The Young Ones

Who says that you can never start playing sports too early?
The past few weeks I have been lucky enough to have been a witness to, as well as a participant in a few sporting events that I will tell you about in this and future blogs.

As I walked to my assigned court I could feel my stomach getting tighter and tighter as I got closer to the gate leading to the court. I never felt like this ever in all my years of playing tennis. But today was a different day, today was the first day that I would be teaching tennis to a court full of 5 year olds. The Tot-Tennis Training Program as they call it, surely could not be that hard right? When I signed up to teach the class I was sure that I could do this with my eyes closed. I love to play tennis. I love the whole playing with anyone who wants to enjoy the sport as much as I do. This was a no brainer. But when I opened the the gate and ten little sets of wide eyes turned my way. It was, I'll admit, a little scary.
After introducing myself (FYI- Mr.Ray is much easier for the kiddos than Mr. Kubicsko) to the kids and their parents, we got down to business of having some fun. For some of the kids this was the first time on the court, much less knowing anything about how to play tennis. So our goal this day was just to introduce themselves to their racquets, the tennis balls and the court. Pink racquets for the girls and blue ones for the boys. Even kids know that! The dumping of 200 tennis balls on the court was a hit. Lots of giggles and laughing as they scrambled to pick them all up. One little girl said they felt soft like her bunny rabbit. I'll remember that one to ease the tension the next time I'm serving for a match. For some cardio, I started them marching around the lines of the court single file, then a little faster and then to an all out sprint. At that point I had to slow it down because of some kids were stumbling, bumbling, berman style. We then visited the "net". Why is it so high? Was one of the questions I got. Won't the ball go through the holes in the net? was another winner.


At the end of the first class I had 10 happy students and one even happier Coach.


Coach Sportsfreaks methods are mysterious.