What Young Professionals Need from Racquets Leadership - with Kyle Pipkin
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 professional Racquet Management at the University of Florida. And Simon Gale, the USTA senior director of Racquet Sports Development. Today, Kim and Simon talked to recent college senior Kyle Pipkin, who reflects on what he has learned from his Pope College Racquet Sports Management degree. He also sheds light on what his peers are thinking and needing from their bosses in order to stay in the Racquet's industry.
Episode Narration:Here are Kim and Simon.
Kim Bastable:Welcome to Racquet Fuel. I'm Kim Bastable. I'm very excited today to be hosting Kyle Pipkin. Kyle is with the Hope College Racquet Sports Management Program. That's how Simon and I have met him, a great up and comer in our industry and someone that actually approached me about being on this podcast.
Kim Bastable:And he he could see a vision for this even before I could, but, boy, I see it now. And I'm excited for this conversation, Simon. How about you?
Simon Gale:Yeah. Definitely. And I think a little backstory on Kyle. I'm sure you won't mind me telling him these stories. He was in our fellowship program a couple of years ago and I think it was during even the first day or two of orientation and he blew out his ankle.
Simon Gale:Don't know if it was broken, slight fracture but either way, was in a boot for most of the summer and the discussion was, does he go home and misses out on this opportunity or how do we make it work? And I think it's a testament to his commitment as we found a way to make it work and he basically hobbled around on one foot for the summer. Couldn't hit but found a way to learn and improve and was a great part of our program. So I think it it really shows his commitment to his career and obviously, it's taken off since then. So glad to have you on, Kyle.
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. Thanks for having me. I I vividly remember that day, it was the third day of the fellowship. I had just moved across the country from Michigan to Florida And, ironically enough, my last summer internship, I tore my MCL on the fifth day. So I actually had back to back summers where I couldn't hit.
Kyle Pipkin:It definitely had to make me get creative for sure.
Kim Bastable:Wow. That's pretty good start. Pretty good perseverance. I think you found out the difficulty to being on court a lot. It's challenging even to the very young.
Kim Bastable:We think of that as a problem that crops up later in careers. You're all healed up now. You're like the bionic man. No problems for you. Alright.
Kim Bastable:So tell us about where you're, where you realized that this was going to be your career. I'm just curious to go back. Was this something as a child or at what point did you think a career in Racquet Sports was in your future?
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. So I actually didn't pick up a racket until about sixth or seventh grade and I played basketball and baseball growing up. I'm six foot six and left handed, so you know, I naturally went basketball, baseball. But my dad and I discovered a tennis center that was point two miles away from our house that was municipality. It was a 16 court public facility, cost $3 to play for an hour and that place became my home.
Kyle Pipkin:I started going there every day with my dad, I hit on the ball machine and I finally introduced myself to some of the coaches. I got involved in some of their clinics and by about eighth grade, we started to take it more seriously. I started taking some privates, playing some tournaments, junior team tennis, big fan of that. And so really, once I got into high school, I I was taking privates with the manager of the club at the time and I talked to him about, hey, I'm looking to get a job but I don't really wanna like go stock shelves at stores. So would you take me as a feeder for some classes?
Kyle Pipkin:And he said, well, we don't really need any help right now but if we need you, I'll call you. And that night, I actually got a phone call. One of the coaches were sick and so I showed up and helped feed one of the adult classes that I used to play into and ever since then, I just fell in love with it. So really, David Webb, who's out in Plainview, Texas now. Yeah.
Kyle Pipkin:David Webb over at Richland Tennis Center, that's where it all started for me and I started to grow that relationship working up at the front desk, stringing rackets, meeting all the players there. And eventually, I started to grow a little bit of a clientele with some private lessons and I just kind of took off from there. I I realized that, hey, this is this is a lot more fun than a desk job. I I get to be the fun part of people's day during an exercise fun sport. Like, why would I not want to do this?
