We Lost A Generation

  We lost a generation.. Object of this q and a is to get a broader understanding of why so many of our generation no longer have any direct involvement in the sport that defined our upbringings and is/was a major defining influence on who we were as young adolescents pursuing excellence and careers in tennis.. Many of you we know quite well and shared many of the external positives and negatives of the competitive junior tennis upbringing... But as with all these relationships, we only got to know each other as we all reached high levels of achievement, either traveling together from junior tourney to tourney, teaming up for a few fun yet volatile college tennis years, and an even lesser few who remained connected as you travelled the globe through your professional playing years striving for financial successes at our sports highest playing levels.. A fact I find somewhat challenging to confront is those of you who have transitioned successfully out of the uber competitive live of a pro tennis player into the more grounded life of domesticity, family, and child rearing, that so many of you who had successful junior and professional careers have not encouraged or channelled your children in to the growing up experience of high intensity junior tennis competition we all went through..  the  rewards that came with the high levels of success we all achieved sadly came with quite a cost, either personally or in the friction and oft dysfunction of ones supporting family structure..

 We could fill a small library with the amount of wisdom and experience you all possess, wisdom and experience we feel would be invaluable to the coming generations of parents and players who are currently attempting to follow and succeed in the same trade we " chose" ourselves to pursue I have begun and will continue to pursue vigorously in the years to come is a project we are coining " long term healthy junior tennis development" such that hopefully the next generation of success driven young tennis players will, when they have hit their last tennis ball, the transition in to mainstream life will be as seamless and healthy as possible, without extended stays in therapy and rehab being part of that transition. Many of the inner oft difficult to discuss experiences of what our respective home lives were like are for many of us compartmentalized safely away from our daily day to day experiences..

 Our goal here is not to re-open old unprocessed wounds and traumatic events from our pasts.. Our goal is to illustrate to this next generation of parents players coaches and governing bodies that a lot of mistakes were made, not out of maliciousness but from just a sheer lack of knowledge and experience about what a young emotionally immature teen is experiencing during the incessant pushing and driving that occurred during our formative years, pushing and driving that we feel the urgency to extract from the shadows and shine a light upon this current generation of tennis hopefuls All your stories are unique yet there is much crossover.. Unrealistic expectations, pressure to win at all costs at such young ages, family dynamics hanging on a razor thin balance whether johnie or Janie won that day The safety nets were not in place in our era.. Sadly, as we look upon this next generation, those nets are still not there, or better stated, the safety nets of not experiencing the negative downsides of our sport are not engaging at all in the sport we once lived and breathed 24/7 whatsoever .

. We want it all, the good and the bad, so we can do everything in our powers to help prevent any more of the ugly we all have seen and experienced at far to close a view Pre- competition 1) who introduced you to tennis? Did you want to play? Were you made to play? Did you like playing early on and why? 2) what made it fun early on.. A fun coach? Quality time with parents? Your friends were playing? Or was it something you picked up easily  and enjoyed being good at something? 3)  how old were you when you played your first tournament or competitive match ( club ladder , etc) 4) how was the experience? Did you come out winning early and often and fed off the success and adulation being a 'winner' brought or did you get your tail handed to you a few times by more experienced players? How was losing badly greeted at home and on those long sullen drives home? 5) when you had your first successes and realized ' hey, I'm one of the best at something here, not just in your town, but on a regional/ national level, what did that feel like and did your successes change your family dynamic in anyway ( excessive attention on you over other siblings?) or debates within the family about what to do with you the young phenom upstart and how to intensify efforts for you to maximize your early gifts ? 6) if/when did you start to feel an unhealthy pressure to win coming from your support system, how old were you, how did you handle what in hindsight may have been unhealthy pressures to succeed or having to live up to unrealistic expectations? 7) if/ when do you remember your first push back against said pressures/ expectations .. Either with on court behaviors ( cheating, acting out on court, tanking, ) or off court disobedience? 8) did you feel when you were competing that you were playing more than just a match.. That you may have subconsciously been playing for approval and love and to not be successful, there were fears that the approval and love of your primary care givers was all of a sudden conditional on your results??? Tough question but very important one to reflect on 9) if the answer to the above question in hindsight is affirmative in anyway, can you remember how that felt as a young teenager? Was it confusing? Anger causing? Saddening?  Again, tough question but this dynamic cuts right to the heart of the kind of unhealthy junior tennis development and feel is crucial to pull out of the shadows and show this new generation of inexperienced tennis parents/ coaches that if this dynamic gets set in place early in a junior players career, it is very very hard to reverse 10) not all family dynamics centered around their Childs succeses and failures are unhealthy .. If your family was positive and supportive through thick and thin, we need your stories badly.. How were defeats and tough stretches handled by all parties within your support system.. Did one parent rage innapropriately and the other make everything ok behind the scenes? Was your coach the buffer between often dueling parents.. How did you keep on working toward your goal of excellence in tennis when during the tougher stretches? Next section... What were you fighting against.. Were you pushed, verbally or physically abused or mistreated, was your coach innapropriate in anyway, verbally sexual innuendo etc In retrospect, if you could go back in time at certain critical junctures in your development , what would you wish was in place that you feel would have made the whole experience more rewarding for you?