Evolution of Racquets Leadership feat. Craig Morris
Welcome to Racquet Fuel, where we launch into great conversations and share powerful tools to help you become a stronger Racquets Leader. Your hosts are Kim Bastable, a former All American Tennis player and now the Director of Tennis Management at the University of Florida. And Simon Gale, the USTA National Campus Director of Racquet Sports. In this episode, we'll hear updates and learn about initiatives of the US Tennis Association from its Chief Executive for Community Tennis, Craig Morris. Craig will share insights and plans about factors that influenced the director of Racquet Sports job, particularly hiring in a very challenging environment as the USTA strives to address the growth of tennis and racket sports in The US.
Episode Narration:Now, here's Kim and Simon.
Kim Bastable:Welcome to Racquet Fuel. I'm Kim Vestibol, and I'm here with my cohost, Simon Gale. Simon, how are you doing today?
Simon Gale:Fantastic. Excited to talk to one of my fellow Aussies today.
Kim Bastable:Simon and I are honored and thrilled to have with us today Craig Morris, USTA's chief executive community tennis. Craig is another Aussie, and if it seems like I like to hang around with people with accents, you would be right. But accent or not, The US is just very lucky to have Craig. I first heard Craig talk about his ideas for tennis in The US at a Tom Conference, and I'm gonna guess it was about seven or eight years ago. And I just found his enthusiasm engaging.
Kim Bastable:He's gonna help us today to understand the priorities and plans the USDA has in place to help leaders in the Racquets industry. So Craig, welcome. We are very glad to get to talk to you today.
Craig Morris:Thanks, Kim, and thanks, Simon. It's great to be with you both. Just wanted to start by saying kudos to you, Kim. The University of Florida director of Racquet Sports Program is the best in the country and we are thrilled to be able to support it. So I love the concept of this podcast.
Craig Morris:So really happy to be here and talk all things tennis.
Kim Bastable:Thank you. That's a wonderful, we appreciate that.
Simon Gale:Craig, I wanted to just, for those who don't know your journey to end up
Craig Morris:in The States, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about growing up in Australia, playing tennis, becoming a coach and how you ended up in a key industry leading position with the USDA? Well, it's certainly been a journey as a young Australian kid who grew up loving tennis and certainly playing tennis all the way through sort of junior competitions and tournaments and around Melbourne, Australia. I just loved the game. I was a good player without necessarily considering going on the tour from that component, but one of the natural evolutions that I did once I finished high school was obviously to go to university and I elected to take an education major. So I had aspirations on being a school teacher and certainly being committed to facilitating education from that point of view.
Craig Morris:So as a tennis player in my local club, the natural evolution was to support the club that I played at and gave many hours to then go into coaching. So I started coaching probably my last year of high school working under sort of the head pro at the local club that I was a member at. Then all the way through university, I was coaching tennis literally five, six days a week. So for all our pros out there that are listening, the hopper in the back of the car and opened it up and pulled it out and started at whatever time and finished through till eight or 09:00 at night. So I have an admiration for tennis pros having certainly done that through that process.
Craig Morris:Interesting enough, I then ended up my last year of university, I spent six months with a buddy of mine at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina in 1990, so it feels like another lifetime away. The school that I did my teaching experience with offered me a job as I graduated straight out, so I came back from North Carolina and started teaching. In the classroom. I was a grade five and six classroom teacher, all aspects. I just want to touch to the listeners on this one, Simon.
Craig Morris:When you've got 24, 28 kids in a classroom and you are trying to herd the cats, you've got different levels of competence, you know, you're dealing with parents. You know, I found teaching I taught for five years. I found teaching just a fantastic foundation for leadership, for shaping people's lives, as well as when you're dealing with classrooms and just like we do on court and in the UF course, you have different levels of competence, do you know what I mean, for these kids. Being able to facilitate a great environment for just them to be the best they can be is still a foundation that I fall upon even in the job that I'm in right now. Taught for five years.
Craig Morris:I was coaching tennis all the way through that. I was a volunteer at my local club. I ended up being the president or secretary, so certainly having, again, compassion for our volunteers out there as well that certainly are involved with local tennis clubs and facilities. Then after five years, I thought to myself, I'm looking for a little bit more from this. So I took twelve months off.
