Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Tis the season. The season for Tennis

Sorry for the writing hiatus, but classes and practices have been back on for a week now, and I'll be blogging regularly as we have a jam packed season.  So, without further delay....here we go!

I have to start with this team.  WOW, what an incredible group of individuals who are really figuring out ways to come together as a team.  It was obvious that their off season was well spent as there is a visible strength and confidence you can see from the first day of practice.  So much of this is due to the great leadership of Jenna and Allie organizing the fall, making it fun but still allowing for the valuable time off that is built into D3 tennis.  This is overall the most talented and athletic group I've coached.  They are driven to succeed and mentally tough and if the fall is any indication of our trajectory, we're going to have a great ride this year.

We hit the ground running with one practice and fitness session before welcoming back longtime friend Morgan Shepherd for a 4 day workshop with the team.  Without giving away the details of what Morgan does blending somatic psychology and tennis while he works on publishing it, I will say it is subtle on some levels, but what I do know is that he's able to define and cultivate the key areas for players and teams to make significant improvements.  The team worked really hard over this time doing individual lessons, team practices and fitness all with a focus on implementing the core concepts Morgan introduced in the fall. 

One detail I can happily share is that the team voted on who contributed the most this week and Jana is our first Spring 2016 Whittie of the Week!  Jana is always ready and focused on improving her own game and after a semester in college, her teammates say she's opened up a bit and they love her personality - passionate, honest and fun loving, her effort and attitude earn her this weeks award. Congrats Jana!

On court, we're playing some great tennis and are very excited to open up our match schedule this Saturday at 3pm at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, WA. 

Coach John

Looking ahead:
Thanks to alums who have volunteered to participate in mentoring program, we are working on that!

Sun, Feb 7th - Home double header vs LCSC and U of Idaho

Fri Feb 12th-Sun Feb 14th Whitman Winter Classic with Trinity, Redlands, Linfield, Lewis and Clark

Fri Feb 19th - NWC kickoff in Portland vs Lewis and Clark