What is the Role of the College Coach ft Rod Ray

Transcript

I’m Lisa Stone and you’re listening to Parenting Aces. Welcome to season 15 of the Parenting Aces podcast. I’m your host Lisa Stone and this week we have back with us Coach Rod Ray of Wofford University. Rod was on a couple years ago and I’m super excited to have him back. He brings 26 years of coaching experience to us and the things he has seen, the changes he’s seen and the ways he’s adapted his recruiting and coaching over that time period are really stuff that we can all learn from. He also is the parent of two sons, one of whom is a tennis player, now a tennis coach, a college tennis coach. So I think you’re going to learn a lot this week and I’m excited for you to hear from my friend Coach Rod Ray. Sit back, relax and enjoy. Coach Rod Ray, welcome back to the podcast. It’s great to see your smile and I’m super excited to jump right in today. Lisa, I’m glad to be here with you. Thanks for having me. It was two years ago that we had a conversation together. Yeah and a lot has changed in those two years both in terms of your work but also in terms of college tennis and all the changes happening there and I think we have a lot to talk about and I’m excited for you to share your experiences and your expertise with our Parenting Aces community. So let’s dive right in for my audience that may not have watched or listened to our previous episode. Just a reminder, you are the coach at Wofford. So and you’ve been there for how many years now? This is year 26. Oh my goodness. You are an anomaly in the world of college tennis coaches I think. There aren’t a whole lot of you that have been around as long as you have and I think we have to take advantage of the work that you have done, the changes you have seen and your ability to really pivot as college tennis has pivoted and as technology around college tennis and recruiting have pivoted. So where should we start? Right. Well, I mean, first of all, what a great sport and a great show and a great service that your show does to parents and you know, when the children land with me, they’ve gone through a lot, right? A lot of development and a lot of tennis. But the parents are still involved in the obviously in their children’s lives and we want that and we want that for a lifetime, right? The old tagline used to be that tennis was a sport of a lifetime, but that’s still true, right? Especially with all the recent science behind it, right? That tennis participation in tennis can extend the life expectancy and that’s for a lot of reasons, not just the physical aspects of it. Right. So we’re talking about the healthy sports. So like on my team, I have a senior on my team. His father is a coach and was a great player and his grandfather is excited about his birthday because he just turned 80 and he’s a nationally ranked 80 player. So he gets to move up from the 75s to the 80s and he looks great and he’s articulate and he’s got energy and he doesn’t live too far away. So he gets to come to some of the matches and he had some health problems last year and he was excited about getting past the health problems so he could play in the 80s and he had that to look forward to. And I think that’s where tennis is just so great. You know, and then I have on in a few weeks, I have an alumni dinner for former players and I’ve got bunches of former players coming back for a dinner. Some of them are flying in. Some are driving in. But I’ve been reflecting. On on these young men and their lives as tennis players and it’s it’s incredible. Well, and it’s not just that you’re impacting their lives as tennis players, right, right? I mean, your role as their college coach goes way beyond hitting fuzzy yellow balls over the net. Right, way beyond, right, way beyond. And, you know, we like we just the Olympics have been on been on TV and behind every great Olympian. There’s a story, right? And and behind every great tennis player, there’s a story. There’s there’s the people part, right? And we we bring our people part to the court with us or to the to our lives and to our to the training ground. So it’s it is far, far beyond just hitting the ball. We got to be good at hitting the ball. We want to be an expert and I want to be an expert in the development of hitting the ball, but I need to be an expert in the development of the other parts of the person as as well. There’s a holistic approach to it, right? Right. And I would love to kind of dive in to how you look at the recruiting process as part of that holistic approach. Some of the things that you’re looking for and listen, recruiting has changed dramatically in the 15 years that I’ve been doing parenting aces. It’s certainly changed dramatically in the, what did you say, 26 years that you’ve been coaching. So how has your approach to recruiting changed with all of these other things that are changing in the background? Well, I think the I mean, I think the number one thing that hasn’t changed is I want good people. That’s the that’s that’s the I mean, that’s the that’s the number one thing. And I think what does that mean to