are training.
I don’t have a definitive plan for saying okay if they aren’t progressing I’m going to chart this. If you are talking about someone struggling with the serve then that would be something you can get some empirical data on. You can then say okay you’re only getting 50% of your serves in. But then from my perspective, I would already know that based on what I’m seeing in training and so on. I would know whether they are making the type of progress I want. Also, progress sometimes doesn’t manifest itself in simply statistical form. A player could be making a certain amount of mistakes but the quality of what they are doing is much higher and they have to continue to refine what they are doing.
Sz: How do you help players notice their progress? Particularly when you notice that they have improved but they don’t notice the improvement because it isn’t translating into winning matches.
NS: You have to get the thought process on the right things. You have to clearly articulate what constitutes success. The success isn’t measured directly and the goal is not the winning. The winning is a by product of being successful over time. For example if I have someone who has improved their groundstrokes and I keep putting them in competition or practice against people with skills that are superior to them where they don’t have a chance to derive some competitive success or success in the drills, then I’m not doing a good job of developing them.
Sz: You put the player in a situation where the environment supports their skill levels and they can evaluate for themselves how they are progressing.
NS: It gives them part of the evaluation. For example you don’t want them going much below a 2-1 loss ratio. You want the player to stay within a 2-1, 3-1 win/loss ratio. If you have a child playing a tournament and they keep losing first round each week, I don’t care how well they are hitting the ball, I don’t care if it is Roger Federer, he’s going to run into trouble with his confidence and his development, and that’s an accomplished adult. Conversely with a player if their win/loss record is 5/6 to 1 they probably aren’t playing enough quality opponents. They aren’t learning the skill of being challenged and managing a losing situation. That is a part of the skill in developing a player. It’s all fine to practice with quote better players, but if that is in lieu of a person ever winning you are going to have a problem with that. This applies to the training skills of a young professional as much as it is a twelve year old.
Sz: Do you create this ratio by placing them in appropriate tournaments?
NS: Yes, and that’s a critical part of being a developmental coach. You have to be able to manage that with the parents, even when they are little tots just getting started. If you get a young child and you put him in any game and they have no perceived success for a length of time what is that kid going to do? They are going to quit and go play something else. Even when they are little munchkins you’ve got to allow the player to have some success. You have to create environments where they experience an amount of perceived success in order to psychologically feel good about what they are doing. Otherwise, it gets discouraging for them or any of us, who wouldn’t be discouraged?
Sz: Competitive juniors spend an abundant amount of time with their parents being driven to practices, tournaments etc. Normal teen development shifts towards behavioral independence, spending more time with peers; pushing further out to explore the world independently. What role shifts are important for parents to remain involved, supportive yet respectful of the developmental stages of a child athlete?
NS: I think it’s consistent with the increase of independence and decision making that they would give their child in a normal developmental environment. A parent obviously is not going to allow a nine year old to make a tremendous amount of decisions on their own. They should be allowed to make some decisions but not a great deal. When the child is 14 or 15 years old they should be allowed to make far more decisions and a little more independence and it moves progressively. The key is you want the young person to cultivate a sense of ownership of what they are doing and take increased responsibility. So it’s a progression that varies with circumstances of where someone lives, their background, their cultural background and so on. But I think it should to great extent mirror the natural developmental process and parental decisions that one would make whether they participate in a sport or not.
Sz: Do you find tennis parents, in a protective way more engaged in the decision making process? Or are your programs designed to address this?
NS: In our program the parents are part of the developmental team period. In tennis given the extraordinary amount of time that parents spend, the profound impact that any parent has on their child’s overall development, you have to realize that they are a part of the developmental team in order to effectively cultivate the skills and the talents of the young person.
By including the parents as part of the team you have discussions with them and you go over even basic things about how they are going to deal with a child’s wins and losses. You need to understand their basic philosophies, what’s their plan, what’s their emphasis? The parental role always must be respected. My feedback to parents is that they should emphasize to their children, the life skills and the life principles that are congruent with their personal philosophies, work ethic, sportsmanship, preparation, all that those basics. The parent needs to make it clear to their kids that they demand certain things, not necessarily results, but they demand effort, commitment etc., in order to allow them to continue with the privilege of playing tennis.
Sz: How do you prepare parents to deal with their child’s wins and losses? Is this part of the program that the parent receives in the overall development plan of the player?
