Greg Patton and Nathan Pasha on ParentingAces

Summary

Boise State head men’s coach Greg Patton — who also serves as the USTA International Collegiate Championship men’s coach — and University of Georgia player Nathan Pasha discuss the US team’s experience competing in the International Collegiate Championship in France in December 2014. Patton, who has led the US team for six years (previously serving as a USTA junior Davis Cup coach from 1983, then as a full-time national coach from 1998-2003), describes the program’s mission: to select the best American college players with professional potential, immerse them in a team environment, and use the France competition as a life-changing developmental experience. His first team included Steve Johnson Jr. and Austin Krajicek.

Guest Background

Greg Patton is the head men’s tennis coach at Boise State University and the USTA International Collegiate Championship men’s coach — a position he has held for six years at the time of this episode. He has an extensive history in American tennis development, serving as a USTA junior Davis Cup coach for four years starting in 1983 and as a full-time USTA national coach from 1998 to 2003. He also coached World Team Tennis for 14 years with professional players including Andy Roddick, Deena Garrison, Andy Lottick, and Ricky Leach. He is an explicit and passionate advocate for college tennis as the primary pathway to professional success for American players.

Nathan Pasha is a University of Georgia tennis player who was selected for the 2014 US International Collegiate Championship team. A Georgia native, Pasha grew up in the American junior tennis circuit and is competing at the college level while keeping professional ambitions in view. He describes the France experience from the player’s perspective — the team bonding, the competitive intensity of the away-crowd environment, and the novelty of mixed doubles competition.

Key Findings

1. The International Collegiate Championship’s Mission: Life-Changing Development

Patton is explicit and emphatic about the program’s mission: it is not primarily about winning a trophy (though the US team has been to the finals in multiple years) but about providing a “life-changing experience” for American college players who have the talent and drive to pursue professional tennis. The immersive team environment — players from competing college programs united as a national team — creates the kind of collaborative experience that Patton argues is essential for developing players who can handle the demands of professional competition.

2. College Tennis Is the Pathway to Professional Success — Patton’s Core Belief

Patton is an explicit and vocal advocate for the college-tennis-as-professional-pathway argument: “I’m a big advocate that the pathway to become a world-class pro is through college tennis.” He acknowledges this is “sometimes a controversial debate” but holds the position firmly based on his experience on both sides — as a USTA national coach and as a college coach. The argument is not that every college player becomes a pro, but that the college environment provides the competitive, psychological, and personal development foundation that professional success requires.

3. Team Environment as Professional Development Infrastructure

Patton’s most important coaching insight is that “one of the intangibles of making a great player is somehow creating a team environment so that they can thrive and flourish.” He sees the team environment — with its shared stakes, interpersonal accountability, and collective identity — as producing something individual training cannot: the experience of competing for something larger than yourself. The France trip creates lasting friendships between players who will compete against each other for the rest of their careers.

4. Steve Johnson Jr. and Austin Krajicek on the Inaugural Team

Patton’s first International Collegiate Championship team included Steve Johnson Jr. (two-time NCAA champion, future top-50 ATP player) and Austin Krajicek — a validation of the program’s ability to identify and develop genuinely professional-caliber talent through the college-team-tennis format. The US won that inaugural match from a 1-3 deficit to beat France, providing the competitive breakthrough that sustained Patton’s involvement for six subsequent years.

5. Mixed Doubles as a Team-Bonding and Tactical Wildcard

Both Patton and Pasha discuss the mixed doubles component of the International Collegiate Championship — a format dimension that does not exist in regular college tennis. Patton, who coached World Team Tennis for 14 years and is fluent in mixed doubles strategy, describes the tactical nuances: the targeting of the woman at net when she is serving, the management of the cross-court return against the male net player. Pasha describes the novelty and fun of the format. Patton notes that three of the six years the championship came down to the final mixed doubles match.

6. Competitive Rivalry That Becomes Lasting Friendship

Pasha describes one of the episode’s most interesting dynamics: the players on the US International Collegiate Championship team are athletes who are competing against each other during the regular college season. Ty (Virginia) and Noah (Wake Forest) are rivals in the regular season but teammates in France. Pasha frames this not as a tension but as a richness — the tennis community is “big but somehow small,” and the competition you share with longtime rivals deepens the friendship rather than compromising it.

Actionable Advice for Families

• College tennis participation at the elite level provides access to programs like the International Collegiate Championship — experiences that provide professional-level competition, international travel, and team cohesion that individual junior tennis cannot offer
• Parents should evaluate college tennis not just as a step toward a ranking but as a developmental environment that builds the team experience and international exposure that professional tennis requires
• Encourage your child to cultivate friendships with competitive rivals — the tennis community is small, and the competitors your child faces in juniors and college are likely to be teammates, training partners, or professional colleagues throughout their careers

INTENNSE Relevance

• Team tennis as professional model: Patton’s conviction that team environment is essential to professional development is the foundational argument for INTENNSE’s existence. The league creates exactly the team context that Patton argues is “one of the intangibles of making a great player” — and provides it at the professional level, where team tennis has historically been absent
• The college-to-professional pipeline: Patton’s explicit advocacy for college tennis as the pathway to professional success maps directly onto INTENNSE’s design. The league’s target player pool is exactly the population that Patton’s International Collegiate Championship develops: elite college players with professional ambitions who need the right environment to take the next step
• World Team Tennis precedent: Patton coached World Team Tennis for 14 years, working with Andy Roddick, Deena Garrison, Andy Lottick, and Ricky Leach. His deep familiarity with the team tennis model at the professional level makes him a potentially valuable advisor or advocate for INTENNSE — someone who has seen both sides of the college-to-professional-team-tennis pipeline
• Mixed doubles as competitive format: The International Collegiate Championship’s mixed doubles final — often the match that decides the championship — is a direct validation of INTENNSE’s mixed-gender roster model. Patton’s 14 years of World Team Tennis coaching includes extensive mixed doubles strategy experience that is directly applicable to INTENNSE’s format

Notable Quotes

“I’m a big advocate that the pathway to become a world-class pro is through college tennis. Sometimes that’s controversial. I think the evidence is on my side.”

“One of the intangibles of making a great player is creating a team environment so they can thrive and flourish. Individual training gets you so far — then you need to learn how to compete for something bigger than yourself.”