you, though? Yeah, right. So so there they they come. It’s an individual sport and then we put it in a team environment and they’ve got to be able to get along with people. They’ve got to be what we know that tennis teaches resilience. So you’re going to you need to be resilient, right? I mean, everybody on our team is a really good player and everybody we play against is a really good player. They’re going to they’re going to come to us. I mean, for example, I had a I had a player who played high school tennis and his high school tennis record was something like one hundred and five and oh, and and so he didn’t he didn’t lose. He played he played tournament tennis as well, of course. But but his high school record was something like one hundred and five and oh, I think it was. Well, he came to college and he lost a lot. And so it takes a great person to handle that as a young age. But that’s that’s one of the things that life really that, you know, life teaches us, but tennis teaches us that helps us helps us with that. So, you know, let me interrupt you one second, Rod, because this is an interesting story, right? Here’s this kid who was undefeated on the high school tennis court, likely faced some losses in tournament tennis if he was playing tournaments as well. But what did you see in that player that besides his record that made you feel confident that he was going to be able to come into your team environment and be an asset to you? Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, he had he’d love tennis. This particular person, I think he’d love tennis. And so, you know, if we’re going to bring somebody into our into our program and they’re going to they’re going to train 20 hours a week and they’re going to compete homeware away every weekend, we want to be somebody who really, really likes likes this tennis piece. And I’m at a I’m at a really good academic school. So they like the academic piece, but those two go hand in hand. But they’ve got it. They’ve got a show on the tennis court that they, you know, for me to want to recruit them, I’ve got to understand like, yeah, this person’s in it like they really, really like tennis and not all good players like tennis. Sometimes they maybe they they start out liking it and then they don’t like it later. And and that’s OK. But if they if they really, really like tennis, that’s that’s a big piece. If they like being part of a team, if they’re if they’re they’re a people person, right? If they enjoy if they enjoy other people and they’re willing to enjoy other people, then that that’s a big piece of it as well. But I think, you know, to have a certain amount of energy a person has, they they bring a certain thing. Right. We think about there’s two types of people, those that bring energy and those that suck energy. And we want people want people on the team that are going to bring energy and bring kindness and bring teamwork, bring empathy, seek understanding and love people. I mean, that if I can get in this year’s team, I have that group. I have a really group, a really great group of young people. And they they they are like that. And they and so it makes practice fun every day. Like there hadn’t been a day that I haven’t looked for it, that I haven’t looked forward to to being with them and they haven’t looked forward to being with each other. Not every team is like that. I haven’t had every team like that. And other coaches, there are coaches out there who’ve had it, but don’t have it right now. Right. But that’s what if we have that, it’s like a person who likes their work environment. Right. They like the people they go to work with. So same same thing there. So if we get that piece right, then it’s it’s it makes it makes it better. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We have talked on this podcast and you and I exchanged this in emails about and I I’ll name image like this and what impact it is having on college recruiting and, you know, specifically to tennis. We know that NIL deals in tennis look very different from NIL deals and the revenue sports at the collegiate level. But let’s talk a little bit about that and where a program like Wofford fits into that NIL ecosystem. How does a smaller school continue to compete for top players and and desirable players? So, yeah, NIL, I mean, it’s it’s raised the level of tennis, right? From the from the top down, it’s what it’s done is there’s there’s players playing college tennis that. Before they would have gone on to the pros, but now they’re now they’re now they’re playing college tennis. OK. Those players are not on my team. But what it’s done is it’s raised the top level, which has been a trickle down. OK, so so like we have explain explain how that. Yeah. Well, so so let’s say let’s say let’s say there’s there’s a player who at the the best player in the country or the fifth best player in the country in the past would have gone pro. They were in college and they would have decided not to come back. They would have gone pro. Well, now they’re getting paid. So they’re staying in college and they’re playing pro tournaments at