Craig Morris:I did a master's in sports business and continued to coach through that period of time. And then from there, decided I wanted to get my certification. During this period of time, probably for those five or six years, I was not certified at the club that I was at. So I went and did my certification during that year where I was studying and was really fortunate enough to get the ducks of the course. I had there was an American girl, some listeners may know, Julia Scaringe, which I've got a feeling might have played at UF.
Craig Morris:Kim. We'll have to check that out.
Kim Bastable:I might have to look that up.
Craig Morris:Anyway, so she was coming to Australia for the summer and I just finished the course. The leader of the course, Doctor. Anne Quinn, who many of you know, well respected tennis person internationally and globally, connected with me and said, We love you to this American player who's looking for someone to help them out through the Australian summer. I did that and then we ended up doing some more work through Asia into the French Open juniors. During that time, Simon, there was a head women's coach role advertised at the Australian Institute of Sport.
Craig Morris:Many of our listeners would not know the AIS. It's the government funded high performance arm for developing champions both at the Olympic level and at the professional level. So I was fortunate enough to get that job. I spent six or seven years coaching then on the tour, coaching Australia's best junior female players, which involved Sam Stoza. And then after sort of three years at the IS, Tennis Australia asked me to go more on the tour to support Sam directly.
Craig Morris:I spent probably another three and a half years with Sam as her first touring coach. She was about three fifty, 400 when we started. When I finished at Wimbledon in 2004, she was I think about sixty, sixty five in the world. So just a fantastic sort of journey to that point. The next component then was my wife and I were starting a family.
Craig Morris:I didn't want to travel thirty, thirty five weeks of the year. And there was a role at Tennis Australia that had come up that was heading up coach education. And my background in school teaching, local club coaching, then into the high performance coaching arm of it was I felt a really great fit. So I was fortunate enough to get that role. So for a number of years, I ran coach education at Tennis Australia.
Craig Morris:That then led into Craig Tylee arriving. We'll talk about Craig shortly. But Craig Tylee moved into a role at Tennis Australia. He'd been NCAA division one coaching champion. They had set the Division one.
Craig Morris:They won the national championships. Craig moved down, so I ended up working really closely with Craig. And then through probably a period of eight or nine years, I worked and reported directly to Craig running coach education, then moving into play development, and then ultimately moving into participation and driving those three areas of the sport and really fortunate enough to work with Craig through that process. In that time, in roles at the Grand Slams, you tend to go to the other Grand Slams to listen and learn and to understand I've been coming to the US Open for a number of years and through that process started to have conversations with the leadership at the USDA and was fortunate enough then to be offered a role to move to Lake Nona or to Orlando when the facility opened here at the National Campus in getting engaged in driving participation from a USDA point of view. So really, hopefully I've condensed that a little bit, but the journey has really taken me from a local coach into the role I'm in.
Craig Morris:Loads of different types of experiences along that journey, volunteering, coaching, different levels, and obviously working at Tennis Australia. That's sort of where it landed here. So I feel very fortunate, very privileged. I tell people that I work for tennis first and foremost, and the opportunity to come to The US and to work for the US Tennis Association, but also ultimately work for tennis was something that that I I felt there was an opportunity that I wanted to to challenge myself with.
Kim Bastable:I appreciate that background. I think there's a lot of people, including myself, who would not know nearly that story, and it's super impressive, Craig. That's a great path, and obviously, we're benefiting from all of those different roles that you've had. It's, really impressive. So did you have it?
Kim Bastable:Maybe, Craig, who who are the mentors? We talk about mentors in our course. Who are the mentors or, you know, maybe singular that you really, you know because we never get where we're going in the future without people kinda leading us. So who would you say were your mentors?
Craig Morris:Yeah. So through my process, I'm gonna probably talk just about a couple if I can, Kim and Simon. The first one was Doctor. Ken Davis. Ken was a university lecturer that I had in Australia, and he was a fantastic high performance coach.
Craig Morris:He lectured our high performance course. Ken had actually, I know had spent some time at UF probably back in the 80s and I think he did either his PhD at University of Florida. But Ken came back and was really we struck up through being his role as a lecturer, a real friendship. He had a love for tennis. Obviously, I had a love for tennis, we'd often sort of play, talk tennis, talk international, talk sport.
Craig Morris:And Ken was really instrumental in motivating me to have a deeper understanding around the game of tennis, but also the role of particularly coaches that have in the sport and how important they are in facilitating the growth of whatever sport that they were in. So Ken was really instrumental in my university days and somebody that I leaned a lot on as I certainly walked through my role in Australian tennis. Look, the other one is Craig Tylee. Craig, we all know Craig. Obviously, he's a global leader for tennis being the CEO of Tennis Australia and the tournament director for the Australian Open.