Kyle Pipkin:So that's kind of really where it started.
Kim Bastable:That's very good. I'm glad I wish we had a lot of other kids that could tell that same story. But I often say that I feel like the Racquet Sports industry needs to convince the parents most of all at the viability of a lifelong career in Racquet Sports. Though parents can spend, you know, thousands of dollars on lessons for their children, for some reason they often don't consider a career of becoming a teaching pro as one they want their children to follow. Would you consider that at all to be true?
Kim Bastable:And what was your experience in convincing your parents that you wanted to become a teaching pro?
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. Think that's a great point to bring up. For me, I fell so in love with it. I did not want to go to college. I had zero drive to go back to school.
Kyle Pipkin:I thought high school would be the end and I could just start teaching. My parents definitely took a different approach. They they both went through higher education and they both work in the corporate world. And so they really encouraged me to to go to college. But my dad had heard about the professional golf management or however they call it, think, g m they call it.
Kyle Pipkin:And he thought, well, that's kind of a country club sport, maybe they have one for tennis. And a quick Google search later and Pope College came up. I wasn't thrilled to be going back to school but after I had one phone call with Adam Ford and Jorge Capistani, I I knew that that would be the place for me. So that's how I kinda convinced my parents. That's how we were able to kinda blend the two together of what I wanted and what they wanted.
Kyle Pipkin:And then being able to pay for my school kinda I mean, they've changed my life with being able to support me and all my dreams that I've had. So Adam Ford and I both help run the RSM program at Hope and we talk to a lot of parents who have these kind of questions. And I think one of the big reasons that they bring it up is because they really don't view a sport and coaching as a long term career, so that's part of it. They don't view it as a stable career, which can be true sometimes. I think that's like it's not a consistent nine to five paycheck.
Kyle Pipkin:You're you're going hourly even up in up in the big dog world of these country clubs, crazy high pay, you're still going hourly a lot of the time. And then I I really think that they struggle to see the off court of tennis. They don't see the USTA offices and marketing. They don't see the promotional videos that are having to get made. They don't see the stringers.
Kyle Pipkin:They don't see the court resurfacing people. They don't see the racket designers. You can even think of wind screens. You think of the tennis wind screens. There there's about a million different things you could do in tennis, but since their kid has probably played, they often just see the on court piece.
Kyle Pipkin:So trying to explain to them that there are a lot more pathways than just being on the court and hitting balls with with players but it's more about like building up the relationships if you wanna be on court. Gaining the knowledge is really not that difficult whenever you think about it with the world of the internet but it's being able to build the the relationships having the soft skills. But whenever I try to convince these parents, they they believe me in the on court part but you really need to convince them that, hey, there's actually thousands of other types of jobs that you wouldn't even walk onto a tennis court and yet you're still working in tennis.
Simon Gale:Well, you're in the tennis industry, right? Like as soon as you label yourself just a coach, then that's what get you kind of get stuck with. If if you're in the industry, you're much bigger than a coach and there's a lot of parts. I think I want to pick up on something you just said though was the call to Adam and one call and that convinced you. So my question was kind of what influenced you to go to Hope and I'm a big fan of Adam and and Jorge Capistani there at at Hope and they do great things for for young people.
Simon Gale:But what was the big influence? You know, what was was Adam's sell to you that made you say pick Hope because there's several PTM options. Why hope and why why Adam's conversation? Give me a little insight into that decision.
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. I love talking about these two guys. It's one of my favorite things in the world because they have become the close one of some of my closest friends. So Jorge, I see with and work with every single day, but he doesn't really lead the the RSM program. So Jorge really is running our club here at Hope College, the DeWitt Tennis Center, and Adam is the one who actually runs the RSM program.