the same time. Right. OK, and so they’re they’re doing both and they’re doing they’re doing a great job on both. They’re playing. They’re playing the pro skill, a full pro schedule, and they’re playing almost a full college schedule. So so that person has a spot on that team, which means that’s not a spot. It’s not a spot for somebody else. So the trickle down is is that there’s. It affects all levels, right? So the level of tennis that like the Wafford were were a small division one school would play in Southern Conference mid major division one school. The level is incredible. I mean, you can watch us play. I mean, it’s like, wow, these players are really good and they’re getting better all the time. So, I mean, you know, the top level are pros, right? They’re the top level of pros. They’re there. The top level would a top level college sentence is similar to a challenger term. So, I mean, in in terms of ratings, rankings, which I hate to go there, but I’m going there in the past before NIL, a player who was ranked, let’s say top 20 in the country in their recruiting class, they would have had a lot of options in terms of the top of the food chain in college tennis. Now that top 20 person is being bumped by the top 10 person or the top five person who in the past would have gone straight to the pro leagues instead is choosing to spend time in college, taking up those lineup spots, those roster spots. So now number 20 is being forced to look at a different level of college tennis program than they would have maybe looked at prior to NIL. And so what it’s doing is it’s deepening the level of college tennis. Whereas before maybe just, you know, the top five schools had all the top players. Now you’re getting really good players at a min major like whatever. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, the top player in the country for Columbia beat Sebastian Korder this year, who just won the Delray Beach Open this past weekend. And he’s going to graduate. The level’s incredible. And he’s going to graduate for Columbia in May with a psychology degree. So what that means to for these junior players is they now need to really understand how important it is to widen the funnel when they are looking at schools for their college career, right? The level. So we played, we played UNC Asheville a couple of days ago. You know, and I was, I was talking with one of my four players who remembered his, he played, he played UNC Asheville’s number five player when he was, when he was a freshman and he had two set points against UNC Asheville’s number five player. UNC Asheville’s number five player is the 2024 Wimbledon doubles champion and the 2025 Australian Open doubles champion from you. And so to think like, gosh, you know, and, and my number five player, that guy, he, he, he’s got a great job selling oatmeal now, but, but the guy he, the guy who he almost beat went on to win, win Wimbledon doubles and when the Australian Open doubles, he went on to win. So the level, the level of all college tennis is, it’s really, really high. And then, I mean, there’s a lot of good fits, like a lot of good fits, a lot of good places to go. Right. So now it’s not just, let’s see who the top five programs are. And that’s where I’m focusing my efforts as a high school sophomore, junior. Now I need to really dig in and start looking and considering these programs where I still may not make the top six because they’re getting players, you are getting players that may not have considered a Wofford in the past. Yeah. And I, you know, and I think it’s, you’ve said this before, there, there’s a place for everybody. Absolutely. There’s a place, if you want to play college tennis, there’s a place for everybody. And I’m a big believer that, that college tennis, is a great asset to anybody’s life. If you can, if you can play college tennis, yeah, you should play college tennis. And at the, at a place where you can play, at a place where you can play, you should play college tennis. The benefits are incredible. As a, as a look back at like former players and the experience and how they’re having rich lives down. Yep. Great investment, right? We, we love tennis. We love college tennis. We love junior. We love senior tennis. It teaches so much. And it’s, there’s a reason, I mean, college sports, there’s a reason that America has college sports. Most of it’s not for entertainment. Most of it’s for, for education. Like we, like America believes in the educate that, that, that athletics is a good addendum to the academic experience of a college student, not just entertainment, right? If you play, if you play on a huge basket, on a, on a, on a power for basketball team, you are an entertainer, but most college athletes, if they’re not entertainers, they’re, they’re supplementing their academic experience. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s so worth it. And they’re making connections. They’re getting life experiences that are going to serve them, you know, for the rest of their life, obviously. One of the things you said to me is that, junior coaching is becoming more important than ever with the current landscape and college tennis. Let’s dig into that a little bit. What, what do you mean by that? And, and what is it that families need to be looking for in a junior tennis coaching experience? Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, I mean, I coach, I coach a couple, a couple, couple of young people. And I want to be, I want to be really good technically. I mean, I want to, I want to help them technically. That’s super important. So I continue to be a student of the game as, as a coach. And I think, I think that piece is real important. But I think that, like, I think the, the parents that other, I just coach a few kids and the parents of the, like they, they want me to have, they want me to have influence on their young person’s life in a valuable way. Because this person, like I would never let my child be with somebody that I didn’t like. They might be a good tennis coach, but if they weren’t like, if they weren’t adding value as like to that person’s character, I would never let my child be around that person. Um, I mean, I just wouldn’t, it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be worth it. So I think that’s like, as you, as a, as a parent, like I want you, I want you to challenge the parents, like make sure that, that this coach has values that you see as important and they’re adding value to your child’s life in a really, really like important way. And I’m talking about into like the, into their personhood, into their soul. Right. And that’s, that’s, that’s important. And we, that that’s more important than the tennis piece. Now a tennis piece is important, right? They need to be, they need to be really good at the technical part and the motivational part and physical and that piece. They need to be good at that, but they need to be good at all those pieces. Right. Yeah. And I think that’s really tough. And, and honestly, it’s the question I get asked pretty much the most when I interact with parents is how do I find a good coach for my child? Look, if you live in Southern California, if you live in Florida, if you live in the Atlanta area, you know, their Texas parts of Texas, there are great coaches on pretty much every street corner. If you don’t live in those tennis hotbeds, it’s oftentimes very difficult. to find a coach that has the technical knowledge that has the coaching skills, the motivation understands the fitness piece, the nutrition piece, the mental side, but more importantly, finding that good soul that’s going to impact your child’s hopefully good soul and asking the right questions, doing your homework. This is difficult stuff. But it’s necessary stuff. We’ve got to protect our kids. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I would say like for parents to use their gut instinct on that, like you, like, like, you know, like you, you, you know, you like read the, read the room. So like we say, like read the, read the person, you know, watch, watch, of course you should watch, you know, you should, you should definitely watch. Yeah. If the coach is telling you they don’t want you around, maybe that should raise a red flag. Maybe not, but ask why. Yeah. I mean, don’t you want me around? Right. Right. And you can, I mean, the child shouldn’t be looking at the parent every time they miss a shot and I can see why coach wouldn’t want that. But, but you can, you can, you can solve that part, you know, or the, or the parent shouldn’t be sighing every time the child misses a shot. I can see why coach wouldn’t want the parent there in that situation, but that can, that can be communicated and solved and pretty quickly. I’m like, stop doing that. You know? And, and that, and that, so that’s, that shouldn’t be a problem. Um, but I would say definitely like the parents should, should watch and get to know that, get to know that. I mean, depending on the age of the, of the, um, of the child, but, um, yeah, I just said if they’re a child, so it doesn’t really matter the age, um, you should, you should definitely, definitely be in, be in, you know, yeah. Do your due diligence for sure. Um, most coaches are great. Most coaches are great, but, but some are not. Yeah, for sure. And Rod, when you’re coaching junior players and you have a parent who hasn’t learned yet, um, how to contain themselves when they’re sitting court side, because listen, we’re all works in progress. Um, what are some of the things that you like to share with parents to help them get better at that piece of it? Yeah. Well, and you know, parenting is, um, parenting is hard. Right. Parents, you want to have our bush, our, our buttons pushed and it’s, it’s extremely hard. Um, it’s been hard for a long time. Um, you know, it’s, um, we, we joke about the mama bear, right. And, and the protective nature of animals. So it’s, so it’s real. We’re no one’s immune to that. And so it’s, it’s okay to have those, have those feelings. Um, it’s not something to be like, oh, they’re, that parents just that way or they’re terrible. Maybe they haven’t been a parent before. Right. And, and so, um, or maybe they’re bringing, they’re