Craig Morris:I worked closely for Craig. I reported to Craig for ten years. We had really similar philosophies. Obviously, he'd spent time in South Africa and also obviously here in The US. His work ethic was second to none and I still believe that.
Craig Morris:Craig had real depths of information and knowledge that I really tapped into from how he operated from a business point of view and certainly what he did to certainly shape Australian tennis when he first came down there. So they were both really instrumental in people that I just leaned upon. Really, from a mentor point of view, can watch and learn as much as sort of talk and listen. Both are really important. But from mentors, I often find just watching and observing see how they deal with certain situations see how they commit to action is something that I learned a lot from both of them.
Craig Morris:As I said in the last ten, fifteen years, Craig's influence is still really profound on me.
Kim Bastable:That's great. And it sounds like you mentioned leadership. We know that tennis pros have to transition at some point if they want to become leaders, directors. They have to do a little bit of a of a skill dive. They've gotta get some skills they maybe don't have on the court.
Kim Bastable:Although being on court is still a leadership role. As you mentioned, the classroom is a leadership role. When did you notice your leadership competencies? Yeah, it's a great question.
Craig Morris:I get asked this question even from a tennis point of view, the difference between participation and player development. It's such a continuum, Kim, I found As you certainly go through your career and you start to get yourselves into different situations, your natural instincts around leadership or being able to be either really supportive of people around you or if you feel like there's an opportunity or there's a gap missing, being able to sort of step into that really quickly to be able to sort of keep things moving forward. So it wasn't necessary. I think leadership is a continuum. I think leadership is something that people not necessarily strive for, but they are on a journey just to be better.
Craig Morris:And I think that people that are doing that and trying to put themselves into positions where they can continue to grow and learn and be better as people, I think they're the fundamental things that leaders have or foundations that leaders have. For me, the diversity of experiences from university to club coaching to teaching to different roles of high performance coaching and then obviously with Tennis Australia, that evolution, being committed to seeing opportunities and being prepared to put yourselves in situations to learn and grow, think that leadership almost comes out as you go through that piece. I didn't find myself, Kim, getting to a point where was like, know what? I think I'm a lady here based on this. It was never a point where I identified that.
Craig Morris:It was more of a point of my behavior through situations that I think then evolved into different roles of leadership. So it an intentional mental note, I want to be a leader. It was, I think, the diversity of experiences and opportunities and a mindset to be better and to continue to develop and learn and be educated that I think that leaders have that separate themselves as you go through your different aspects of your career. I don't know whether that makes sense or not.
Simon Gale:Yeah. I think as we've talked to more people, there's a similar pattern with their stories, right, Kim? I mean, we hear a lot of that where I started here, my intention was to be a school teacher. Yeah. It's funny you say that.
Simon Gale:That's what I went to college for to start with as I was gonna be a school teacher. Wanted to be a principal. So Yeah. You know, you start on a track and then different opportunities and experiences come up and each of them challenge you hopefully, and sometimes you just fall into these roles. And we've heard stories of you know, I maybe wasn't quite qualified for that role Yeah.
Simon Gale:But I thought I could do it and then I learned on the job and evolved. But I had skill set. So I think it's interesting to hear similarities with a lot of leaders that we talk to.
Craig Morris:I I think it's a great point. I I think one of the things you know, the the move the move from Tennis Australia to the USGA was a really significant one. For the for the listeners, I have three young kids. Well, they're not young anymore, but when we moved, they were four, seven, and 10. I had a great role at Tennis Australia running all aspects of participation for the game.
Craig Morris:So the concept of sitting down and saying, and all our families in Australia, we have no connections in The US whatsoever from a family point of view. So to sit down and say, Are we going to do this? And that really intentional to sort of say, moving from a role that I was incredibly comfortable in at TA and loved to we're going to move ourselves to the other side of the world, work for an organization who we have some level of connection with but not a lot into a market of $25,000,000 to $325,000,000 was a very intentional decision to put myself professionally in a position where I felt very vulnerable, where I would have had to sort of go on a professional incline, as well as personally there was pieces to that. So I do think for all our listeners out there, there is a level of if you see an opportunity and in your gut you feel like you need to take it, then taking that step and putting yourself out of your comfort zone, that will reward you far more. And look, even for me, Kim and Simon, if the job hadn't have worked and in two or three years, we moved back to Australia, I was still in a mindset, I'm going to be better for it regardless.