Kyle Pipkin:So a lot of my I mean, I probably talked to Adam either on the phone or in person five six times a day. So he's really the one that I'm spending the most time with. Whenever we had that first phone call with him, I was kind of in a unique situation where my parents were already on board with the idea. It was more a matter of picking out a school like you were saying And the sell that he made that really sold it for me was what we call the labs. So essentially, every semester, we spend a minimum of fifty hours on court working with a certain group.
Kyle Pipkin:So you either have red ball, middle school, high school, adult cardio, travel teams, etcetera. And every single semester, you get fifty hours of encore with paying actual customers and you have options to do even more. I mean, I'm kind of the outlier. I I do a lot more hours than that. But that's kind of like the bare minimum and so it gets you that live actual experience.
Kyle Pipkin:And so seeing that on my visit here and and hearing him talk about that immediately is what drew me. Because I knew that I would get real on court experience. It wouldn't all be theoretical learning the theory of the forehand checkpoints. It would be, hey, here's a kid. Go teach him how to play tennis.
Kyle Pipkin:And that was that was my training. And he was there for me alongside me the entire step of the way. He's been so beyond supportive. And I I think that that phone call with him of explaining like, hey, here's some internship things that we've given out to students. We've got stringing here.
Kyle Pipkin:If you wanna do privates, you can do that. There's just so many different options that you can do in this tiny little town of Holland, Michigan. I think that's really what drew me in. Just his energy and his his immediate willingness to help me.
Simon Gale:That's great and look, would reinforce that a 100 times over, I think very highly of Adam. So hopefully he doesn't listen to this and get all these compliments and let it go to his head but they're a great team Adam and Jorge. So you tell us a little bit about the lab and and that experience but what's the the program been like for you from a learning process and what are some of your key takeaways as you you're about to graduate?
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah, great question. So I really view this as like an apprenticeship. So your four years here is like an apprenticeship. You're you're working alongside Adam, you're working alongside our other staff pros Nate and Austin and they do a great job of being included and they they really invest in and believe in the program and that helps. You you can't This program does not work if the other coaches are not on board.
Kyle Pipkin:So that that was a big piece for me. Really, the biggest thing that I would say in terms of learning was that I'm surrounded by 19 other young tennis coaches who want to learn. And there's an ongoing conversation of, hey, I'm thinking of doing this drill. What do you think? And they'll either tell me that it sucks or that it's great or that we should change it and they'll be honest with me.
Kyle Pipkin:And I think that being in a culture that values that is is kind of what where most of that learning happens. It's not even really on the court, it's really in those conversations around the stringing machine or in the mornings or after classes and things like that. You see them around campus and you kind of build this culture up of of young coaches who are all really hungry to learn and you've got the upperclassmen, underclassmen aspect going and that would be a big piece for me. I think that the other thing is that being curious about everything. The Witt Tennis Center does a great job with logistics of running classes, making numbers work, doing rotations and whenever you come in as a freshman, you kind of just go with the flow.
Kyle Pipkin:I I think I took a different path and questioned every single thing. There there was not one rotation where I didn't wonder why we did it that way and I just asked them. And and I think that's where I learned the most. What wasn't the level one and level two curriculum that Adam goes through, all that stuff is great. It was the actual on court watching someone have an odd number and see them rotate that number.
Kyle Pipkin:Or there's a kid who's cheating with his score. How are we gonna fix this kid cheating with his score without just calling him out? It's these little subtle things that you pick up on. That's really where I got a lot of my learning from.
Kim Bastable:Okay. So what I've heard here is so important, and I I think I love it. You can tell me if my conclusion is wrong or not, but mentorship and just this group learning is what you have experienced at Hope that has been so impactful. And I think about a young person who just says, I wanna go out of high school and I wanna start teaching tennis. They are a singular person at a club with hopefully a good leader and maybe some peers around them, but their peers are focused on teaching lessons.
Kim Bastable:They're not really focused on educating you. What you have experienced is an atmosphere for teamwork in learning and sharing ideas and on an ongoing basis for essentially the last four years. Is that a fair comparison in summation?