bringing a set of experiences into it. And so being a, being a parent, I mean, um, you know, I made a lot of mistakes along the way of, of, of being a parent of, of, of young, when I had young boys, um, but to just, just to communicate with the, with the parent, like in a, in a respectful way and to say like, um, it’s what you want. You want it to be the child’s experience. You want the parent to watch and the parents going to be involved. And, um, but you can, they need to be taught oftentimes like when to, um, we’re not going to talk about the match right after the match. We’re not going to critique the child. Um, when they lose right after, right after the match, you’re going to, you’re going to let them let them talk about it on their time. Um, because you want to have a good relationship with that, um, with, with your child at the end of the day, you, you, you want it to be a good relationship for them. Um, you want them to have fun. You want them to learn a lot and you want to have a good relationship with them. I mean, that, that would be terrible to not have a good relationship with your child because of a sport. Um, Rod, my audience has heard me say a million times, the number one goal of the parent should be to have a great relationship at the end of the day. Yeah, don’t do it. So I think like I had, I had a, I have a son who’s in tennis and I had a, I have a son who both, both my children participated in college sports. Um, one was, was a runner and, and one, um, was a tennis player and they’re 24 and 25 years old. Both still participate in sport, which is okay. We’re, we’re, that’s pretty cool. So they’re going to have healthy lifestyles that way. That’s pretty good. Um, but I think like when my son was the runner, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, well, we have a race today. He had a race. I mean, if I was running, then if I was running, I like to run too. If, then if we were both running, then we had a race. But if, if I was just taking him to the race, it wasn’t, we had a race. Um, I coach a college team. So did, if it was my match, it was my team’s match. Yes. But if, if my son was playing in a match and he was 14, it wasn’t that we had a match. Yeah. He had a match. And talk about why that is an important distinction. I mean, it’s just that, that you gotta be able to separate yourself from your child for, for your own sake and for their sake. And when you, when you can separate your self, then you’re going to be more, they need you to be separated. You’re going to be more level headed. You can’t be, we’re already so emotionally attached to our children, but you, you got, you can’t say, you know, it’s if, because if you say we have a match, we’re not playing, they’re playing. So now they lose, but it, but you already said it was, well, we’re going, we’re going to the tournament. We’re going to, um, you know, we’re, yeah, we have a match today. No, does that mean so they lose and you lose. I mean, they know that you think they want to, they want, they, they got their own stuff. It’s enough, right? To not, um, but cheer for your child and be happy for them. And, um, but it’s not, it’s not like, well, we lost today. No, we didn’t tell you how much, how often I hear that when I go to your tournament. Yeah. Yeah. We had a good one today. We had a good day today or we lost that one. What? No, no, no. I mean, and you can, you know, be proud of your daughter, be proud of your son, like be, be proud of them, but you’re not just proud of them because we, we won, right? There it is. We won. No, you’re not proud of them for that. What are you proud about? You’re proud that they, that they, that they went and, you know, it’s interesting. I had, I was watching, um, I watched Tommy Paul play Sebastian Korda in the finals of the Del Bay beach open. Okay. I watched the watched on video. Um, and, and Seb Korda beat Tommy Paul. And, and, uh, we’re talking about a lot of money and a lot of points, right? And, and, and at the, at the award ceremony, Tommy Paul said, said, um, I’m so happy for Seb Korda. He had a tough year last year and I’m so happy for him and his coach, um, that they won today. And I thought, well done, Tommy Paul, like well, well done. We’re talking about a lot of money between the finalist and the winner and a lot of points. Okay. A lot of points and a lot of ranking points, lots on the line in that. And that was the finals. And, and to, I mean, I thought, I want to do that. Like I want to be that I want to be that. And when we’re, as a parent, if we’re too connected to our child’s results, we have a tournament. It’s hard to hard to do that, right? Yeah. But, and, and so that, cause the child’s going to feel that they lost for you. Right. They feel the letdown. And as you said, they already have all this stuff that they’re dealing with when they step on court. They, they have a lot to remember, a lot to think about. They have their own emotions coming into play that, you know, they’ve been taught hopefully to figure out ways to keep those under control so they can play at their highest level. That day they don’t need that