Craig Morris:We're here seven years later and I still have an enormous amount of passion for what we're trying to do for the game here. So I do think it's a mentality, which I want to certainly stress on on the people listening to the podcast.
Simon Gale:Yeah. Think for the future directors out there and someone who, there's going to be a lot of opportunities for them over the next five to ten years as they grow and positions open up. The mentality that, you know, even if you're not qualified on paper, can you sell yourself in a way that enables you to get these jobs Yeah. And you can learn as you go Yeah. As long as you have, you know, a skill set that complements it, but maybe you don't have the experience yet because we've all done it.
Simon Gale:And I think there's there's a tremendous amount of opportunities coming down the road for these young pros.
Craig Morris:No. There there is, but but you've gotta get off your ass. Do You you may not walk into it, all the things around after five years of teaching, going back and studying and taking twelve months off and taking that risk and moving away from that role. If you're a pro out there and you have aspirations to be a director of tennis or ultimately run a facility, then while you're currently sort of doing what you do, it's having an eye for what do I need to do to position myself in a way that gives me the best opportunity if that's the path that you want to take. And you can't do what you do and then hope someone's going to tap you on the shoulder.
Craig Morris:You have to do what you do and be bettering yourself and positioning yourself and building relationships and networks, in a way when the right opportunity comes up, you're well positioned for it. And again, I think that's a mindset more so than an expectation. You cannot expect these things just to happen.
Simon Gale:That's excellent advice. Can you expand a little bit or let's dig into a little on on what your top priorities are within this role you have with the USDA?
Craig Morris:Yeah. Well, you know, to for for in transparency to, again, everyone listening, my role, obviously, is the chief executive community tennis. It's It's really looking at all aspects of trying to grow the game in The US. We're at 23,600,000 players, so kudos and thank you to everyone that's listening for the work that they do on the ground because ultimately, that 23,600,000 is just a combination of all the work that happens at a local level from that point of view. We've had 33% growth obviously in the last three years to hit a number that US tennis hasn't seen for a long, long time.
Craig Morris:So as you start to look at the whole sort of ecosystem of tennis in the country, there are a number of key aspects that we try and help support and guide and resource local communities in what they do. So high level that most people would understand. Done a lot around the school's pace in trying to get tennis to be introduced in the classrooms. As an ex school teacher, it's the best place to introduce the sport to kids to try something where they feel vulnerable when they're with their friends and obviously with their teachers. We've done a lot around the junior pathway, so the American Development Model and making sure we have sort of science backed research on how we position programming that we move kids into.
Craig Morris:We all know that it has to be developmentally appropriate, if it's not, kids will leave the game, which I'll touch on shortly. So done a lot around that. Junior circuits, the new seven levels of tournaments, we had a 22% growth last year. We've already seen an 18% growth in junior tournament play this year which is fantastic. We run our adult leagues and tournaments which is the adult leagues program.
Craig Morris:The US Edge Leadership is the largest rec league in the world. We've introduced the world tennis number into The US market. It's obviously an international rating that's certainly driving both ITF juniors and pro circuits and the work that we do there. Partnership we have with the ITA, the collegiate arm is incredibly important to sort of be the glue between junior and adult play. Safe play compliance, I want to quickly give that a plug.
Craig Morris:I'm sure many of our listeners, hopefully all of them are safe play compliant. We want to protect all the kids that coming into our game and make sure our game is a model sport for all Americans. There's been a number of things, Simon, that I think we have really successfully introduced and shifted in the last number of years. But let me give a couple of stats to the people listening to the podcast. Retention is a major issue in this country.
Craig Morris:In the last take out 2020, which was a bit of an outlier obviously with COVID and the entry in, probably from 2009 to 2019, for every 100 players that came into the game, ninety eight players left. So basically four million in, four million out. So as we move forward, one of the real priorities of the USTA is how do we support both our facility operators and also our coaches and our volunteers and the people delivering the game? How do we give them the resources and the support to make sure that we are trying to offer the best experience possible at the local level so that we can start to retain more players in the game to continue the growth that we've seen over the last three years. So that piece, I think over the next three years, you'll see a real shift from a USDA point of view around facilities and coaches in how we try and support them in being as best prepared and resourced to be able to deliver the best experience we can so we can start to plug the retention issue that we have.