NS: It’s a mutual thing. If the child loses and the parent is frustrated, whenever you discuss with them certain things that you think are really critical, I explain in advance, “look your child seems to be getting upset, or anxious here, here’s what I am picking up, these are some of my suggestions for this situation. This is how I would handle it, and this is how I think we should handle it.”
Sz: So you are interacting directly with the parent around these issues?
NS: Yes, absolutely.
Sz: Nick, in your article “Developing World Class Fundamentals” you mention, “every young aspiring player should balance his time striking tennis balls with other activities that promote his or her athletic development. How essential do you feel it is for players to participate in multiple sport activities as an integral part of their athletic development?
NS: There are different forms of other sport activities. There are formalized and informal. It varies significantly with various players. There isn’t a specific answer. Between the ages of 7-12 years old that rough area is a huge window for an athlete’s development. During this time the player should be doing a lot of different athletic activities. Even if they are playing a great deal of tennis they should have some other athletic endeavors in order to cultivate and physically train in a lot of different ways, to develop their coordination, rhythm, timing and all those skills. That should be done a great deal during the younger ages and maintained through-out. Obviously as they get more serious about tennis the emphasis is more and more on striking the tennis ball, but I believe that they should be doing an hour a day of physical training in addition to the tennis. At the age of twelve for every couple of hours of tennis played the player should include 45 minutes to an hour of other activities a day.
Sz: Are you talking about sports like, soccer, basketball?
NS: Soccer, basketball or if they have a physical training program where they are doing core strength work. I believe that’s a critical part of the development.
Sz: Is this during the ages of 7-12?
NS: Yeah, it depends on how serious they are. You have to understand when we talk about 12 years old there is 12 and there is twelve. There are kids that are developing nice levels of junior tennis locally and there are players that at 11-12 their families have moved to warm weather climates and are making a complete commitment to their children to become world class players. I won’t try to quantify it in specific time but suffice to say that I don’t think somebody who is 10 years old should be playing four hours of tennis a day but I think that if they are playing a couple of hours a day that they need to be doing significant physical training in addition to tennis, in other areas.
Sz: Is this weight bearing or non weight bearing activities?
NS: Agility, timing, rhythm, coordination, it could be juggling, it could be jumping rope, it could be dance, it could be yoga, it could be core strength work, or basketball, soccer etc. You will be hard pressed to find any player in the top 10 in the world or the top 20 in the world, currently, that wasn’t actively involved in a lot of athletic endeavors whether formal or informal training in other sports during their early years. You just won’t find them.
Sz: Was Maria Sharapova involved in other sports?
NS: She was extremely involved in physical training at a young age.
Sz: Distraction and concentration strategies, positive competitive focus, positive inner dialogue, imagery, managing emotional energy etc. are basic mental skills training tools. Mental skills training is frequently on the low end of a player’s “to do” list. How do you explain the value of mental skills training to player’s and parents so it doesn’t get left off in the training process?
NS: It should be an active part of every training session.
Sz: On-court and off-court?
NS: It should be an active part of every training session. In other words you talk with the player on the court. You talk with them off the court. The whole mental approach to training, everyday the player trains you’ve got to be cultivating the proper approach to competing. Striving for excellence, is asking, what are you doing, are you focused, are you playing at 100% intensity, are you distracted by your parents being here? It’s ongoing in day to day training and also there should be talks and literature especially for the parents. I find that really speaking with the parents becomes critical.
Sz: How do you do that? Do you hold private sessions with the parents?
NS: Not necessarily. I will if there is a problem. But it’s consistent discussions with parents either in groups or with their child or just in casual conversations on the side of the court.
Sz: Do the player’s engage in formalized mental training? Visualization, writing in journals etc?
NS: Yes, I have a lot of the players do visualization. They write out goals. They focus on certain things on the court. We give them literature to read. We give the parents literature to read that kind of thing.
Sz: So, let’s say a player is becoming frustrated on the court and they are yelling or doing something that’s unproductive, specifically, do you teach them breathing techniques and some of the standardized things, like focusing on their strings, tying their shoe, taking a breath and brushing off distractions?
NS: Yes, also when someone is yelling, we don’t allow that disruption. If a player is having trouble controlling their emotions there are two ways to address it, one, to give them tools to help address the symptoms of the issue and then you have to make sure you are constantly discussing the core reasons for the issue.
Sz: Who are some of the people over the years that have significantly influenced your coaching philosophies? In what ways have they influenced your philosophy of coaching?