Kyle Pipkin:100%. Yeah. And like going back to like what Simon said with me coming and doing the fellowship, I loved it because it was just like I was extending that but with a brand new group of people. And with with Hope College in the program, we often get students who come in who are actually from Hope or they're from Holland or they're from this area, and they never actually experienced anything outside of this little bubble. Thankfully, I was from Texas, so I kind of got to experience the different sides of the country clubs and municipalities and all that stuff.
Kyle Pipkin:But whenever I did, like, the fellowship, it was cool to see the difference in the way that people were thinking because they had all come from so many different areas and they all had different ideas of how to keep score and how to rotate and how to teach the forehand and the backhand and how to interact with players. Like, everyone had something different And I I really I I think that if you're not in a good group learning environment for a long period of time, people aren't gonna stay in it, to be honest. I think I struggle with the weekend workshops and that sort of thing because that community doesn't get built in two days and I understand that travel and time and all of those are constraints for sure. That's why I'm staying here at Hope is because I I truly believe that that these four years are are where you can get that perfect training ground.
Simon Gale:So you talked about your classmates like roughly 20 others and you've got a group of young like minded individuals working together which that's a that's just an amazing environment to be able to push each other along and and the curiosity is gonna inspire each of you. I think that's amazing but the reality of then going into the industry and saying, alright, we're not in college anymore. We've got generational differences now at a typical facility. You're not a dozen 22 year olds all on the same page. You've got four or five generations working together.
Simon Gale:What is it about, you know, trying to understand your your age bracket that they perceive about the industry that might impact them continuing long term? As you say, it's the cool job until you get a real job type situation. What is what is it that hinders them from choosing this as a career and and I'll couple that with kind of what are the things you guys are looking for in the work environment after you graduate to stay in the career?
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. Great great questions. I think I've taken on this newer role here at Hope to be Adam's assistant. And so a lot of the students will come to me asking questions like this. And so I I love that this was on our list.
Kyle Pipkin:I think for starters, the societal understanding of a tennis coach is a summer hobby or that TV coach who's just like not really the moral person that you're hoping for. So I think it all starts from there. I hate to say that, but I think that's true. Once you actually get into it though, I I think the biggest struggle points are the on court teaching grind. It's hard, man.
Kyle Pipkin:Like, it it's it's tough. If if you're put out as a 20 year old to go teach in Texas for forty hours a week and they're paying you $16 an hour, that's hard to, like, still be interested and wanna do it. So I think with these internships, that is part of the struggle is that my peers get overworked. So that's big. Just like you were saying with the generational piece, I think that we often get undervalued of our knowledge and I've seen that a lot.
Kyle Pipkin:As you guys know, I've to a lot of conferences. I've had a lot of conversations and that is definitely a recurring theme. So just because I'm young doesn't mean I don't know anything. But at the same time, there's a lot for me to still learn. But I think that across the board, I I with many people who are in these higher up clubs and stuff, just kind of assume that I haven't spent much time teaching.
Kyle Pipkin:Whenever in reality, I'm like still working a forty hour work week for the last couple years. I think that's hard on them wherever they they've been told by me and by Adam and by all these guys, like, you're good. You're really good at what you do. And then you they go to their job and their job is defeat and they never get to run a class, they never get to do a demo, they they never get to take their own lead on anything. So that is really tough on them.
Kyle Pipkin:The the last thing and like, Simon, I know you're you're really good with this as I've spent a summer up there with you. Not having a pathway and a job is 99% of tennis jobs that I've seen so far. And for this goes back to the parents as well. If if you go and apply for a job and you have no idea how to get promoted, I don't really wanna do that job. Because like, I think our generation is actually considered one of the hardest working generations and we want something to strive for.
Kyle Pipkin:Like, we we need a goal in mind. And if I walk in and I take a teaching job and I'm in the same spot ten years, like, that's kind of depressing for our generation I think. Like we we want to make some moves, we want to become bigger than that and so I I think those are kind of some of those main pieces that they can struggle with.