Craig Morris:Then from a programming point of view, we have fantastic local programs. Many of our listeners run great programming. We want to make sure that we're trying to facilitate excellence. So getting a real sense of how the sport's being introduced at the adult level and also at the youth level, how do we share best practice across the country, and making sure that the programs are also appropriate based on the skill level of the players that we're at. A number of things there, I haven't drawn breath.
Craig Morris:A lot of our listeners are probably saying, My God, this guy doesn't shut up, so apologies for that. But it's a lot, it is a lot. It's very much a team effort. We have our seventeen secondtions out there that are incredibly vital to the growth of the game as well as the industry as a whole, which is our coaches, our racket manufacturers, facility operators and owners.
Simon Gale:Do you think it'd be fair to say that in general, because you work for the governing body that the USTA is generally can be the scapegoat for, Hey, USTA needs to do this, the USTA needs to do more and you hear that a lot. But in the role of coaching specifically, do you see it more as facilitating support? At the end of the day, the coaches and clubs still have to do a tremendous job to promote tennis in their area and it's a collaboration versus it's the USTA's job.
Craig Morris:Yeah, Look. No. It's a at at times, it's a it's a thankless job, but that's okay because it's a privilege to be in the job. So I have no issues. There are there are there are many that have opinions on what the USTA does and doesn't do, and and I respect that.
Craig Morris:But I'll also know that we have a team of people here that wake up every day and work incredibly hard with the right intentions on trying to support locally. Let me also make it really clear, the most important relationship for the sport is the relationship between the person facilitating the game and the player. That is the most important relationship. I've said that since the day I've landed in the country, that for the sport to grow, the people delivering the game at the local level, the facility owners, directors of tennis, the coaches, the volunteers, the parent volunteers, the parent coaches, and the players, whatever level that they are working on, that relationship is fundamental to the growth of the game, whether you're in Australia, Spain, The US, Canada, whatever country. Because that's what's vitally important.
Craig Morris:How we drive and support that relationship from a coaching point of view and offer resources, technology, programming, use the US Open promote the game and use that platform, it's all about trying to help facilitate that. And I think to a certain degree, we haven't done a great job in those areas. They're pieces that we are, you know, really looking to to commit to as we said over the next three to five years.
Kim Bastable:That's excellent. You know, it's I read that I hear that list, Craig, and then I think, and then there was pickleball and Yeah. Adele. And Yeah. The game is not just tennis anymore, but you listed all those things that have to do with tennis.
Kim Bastable:So Yeah. I think that's what everyone wants to know. Some of the other national governing bodies have embraced Padel, particularly like the LTA, I guess, the NGBT NGB for Padel. And there's a lot of international Padel internationally, Pickleball US. Yep.
Kim Bastable:Where does the USTA stand regarding your thoughts on on those complementary sports?
Craig Morris:Yeah. Paddell is the fastest growing sport in Europe for for people that may not have known that. And then, obviously, in North America, here and also Canada, pickleball is the fastest growing sport based on percentages. I'll also say too, Kim, is that the last three years, tennis has had 5,900,000 players come into it and I think pickleball is at 5.2. So often in these situations, sort of in case studies in the past, one sport hasn't been growing and one has gone through the roof.
Craig Morris:In this situation, particularly in The US, tennis is growing certainly from a hard number point of view as much as what pickleball has been. So one of the things that we are really sensitive to is that facility owners and operators and coaches and the industry are already there. This is an opportunity for them to diversify their revenue, grow a bigger customer base, start to engage more on that local level to be able to get people playing and get people ultimately active. So we're all for that. One of the things that we are working through from a USDA point of view, Kim, is what's the role of the USDA in these alternative racket sports?
Craig Morris:Making sure that we don't jump to a decision, but we understand as much data as we possibly can to sort of make the best educated decision about what, through the lens of tennis, our role can be in all Racquet sports, not just obviously from tennis point of view. So just a couple of things for our listeners. We ran a pickleball summit at the January. We brought in a number of tennis operators who have been engaging pickleball and have a real understanding of what they're doing and what they're seeing on the ground because we don't see that from a national point of view, so we wanted to have a sense of that. We have engaged Michigan State University to do some research around skill acquisition.
Craig Morris:Is there a correlation between starting with pickleball and moving into tennis? And is that real or is that not real? As far as from a skill act point of view? I think that's a really important piece. That research is underway at the moment and we're looking forward to sort of seeing what that does.