NS: There are a lot of people over the years. There were coaches, like Poncho Segura, who was a great help in learning strategy and tactics. Other people were brilliant technicians. I’ve enjoyed such an unusual and unique background progressing from playing juniors, to playing college tennis at Stanford, to playing world class tennis on the tour for nine years, after playing competitive tennis, coaching privately, then becoming a national U.S.T.A. coach for five years, then director of men’s coaching and coaching education at the U.S.T.A. I’ve interacted with literally thousands of coaches over the years. There are so many people that I’ve grown from and been influenced by I couldn’t possibly narrow it down to one or two.
Sz: What an amazing career so far.
NS: I feel like I’ve really been blessed. I wake up everyday and genuinely give thanks for the blessing of being able to be healthy, and just doing something that I’m enjoying. I work extremely hard, and people don’t realize how much work and effort goes into it. I share with the players, my mistakes and try to use myself as an example. I share with them, “look it’s not easy,” and if you go into things thinking or expecting it to be easy, you’re missing the point. If you are striving for excellence by virtue of doing that you must accept that there will be struggle because without struggle and the effort to expand yourself there is no excellence. If something comes without any kind of struggle or extraordinary effort then it’s not really that special. The nature of striving for excellence means you must be willing to rise above adversity and challenges, frustrations, and all of the stuff that comes with it.
I tell the players, I love what I do. I am still passionate about it. But believe me there are days when it’s not easy. So you educate them in that way. It’s a slow process and they learn it’s gratifying. There is a young man who first came to work with us when he was 13 ½ and was 70 in the state of Florida. By the time he left the academy to attend Duke University on a full scholarship he had won 2 national boy’s 18 titles and reached as high as #2 in the nation. On a school break he came back to the academy to work out and I could see the maturity the growth in him and it was really good to see. It’s a lot of fun.
Sz: Do you have any favorite inspirational quotes that have guided you on your professional path?
NS: There are a few. One is from Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit.” Essentially it means, excellence is a learned skill.
The other one which I think is one of the most profound and simple statements about life and I use for the parents. “Enjoy the journey because the journey is the reward.” And it’s so much deeper than what it says. The journey is the reward the opportunity is today and today is what your life is today. You must grasp the moment and make the day the best you can.
Nick thank you for taking the time out of your incredibly busy schedule to chat with me and share your formula for success and excellence.
Nick Saviano is internationally recognized as one of the top developmental coaches and coaching educators in the sport of tennis. Over the past 24 years, he has coached and helped develop many male and female players who have gone on to become some of the best in the world including Grand Slam winners in both singles and doubles.
Nick can be reached through the Saviano High Performance Tennis Academy in
Plantation Florida.
www.savianotennis.com
*Featured guests are not former nor current clients of Susan Zaro
Sz: What are the favorite parts of running a world class tennis training academy for players who aspire to compete at the collegiate and/or professional levels? Are all the players training at the academy striving to achieve the goal of collegiate or world class play?
NS: Virtually every student is a tournament player even in the early stages as young as 8-9 years old. They are all aspiring to play at least collegiate tennis. Most will play collegiate division 1 tennis others have a dream of playing world class tennis.
To understand what I enjoy most working with these young people, you have to understand my philosophy. My philosophy is that working with young people is a sacred trust. It’s a sacred trust to the children and it’s a sacred trust to the parents and you always have to honor that trust. In that context, what I enjoy the most is helping the young people learn the principles of striving for excellence and learning life skills that will help them through their lifetime. Tennis in this situation is the vehicle by which to do that. It’s a long process.
If you are out on the court and if you are just working on forehands and backhands and neglecting the bigger issues of work ethic, of appropriate preparation, of dealing with adversity, all those life skills that are required to strive for excellence, then you are missing the most rewarding part. So in a long winded way it’s teaching the young players how to strive for excellence. Educating them on that and then the enjoyment comes from seeing the growth and the relationship over the years, particularly as the kids get older and you can see there is a deep appreciation and understanding for the fact they know you never steered them wrong. That you never took advantage of them, and that you were always trying to make decisions in their best interest.
Sz: It must be incredibly gratifying at this stage in your career to see how many kids have come through your academy and experiencing that growth in relationship through the athletic process.