Simon Gale:So if I summarize that and said, gave a message to current leadership who are hiring people of your generation, Empower them and allow them to grow and show them where they're headed next and how to get there. That be fair summary of of what you just said?
Kyle Pipkin:Absolutely.
Simon Gale:Okay. Leaders, there it is. That's what we need to do.
Kim Bastable:And they'll work hard for you was the other part of that.
Kyle Pipkin:They will.
Kim Bastable:They'll work hard for you if they're given that. Well, that's that's an interesting perspective. I think that's what I'm thinking to myself. And, Simon, maybe you could reflect upon this as I feel like sometimes the leaders are looking to hire someone to teach and not realizing that they might need to sell the career a little bit better. Maybe they need to explain it's not just about getting that task.
Kim Bastable:They need those hours on court covered. They need to sell the long term benefits. And if someone chooses in ten years, like at your facility, Simon, you probably have a handful of people who are fifteen to twenty years still on court and still love it, and that's been their choice. They don't want to go into leadership. They don't want to get off the court and maybe that's what needs to be differentiated.
Kim Bastable:There are some people that's their choice, but if you don't have that choice, here are your options. Is that fair, Simon?
Simon Gale:Yeah. We could spend three hours talking about this. You just opened up the door for me to walk in. So I think there's a lot there but I think to keep it short, I would say that, yes, we want to empower them and we want to give them a career path but I also think there is a timeline involved and you have to be patient. And I hate to say it, Kyle, I have a 25 year old daughter.
Simon Gale:Your generation is not as patient as we were in terms of wanting to go ahead and it's not a criticism, it's just you guys want to get there and how do I get there and how fast can I get there? I think that's a good thing but I think you have to respect the process as well and understand that you have to master your craft in order to be an effective leader as well. And so I think it's this combination of saying, hey, be patient with me as the leader, but me explain to you what that pathway looks like. If that is your goal, we will get you off court in time, but it might not happen as fast as you want it to be. But I am going to nurture you along the way to get there.
Simon Gale:I think if there is mutual buy in, we can achieve something. It's when it's, I just need you to go and teach and we'll talk about that in five years, I think that's where you've got a problem. So I don't know how you feel about that.
Kyle Pipkin:I I think you hit the nail right on the head. The biggest thing is that mutual buy in part. Like we have so many So all of our students go out and do internships in the summers. When they go sent out into a new place and you know, they're there for a short period of time and that's the point of a summer internship, right? The people who hire them don't view them as like a long term project because they don't have them long term.
Kyle Pipkin:And I wish that they did even though they don't have them long term because as you're saying, there's a mutual buy in with these people who are above us and that's a great thing whenever it works. Like, I I think of helping run classes. Like, so here at Hope, like, we we try to have the students do demos and like our our junior program is kind of a behemoth. It's especially our summer academy, we'll get 76 plus kids out there all the way from middle school to to playing at potentially a college level in a high school. Getting them like, hey, do you want to do a demo?
Kyle Pipkin:Do you want to go out there and do you want to try to lead this thing? But you're still there with them to help them along with that. I think you absolutely nailed it. That that's what we really need is that we need that leadership. And that's what's so hard if you don't go into some type of school like a Racquet Sports Management School because you have to find those people yourself.
Kyle Pipkin:I think that as you two are great leaders, you're doing exactly what I think we need. I think I'm trying to give a call out to all the other leaders in the industry, like, keep on doing that. Keep on reaching out to us. Like help us out. Come walk up to us at the conferences.
Kyle Pipkin:If you get a summer intern, pretend like they want to do this for the rest of their life. Just pretend. At the very least, they see that you care. I think you really made a good point there, Simon.
Kim Bastable:Fascinating. That's good stuff. So there is an age difference in this industry. And what I'd like to know is you made the comment being on court forty hours a week is hard. I don't think any of us would deny that.