Craig Morris:We have a couple of sections that are piloting some pickleball leagues in partnership for in 2023 with DUPA, which is the Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating. So we are doing a really small pilot to get a sense of the correlation between people that play pickleball and play tennis and what does that mean and how does that coexist. So '23 for us is a situation of trying to get as much data and input in what the opportunity looks like, how do we though continue to support the people on the ground, so our facility operators and coaches, and then ultimately making decision on how we position the USCA as the national governing body for tennis and then ultimately what that role is in supporting other paddle sports? That's where we're at right now. It's not a decision, Kim, that is like, okay, it's either this or this.
Craig Morris:There is complexities across all of this. We ultimately understand that there is demand on tennis facilities which we haven't seen before. So how we position to first and foremost protect the infrastructure is incredibly important to make sure that there are tennis courts for the growth of tennis. Because let's be really clear to the people listening, tennis is growing. There's enormous interest and we need to first and foremost as a national governing body and protect may not be the right word, but make sure that there's infrastructure for people to continue to enjoy this great game for years to come.
Craig Morris:But the piece is how do we then support our facility operators and players to best give them the resources and the data and the information to make the best decisions to support them on the ground at the local level. The concept of facility operators and owners and coaches diversifying into other racket sports to generate more revenue for tennis facilities or racket facilities is a good thing for them to be able to generate more revenue, get a bigger customer base. But again, unashamedly, we are also looking through the lens of tennis and how do we make sure that we are continuing to deliver based on the demands there are for our game as well as support the people delivering our sport in the other endeavours that they're trying to achieve. Long answer, but again, lots of variables with this one, but again, where our eyes are wide open. They're not closed, our heads are in the ground on this one, but again, there's many variables that we are trying to navigate as we start to position and how we position ourselves moving forward.
Craig Morris:So you
Simon Gale:touch on coaches a little bit there and the potential with complementary racket sports to diversify your income, teach different types of sports at their facility and maybe even keep the doors open at some facilities increasing some revenue. We're at an interesting moment in time though with coaching as the aging of our industry continues over the next ten years, we're gonna lose a lot of coaches. Anywhere up to 30 or 40% potentially. That's a lot of leaders, that's a lot of coaches, troops on the ground growing We're the seeing also the evolution of new positions, directors of pickleball, directors of racket sports, complimentary racket sports or I teach some tennis and teach some complimentary. So as this evolves, the importance of coaching and as you said earlier, supporting and promoting coaching really becomes a priority.
Simon Gale:So maybe just talk a little bit about your thoughts on how that's evolved very quickly too.
Craig Morris:Yeah. No, absolutely. Obviously, the USPTA and PTR are both starting to diversify their certifications around the different racket sports, so that's certainly something that we have noticed. There is a shortage of people delivering the game. Let me be really clear on that.
Craig Morris:The growth of the sport, the 23,600,000, for this game to hold and to continue to grow, we need a whole infrastructure of people delivering the game that will ultimately see that there is a career here. So if that means that someone's going to be able to generate x amount of money based on the fact that they're going to be delivering tennis and pickleball or padel or platform or whatever else comes, then we have to be supportive of that. What keeps me up at night a little bit is that the value of a coach, regardless of what they teach in The US based on facility owners and operators, particularly a certified coach, somebody who's gone through and made a commitment to being educated, ideally safe play compliance, first aid compliance too, by the way, mental health compliance. I mean, these people are delivering an experience that we need to be safe first and foremost. My concern is that the tennis industry, the Racquet Sports industry has to value individuals who are committed to creating a career, committed to their education, and understand that they will bring a far better experience that will generate more revenue into that local facility and that local community.
Craig Morris:The rate that we are attracting new people, to your point, coaches are going to be aging out, and how we do that as an industry keeps me up at night. Kim and I have had this conversation often. This isn't a USDA thing. We have 20 odd thousand coaches around the country who are probably coaching high school kids and college kids who should be talking about this as an industry that they should be looking at to engage with and then ultimately build a career out of and to your point, future leaders from that. So we have to support coaches to make sure that they are doing all those aspects, but we as an industry have to unite around how we're going to engage, track, and retain the next generation of people who are gonna facilitate these sports.