NS: Yes, it’s immensely gratifying. You take some players that, and I don’t profess to be the only person that’s worked with certain individuals, I don’t take ownership of young people or as they’ve grown into adults, or whatever, but people who I’ve had a significant influence and involvement over the years, when you see someone like Jim Courier whom I’ve known extremely well since he was fifteen and spent time with him, and traveled with him starting when he was fifteen. I spent fifteen weeks on the road with him when he was seventeen and remained close through out his career. He was gracious enough during his induction into the Tennis Hall of Fame to fly my wife and I up to the induction ceremony. And now he is the Davis Cup Captain. It’s neat to see the cycle. I’ve maintained close relationships with a whole host of other player’s through-out their careers as well.
Sz: Tennis is a great sport for individuals. The sport promotes an environment of making decisions for oneself and owning responsibility for the outcome. This is both the beauty and the challenge of playing tennis. It’s not unusual for developing juniors, particularly teens and professional player’s to hit ebbs and flows of confidence and motivation. At times breaking through to new levels of skill and achievement take longer than anticipated. What types of strategies have you found useful for players when progress becomes stuck and the confidence and motivation in their game falters?
NS: If progress is stagnating that’s a red flag and there is a reason. Progress should not stagnate. If it does something needs to be addressed. In my opinion healthy goal setting is predicated with far more emphasis on performance goals as opposed to the outcome goals and therefore if the goals are working properly you should see good and steady progress. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but it should not stagnate. If it is, then you look at; is the training appropriate, is there something going on in their personal life, are they fatigued? Whatever it is the onus is on the coach when he sees that progress is not developing at a healthy rate.
Sz: Do you look at a player’s progress, statistically? How do you track the progression of a 12 year old girl who is competing in tournaments and doesn’t feel she is getting to a new level of ability?
NS: You can get lost in statistics. If someone is struggling with a stroke or something, that’s different. If you are talking about specific performance and how they are able to perform that skill I look at, is the player performing and competing well? Are their skills becoming more consistent? But I also focus more generally on what I see when they are performing in a competitive environment and also how they are performing skills when they are training.
I don’t have a definitive plan for saying okay if they aren’t progressing I’m going to chart this. If you are talking about someone struggling with the serve then that would be something you can get some empirical data on. You can then say okay you’re only getting 50% of your serves in. But then from my perspective, I would already know that based on what I’m seeing in training and so on. I would know whether they are making the type of progress I want. Also, progress sometimes doesn’t manifest itself in simply statistical form. A player could be making a certain amount of mistakes but the quality of what they are doing is much higher and they have to continue to refine what they are doing.
Sz: How do you help players notice their progress? Particularly when you notice that they have improved but they don’t notice the improvement because it isn’t translating into winning matches.
NS: You have to get the thought process on the right things. You have to clearly articulate what constitutes success. The success isn’t measured directly and the goal is not the winning. The winning is a by product of being successful over time. For example if I have someone who has improved their groundstrokes and I keep putting them in competition or practice against people with skills that are superior to them where they don’t have a chance to derive some competitive success or success in the drills, then I’m not doing a good job of developing them.
Sz: You put the player in a situation where the environment supports their skill levels and they can evaluate for themselves how they are progressing.
NS: It gives them part of the evaluation. For example you don’t want them going much below a 2-1 loss ratio. You want the player to stay within a 2-1, 3-1 win/loss ratio. If you have a child playing a tournament and they keep losing first round each week, I don’t care how well they are hitting the ball, I don’t care if it is Roger Federer, he’s going to run into trouble with his confidence and his development, and that’s an accomplished adult. Conversely with a player if their win/loss record is 5/6 to 1 they probably aren’t playing enough quality opponents. They aren’t learning the skill of being challenged and managing a losing situation. That is a part of the skill in developing a player. It’s all fine to practice with quote better players, but if that is in lieu of a person ever winning you are going to have a problem with that. This applies to the training skills of a young professional as much as it is a twelve year old.
Sz: Do you create this ratio by placing them in appropriate tournaments?
NS: Yes, and that’s a critical part of being a developmental coach. You have to be able to manage that with the parents, even when they are little tots just getting started. If you get a young child and you put him in any game and they have no perceived success for a length of time what is that kid going to do? They are going to quit and go play something else. Even when they are little munchkins you’ve got to allow the player to have some success. You have to create environments where they experience an amount of perceived success in order to psychologically feel good about what they are doing. Otherwise, it gets discouraging for them or any of us, who wouldn’t be discouraged?
Sz: Competitive juniors spend an abundant amount of time with their parents being driven to practices, tournaments etc. Normal teen development shifts towards behavioral independence, spending more time with peers; pushing further out to explore the world independently. What role shifts are important for parents to remain involved, supportive yet respectful of the developmental stages of a child athlete?