Kim Bastable:But what unique skills do you and your generation bring that you could see being useful at a club? What I think you guys have a lot more social media knowledge early on than most of us older ones. But is there other are there other things that you are generation ally learning that we may be discounting?
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. Good question. I I think the energy thing is a big piece where there's kind of still that zest for being on the court. Like, I think I I haven't seen my seventy fourth millionth forehand in the net yet. So I I'm I'm a little bit more lenient.
Kyle Pipkin:I'm I'm still pumped whenever you you're willing to try something, you know. So I think that that's a big piece like help them get excited and that sort of thing. The social media thing is big. I mean, like we grew up of course in the social media generation. So like I think there was a great presentation.
Kyle Pipkin:I want to call back to this. There was a great presentation at the PTR conference this year about my generation and how to help guide them. And getting them to be a part of your organization and to feel as a wheel in the cog rather than a spectator of the machine is kind of one of the number one ways to create a great tennis coach. If you can make them feel as though they're part of something bigger, I mean, Adam and Jorge have done that with me. I feel like a massive part of this program and that makes me wanna go out and do everything in my power to make it grow, to get buy in, to have our students be retained.
Kyle Pipkin:I think that can help with any sort of industry but especially especially tennis. Like reach out to them because your younger pros want to help. Like I would say 90% of them want to help. They want to be there but they need to be heard, they need to be valued and you need to give them some responsibility and take the risk on them. Like maybe don't throw 17 year old Timmy on the four o travel team on the first day.
Kyle Pipkin:I'm not That's not what I'm saying. But maybe have him lead a demo. Maybe have him lead an instructional piece. Just just give give them a little something and let them run with it once they become comfortable. So I I think that we all have a good leadership skill if we can have a a leader by our side to to help us walk through that pathway.
Simon Gale:Yeah. We we use the term coach developer a lot around here and how do we take our new recruits so to speak or our younger coaches or even like our apprentices that we have here for the next couple of years and start having them learn how to develop others. But how do we get our team to develop these young coaches because that's a skill in itself. Not every coach is good at developing other people's. They focus on their court, they run their lesson, manage that group but then having another person to guide, that's a skill.
Simon Gale:Where do we get taught that skill? It's not something we generally learn through our career. So finding the right facility which I think is a big part of your messages as a young coach, you know, one of the things I would be interested in is what are the questions I should be asking a prospective employer as a young coach to make sure we're checking the boxes you talk about versus how much do I get paid, how many hours a week, how many days off do I have vacation, you know, when do I get promoted. These are the things you should be asking as a young coach of your leadership and if they're not giving you the answers you want, it's probably not gonna be the right facility for you. So I think there's a message in all you're saying for your fellow young coaches about exploring your your career path cause you have a lot of choices too.
Simon Gale:There's a lot of jobs and a lack of coaches so find a place that is gonna check these boxes for you and don't go for money. You can make $5 an hour less somewhere but be developed, you'll you'll have a career, the money will come in your next job but you better start well or else we're going to lose you young guys in this environment. So not really a question in there, more just listening. I think it's a bit of an observation but I guess my question would be, you talk about generational gaps and so on. We have four or five generations working together at a lot of these facilities.
Simon Gale:But you go to a conference and you would say the average age would be 50 which is pretty reflective of our industry. How does going to a conference appeal to you when there's not that many people of your age bracket or generation at most of these conferences?
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. Great question. I have been very uniquely blessed on the number of conferences I've gone to. I've gotten to speak at a couple. I get a lot of these trips paid for because of hope and Adam's helped provide those experiences for me.
Kyle Pipkin:So I see you guys around all the time, and I was actually just talking with my parents last night about how I'll always see the behind the scenes of a conference. I'll never just be an attendee, and that's pretty crazy to think about as a 22 year old. The first one that I went to whenever I went to my first national conference, I went to the RSPA national conference. There was definitely an age difference. Thankfully, I had a couple other PTMers or sorry, RSMers with me, forced to have it.