Craig Morris:And I don't think enough young people are seeing this as a career that they're being attracted to. And that's really concerning, and everyone listening to this should be concerned about that. And that's where, you know, again, I'm I'm a big fan of what Kim does and and the course because the more we can create pathways for coaches to be better and position themselves for growth and advancement as an industry and as a career is incredibly important.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. You know, I said this weekend, was at a graduation party with a junior in high school, and I asked him if he'd ever considered being a tennis pro. He's a, you know, long standing tennis player, probably played since he was eight. And his answer was no, not really. And I asked him why.
Kim Bastable:And then he didn't really have an answer. And then we talked for about five minutes and he said, oh, I think I'll consider that. Yes. Which is a stunning turn in five minutes to someone who probably had never addressed it with him. But I thought it just takes one of us, as you said early on, it's a relationship between the person who's providing the game and the player, and they have a lot of power.
Kim Bastable:Just placing a little bit of interest in that one person's head can mean a lot. So I think, yeah, it's on all of us to continue to to share that and grow the game. And now in an interest of time, I know we're running short on you on your time, Craig. I just wanted to circle to a few years ago, the USDA funded the curriculum that's being used at UF to teach on court professionals the business and leadership skills that they need as a director. But we also realize that there are some people who want to stay on the court, their best skills are on the court, and they may not want to become a leader.
Kim Bastable:And we also have realized that there are some people who are not on court who could become excellent leaders in the industry. And so do you believe there's a pathway to a, maybe we call it a Racquet Sports business leader that's, you know, a little bit different than maybe the traditional director of Racquet Sports who has been sort of an on court person, you know, but we need to broaden out from only tennis pros can be leaders. What do you think about that?
Craig Morris:I absolutely agree. You know, the more entrepreneurial ship that we can bring into the game that doesn't necessarily need to just come through the the coaching pathway, business minded people who can who can get into the sport and see it through a different lens, who who may never necessarily coach the game, but can really operate and deliver and support a facility in how they fundamentally operate in their local communities, I think is foundational. And Doug Cash, who I know is involved with this course, if you haven't, his expertise, him and I have this conversation a lot. This business sense of how the industry works, how facilities operate, being able to bring that business acumen into tennis at that local level is paramount I think to our success. I highly encourage coaches who are wanting to go to that pathway, absolutely it's there for them.
Craig Morris:But if there are individuals who love the game, who don't necessarily have an appetite to be on court and to do that work, then we still need an avenue to be able to attract, engage, and get them into the game for the value that they will bring in really being able to add another whole lens to the industry as a whole. So and we'll have this conversation, Kim, you know, as we go forward over the next number of weeks, but being able to open even this course up in a manner that that allows a different segment to come into the game and to be able to drive the sport through a different lens, I think, is really paramount. And forward thinking, to be honest with you, I think most other federations around the world, many people will fall into coaching because they've been good players. And then they might go into the director of Racquet Sports sort of role because they've been at the club for a long time. And that's okay, but there's commitment to education and upskilling that needs to happen and I think this course is a great piece of that.
Craig Morris:But when you overlay that with somebody that may be able to come in at a different level and operate facilities and programming in a way that adds value and supports the coaches, I think we have to go down that way. And many federations are starting to look at that. So I'm really thrilled that we're trying to get ahead of that.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. Well, we'll for certainly partner with you on that and and try to find ways to make that happen at UF. Simon, do you have any final question for Craig or we've kept him a while, we've
Craig Morris:I think so, Simon, you're probably saying, okay.
Simon Gale:Unpack everything he said for about six more episodes, but it's been tremendously insightful, appreciate your time and enjoy embarking on this journey together to try and elevate coaching and grow the base.
Craig Morris:Well, kudos to both of you for doing it. You know, I I hope we can get this podcast out to as many people as we can. And for the people that are avid listeners and listening, I just want to thank you for what you're doing for the game. The work that I do is purely here to service and support what you do locally. Whether you feel that or not feel that, I wanted to really reiterate that's the role that we're trying to play and we'll continue to do all we can in our power to to be able to get that support down to you at the local level.
Craig Morris:So from the USDA's point of view, thank you for for what you're all doing for the industry.
Kim Bastable:Well, thank you. We do we do see what you do. We appreciate the support. We love to work together to make it happen. It takes all of us.
Kim Bastable:I think every one of us needs to do our part. And, if we love the game, any of these Racquet sports, particularly when most of us started with tennis, we should love to share it with others. So we appreciate your time, and that's all for today on Racquet Fuel.
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