NS: I think it’s consistent with the increase of independence and decision making that they would give their child in a normal developmental environment. A parent obviously is not going to allow a nine year old to make a tremendous amount of decisions on their own. They should be allowed to make some decisions but not a great deal. When the child is 14 or 15 years old they should be allowed to make far more decisions and a little more independence and it moves progressively. The key is you want the young person to cultivate a sense of ownership of what they are doing and take increased responsibility. So it’s a progression that varies with circumstances of where someone lives, their background, their cultural background and so on. But I think it should to great extent mirror the natural developmental process and parental decisions that one would make whether they participate in a sport or not.
Sz: Do you find tennis parents, in a protective way more engaged in the decision making process? Or are your programs designed to address this?
NS: In our program the parents are part of the developmental team period. In tennis given the extraordinary amount of time that parents spend, the profound impact that any parent has on their child’s overall development, you have to realize that they are a part of the developmental team in order to effectively cultivate the skills and the talents of the young person.
By including the parents as part of the team you have discussions with them and you go over even basic things about how they are going to deal with a child’s wins and losses. You need to understand their basic philosophies, what’s their plan, what’s their emphasis? The parental role always must be respected. My feedback to parents is that they should emphasize to their children, the life skills and the life principles that are congruent with their personal philosophies, work ethic, sportsmanship, preparation, all that those basics. The parent needs to make it clear to their kids that they demand certain things, not necessarily results, but they demand effort, commitment etc., in order to allow them to continue with the privilege of playing tennis.
Sz: How do you prepare parents to deal with their child’s wins and losses? Is this part of the program that the parent receives in the overall development plan of the player?
NS: It’s a mutual thing. If the child loses and the parent is frustrated, whenever you discuss with them certain things that you think are really critical, I explain in advance, “look your child seems to be getting upset, or anxious here, here’s what I am picking up, these are some of my suggestions for this situation. This is how I would handle it, and this is how I think we should handle it.”
Sz: So you are interacting directly with the parent around these issues?
NS: Yes, absolutely.
Sz: Nick, in your article “Developing World Class Fundamentals” you mention, “every young aspiring player should balance his time striking tennis balls with other activities that promote his or her athletic development. How essential do you feel it is for players to participate in multiple sport activities as an integral part of their athletic development?
NS: There are different forms of other sport activities. There are formalized and informal. It varies significantly with various players. There isn’t a specific answer. Between the ages of 7-12 years old that rough area is a huge window for an athlete’s development. During this time the player should be doing a lot of different athletic activities. Even if they are playing a great deal of tennis they should have some other athletic endeavors in order to cultivate and physically train in a lot of different ways, to develop their coordination, rhythm, timing and all those skills. That should be done a great deal during the younger ages and maintained through-out. Obviously as they get more serious about tennis the emphasis is more and more on striking the tennis ball, but I believe that they should be doing an hour a day of physical training in addition to the tennis. At the age of twelve for every couple of hours of tennis played the player should include 45 minutes to an hour of other activities a day.
Sz: Are you talking about sports like, soccer, basketball?
NS: Soccer, basketball or if they have a physical training program where they are doing core strength work. I believe that’s a critical part of the development.
Sz: Is this during the ages of 7-12?
NS: Yeah, it depends on how serious they are. You have to understand when we talk about 12 years old there is 12 and there is twelve. There are kids that are developing nice levels of junior tennis locally and there are players that at 11-12 their families have moved to warm weather climates and are making a complete commitment to their children to become world class players. I won’t try to quantify it in specific time but suffice to say that I don’t think somebody who is 10 years old should be playing four hours of tennis a day but I think that if they are playing a couple of hours a day that they need to be doing significant physical training in addition to tennis, in other areas.
Sz: Is this weight bearing or non weight bearing activities?
NS: Agility, timing, rhythm, coordination, it could be juggling, it could be jumping rope, it could be dance, it could be yoga, it could be core strength work, or basketball, soccer etc. You will be hard pressed to find any player in the top 10 in the world or the top 20 in the world, currently, that wasn’t actively involved in a lot of athletic endeavors whether formal or informal training in other sports during their early years. You just won’t find them.
Sz: Was Maria Sharapova involved in other sports?
NS: She was extremely involved in physical training at a young age.
Sz: Distraction and concentration strategies, positive competitive focus, positive inner dialogue, imagery, managing emotional energy etc. are basic mental skills training tools. Mental skills training is frequently on the low end of a player’s “to do” list. How do you explain the value of mental skills training to player’s and parents so it doesn’t get left off in the training process?