Kyle Pipkin:I think selfishly, I do a good job with interacting with people outside of my generation and I think my parents and Adam and Jorge have trained me very well for that. And I again selfishly think that whenever I interact with those people, I know that the more that they see me, the bigger of a name I'll be and the sooner that'll happen. And knowing that my name helps promote the HOPE program and that's kind of my long term goal is to make the HOPE program as good as it can be. So that's a big reason why I like going to these conferences and why I don't mind the big generation gap. That said, I don't think I'm the typical 22 year old at a conference like that.
Kyle Pipkin:I think normally there's an attendee, they have no one else with them, it's their first time, they just walk on the property and find where the first presentation is. Thinking of those people, I think that a lot of the presentations are tailored for people who are coaching a lot, but I think that the attendees are often people who are managers or directors of clubs. What that tells me is there should be more young people being brought in from those directors and managers from clubs if that's gonna be the presentation content. If you wanna do on court content, I believe that's great. I think that it's a great learning opportunity.
Kyle Pipkin:But if you have someone who's in their fifties and running a club with 20 coaches and they watch an on court presentation and then I don't know if they're taking it back or not, that almost feels like a wasted presentation. The benefit would really be if that manager will help pay for support, get hours covered, whatever it may be for their actual coaches who are on the court delivering the product to be there for those presentations. So that's kind of one of the biggest things I've noticed about these conferences is that the content's actually pretty good a lot of the time, but it's not being delivered to the people who are actually going to go and deliver that content. That's one of the biggest problems. One of the biggest things that I've learned from those conferences is that almost everybody wants to help me.
Kyle Pipkin:Everybody is so kind, nobody is above talking to me, I've never had that experience before. Everyone has been incredible. The problem is that a lot of these people have this aura around them that if I wasn't in a situation where I've been around that, I would be very intimidated to go up to some of these people and that's not their fault at all, that's not on them. But it's just that there is a gap between that I think that the other people attending those conferences should try and close that gap. I think specifically of two young guys who I met at the PTR conference this year, one was 19, one was 20.
Kyle Pipkin:And they stuck out to me, I immediately went over to them and apparently they had won the scholarship to come on the trip for free. PTR paid for them to come there and they didn't know anyone from PCR. They And I'm not I'm not knocking PCR, the logistics of that stuff is insane, but they didn't really have anyone to help guide them around that week and that's a perfect example, that's who you want. You want those 19 and 20 year olds, they got picked for a reason. And so that's kind of as people who are going to conferences, people listening to the podcast, I would encourage you if you see anyone who doesn't look like they're in a group, that sort of thing, it can be very clicky, like pull them in, go talk to them, meet with them, who knows, maybe they'll provide some information to you and and you can share some information with them.
Kyle Pipkin:That would kinda be some of those takeaways from those conferences I've been to.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. That's back to the mentoring piece. It really is to get people that wanna be in this career and stay in this career, it's gonna take somebody holding their hand, walking them through it, whether that's a boss or peer or yeah. It's a team. We're all a team.
Kim Bastable:We'll all be successful that way. So we're winding down here with our time. We've great conversation. I have a question. You are a very capable 22 year old, always super impressive, and I can see you have a great future.
Kim Bastable:Is there anything though in your future that somewhat intimidates you? Is there anything you're looking ahead and thinking, oh, I don't know, or I need to really bone up on that, or are you pretty self assured? How do you feel?
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. I mean, I have worries all the time just like we all do. So for me, I I actually just accepted a position to be the assistant RSM director here at Hope College and be a full time tennis professional on staff at DeWitt Tennis Center. We actually just announced that yesterday, so it's very exciting that the RSM students, they had no idea. So it was very exciting.
Kyle Pipkin:Whenever I think about things I'm the most scared of, I'm the most scared that I don't provide that leadership that I'm asking for as a young pro myself. My biggest fear being in this role is to not retain the students that we have because of something that I did. And it's this tight balance that Adam and I have to walk of, hey, we need to push this person but also they're a college student and they're in their twenties and like they want to enjoy their life a little bit rather than just being at the club seventy hours a week. Trying to balance that line and everyone's different with that, Like we have some students who do five privates a week and I push them to do six and they love it. I have other students who haven't done a private in three years and I push them and they like hate me for it.
Kyle Pipkin:Everyone's a little bit different, that's probably my biggest fear with this new role that I'm stepping into is I wanna make sure that I'm providing each student with what they want, what they need and any sort of guidance that I can help provide just because Adam has done that for me and I think I'm closer to them in age and so I can really provide some of that for them. But that would probably be my biggest fear going into it.
Simon Gale:Well, Kyle, this has been amazing. I think we could go go for a lot longer but time is upon us and I would summarize a couple of key takeaways that I've heard today is one, make sure you empower your young pros If you have them, develop them, don't underestimate their abilities and if you give them a runway to to shine, they'll work really hard for you. Make sure it's clear what that looks like from a career development point of view. Invest the time in them and we still have work to do to attract and more importantly retain this next generation if we're going to find our next group of leaders in the future of our industry to replace us older folks who will be aging out soon. So you've said a lot and and it's been very informative.
Simon Gale:I've I've enjoyed listening but if you had a message for everybody from today's conversation, what would be your one point you'd wanna make sure we heard today?
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. Was hoping that you'd ask me this at the very end because last night I was watching Ted Lasso. If no one's seen Ted Lasso, you've got to get in there. One of my favorite scenes of all time from the show is the be curious, not judgmental scene. I won't recap it for you, you can just Google it yourself.
Kyle Pipkin:But the reason that I bring that up is us young pros, so I'm speaking for my generation, you guys have got us reach out and actually like do the grunt work to get what you need because it's not just gonna get handed to you. The reason I say be curious, ask every single question that comes to mind and if the teaching pro gets annoyed, maybe they're not for you. Whenever I think about all of this like career pathway that I've done for myself, it all came from just asking questions. Hey, why are you feeding from that side of the court? Hey, why is the ball over here?
Kyle Pipkin:Why are we doing this? Why are we doing Just ask everything and just soak up the knowledge. Maybe you'll disagree and that sometimes you actually learn more whenever you disagree with those things or if they don't have an answer. That's one of my favorite ones. Same exact message goes for the leaders of the Racquet industry.
Kyle Pipkin:You gotta be curious with your teaching pros, especially your younger ones. Ask them about their lives. Get invested with them. They don't just need to be bodies. So definitely just ask them questions about themselves.
Kyle Pipkin:Ask them questions that they might have. Just be curious with each other. Hopefully, we can all kinda work together to create this new wave and and lose lose out on that scariness that a lot of us are feeling whenever we're younger in this industry.
Kim Bastable:Those are great takeaways, and I think you said it well when you said the image of a tennis pro out there might be a little bit distorted, the reputation, maybe the immoral tennis coach from television or those types of things that really don't reflect at all. I think there's a passion in the industry for people who just want to develop the health benefits of the sport and and help people have the lifelong joy of playing the game. I'm excited that there's energy like yours in the future. I know there's 19 others, maybe more at Hope behind you and some of these other professional tennis management programs. And, really, I think it is it's on us as leaders that are older to inspire those young people and hopefully build more from the high school juniors and seniors that are that are coming up.
Kim Bastable:So I appreciate your time, your energy, and looking out to us to get on the podcast and share your story, Kyle. Thank you for being here.
Kyle Pipkin:Yeah. Thanks for having me on. It was a blast.
Simon Gale:Thanks, Kyle. Cheers, mate.
Kim Bastable:That's all what we have for you on Racquet Fuel today. We will speak to you next time.
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