NS: It should be an active part of every training session.
Sz: On-court and off-court?
NS: It should be an active part of every training session. In other words you talk with the player on the court. You talk with them off the court. The whole mental approach to training, everyday the player trains you’ve got to be cultivating the proper approach to competing. Striving for excellence, is asking, what are you doing, are you focused, are you playing at 100% intensity, are you distracted by your parents being here? It’s ongoing in day to day training and also there should be talks and literature especially for the parents. I find that really speaking with the parents becomes critical.
Sz: How do you do that? Do you hold private sessions with the parents?
NS: Not necessarily. I will if there is a problem. But it’s consistent discussions with parents either in groups or with their child or just in casual conversations on the side of the court.
Sz: Do the player’s engage in formalized mental training? Visualization, writing in journals etc?
NS: Yes, I have a lot of the players do visualization. They write out goals. They focus on certain things on the court. We give them literature to read. We give the parents literature to read that kind of thing.
Sz: So, let’s say a player is becoming frustrated on the court and they are yelling or doing something that’s unproductive, specifically, do you teach them breathing techniques and some of the standardized things, like focusing on their strings, tying their shoe, taking a breath and brushing off distractions?
NS: Yes, also when someone is yelling, we don’t allow that disruption. If a player is having trouble controlling their emotions there are two ways to address it, one, to give them tools to help address the symptoms of the issue and then you have to make sure you are constantly discussing the core reasons for the issue.
Sz: Who are some of the people over the years that have significantly influenced your coaching philosophies? In what ways have they influenced your philosophy of coaching?
NS: There are a lot of people over the years. There were coaches, like Poncho Segura, who was a great help in learning strategy and tactics. Other people were brilliant technicians. I’ve enjoyed such an unusual and unique background progressing from playing juniors, to playing college tennis at Stanford, to playing world class tennis on the tour for nine years, after playing competitive tennis, coaching privately, then becoming a national U.S.T.A. coach for five years, then director of men’s coaching and coaching education at the U.S.T.A. I’ve interacted with literally thousands of coaches over the years. There are so many people that I’ve grown from and been influenced by I couldn’t possibly narrow it down to one or two.
Sz: What an amazing career so far.
NS: I feel like I’ve really been blessed. I wake up everyday and genuinely give thanks for the blessing of being able to be healthy, and just doing something that I’m enjoying. I work extremely hard, and people don’t realize how much work and effort goes into it. I share with the players, my mistakes and try to use myself as an example. I share with them, “look it’s not easy,” and if you go into things thinking or expecting it to be easy, you’re missing the point. If you are striving for excellence by virtue of doing that you must accept that there will be struggle because without struggle and the effort to expand yourself there is no excellence. If something comes without any kind of struggle or extraordinary effort then it’s not really that special. The nature of striving for excellence means you must be willing to rise above adversity and challenges, frustrations, and all of the stuff that comes with it.
I tell the players, I love what I do. I am still passionate about it. But believe me there are days when it’s not easy. So you educate them in that way. It’s a slow process and they learn it’s gratifying. There is a young man who first came to work with us when he was 13 ½ and was 70 in the state of Florida. By the time he left the academy to attend Duke University on a full scholarship he had won 2 national boy’s 18 titles and reached as high as #2 in the nation. On a school break he came back to the academy to work out and I could see the maturity the growth in him and it was really good to see. It’s a lot of fun.
Sz: Do you have any favorite inspirational quotes that have guided you on your professional path?
NS: There are a few. One is from Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit.” Essentially it means, excellence is a learned skill.
The other one which I think is one of the most profound and simple statements about life and I use for the parents. “Enjoy the journey because the journey is the reward.” And it’s so much deeper than what it says. The journey is the reward the opportunity is today and today is what your life is today. You must grasp the moment and make the day the best you can.
Nick thank you for taking the time out of your incredibly busy schedule to chat with me and share your formula for success and excellence.
Nick Saviano is internationally recognized as one of the top developmental coaches and coaching educators in the sport of tennis. Over the past 24 years, he has coached and helped develop many male and female players who have gone on to become some of the best in the world including Grand Slam winners in both singles and doubles.
Nick can be reached through the Saviano High Performance Tennis Academy in
Plantation Florida.
www.savianotennis.com
*Featured guests are not former nor current clients of Susan Zaro
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