extra pressure feeling like if I lose my parent feels like they’ve lost as well. Yeah. And yeah, it’s a lot. We can, we can fix that as parents. We can, and we need help a lot of times with that because the gut instinct is we love our child. We’re so invested in this journey that they’re on. And how can we help, but internalize it and take it all personally, but we have to not do that. And it’s very, very challenging. And this is where good coaches come in. This is where good peer support groups come in. And hopefully this is where parenting ACEs comes in. You know, to remind all the parents out there that you’re gonna make mistakes along the way. Rod Ray just told you, he made mistakes long. I’ve told y’all a million times, I made so many mistakes in my journey with my son. But the trick is to recognize when you make that mistake, apologize for it, own it, and work on not doing it again. Yeah, good. Like I have no doubt that your show is saving relationships, like saving parent-child relationships from a catastrophe. I hope that’s true. I do. And I’m using the word all loosely, but seriously, if that’s the outcome of 15 years of doing this, I will feel very proud because that has been the goal, right? And I think my interaction with people like you, Rod, helps me keep those things in perspective as well, because it’s easy to get caught up. results and rankings and all the, you know, how many hits did this podcast get and how many likes and who we put. Now, none of that is important. You know, what’s important is the relationships. Yeah. So that’s been at the crux of your coaching career, relationships, having those relationships with your player, making sure that your players feel like they’re part of a family when they come to play with you and that that family connection continues even after they graduate and move on to their adult lives. Can you talk about some of those experiences, some of the players that you’ve had the privilege, I hope you feel, of coaching over the years and how you continue to stay involved in their lives beyond the tennis court? Yeah, well, as I mentioned, a couple of weeks we’re having an alumni dinner and got a lot of guys coming back for that. And so I’m, you know, I’m really excited about that. You know, as a coach, I get paid when they call me and say, I got a new job or I’m getting married or I’m having a baby or, and sometimes it’s, coach, I want to talk to you about what I’m learning at work and how it applies to what we talked about on the team. And that happens a lot. What I’m, what I’m doing in my business and how it applied, how it applied, how it applied to the team. So, you know, I think like on our college team, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a life lesson every single day on the tennis court. And I try to, I try to apply that like, this is how it applies the disappointment that you may face for the sportsmanship opportunity. That you may face does, does correlate to real life. But there’s just, there’s been so many, so I mean, I could, I could, at least I could go on and on. So many, I mean, I could be here all day talking about the relationships. And, and I think, you know, I think, and I think that’s what, you know, tennis is such a great teacher, right? It teaches, it does teach resilience. I mean, and I mean, it teaches resilience and so yeah, you can get resilience otherwise, but it teaches resilience. And if you’re going to be successful in life, in business, in a marriage, you’re going to have to be resilient. And so if you could say, well, how much would I, how much, how much should I pay to be good at resiliency? I mean, how much you got, right? It’s like, I mean, cause that’s, that’s, that’s such a big part of, of, of, and it’s not having a success. Successful life, but it’s having a rewarding life is resilience. You know, that’s when, that’s when, that’s when like, that’s when, you know, when you, when you make a comeback, right? If it was just easy, I mean, there’s a lot of stuff, you know, there’s a lot of talk, like difficult things are, are rewarding, right? There’s a lot of talk right now about that. And, and so, but in tennis is super challenging. It’s a hard, it’s a difficult sport, but that those rewarding experiences give our life meaning and value. And, and that’s what we, you know, that’s what we really, we really want for our, say for our children. That’s what I want for my players. I want them to have happy, rich lives, right? I want them to be contributors. I want them to, to have, to feel value in their life. And that comes from other people that comes from those teamwork experiences. Where, gosh, I had to, you know, someone asked me why aren’t I, they, they, they, they, yesterday afternoon, somebody advocated for themselves and met with me and said, coach, why aren’t I in the lineup right now? And it was, you know, I care about this person. It was difficult for me, but I’m so pleased they came to me and, and we had a good conversation. It wasn’t an easy conversation, but that person’s learning to advocate. For themselves in something they really care about. Awesome. I mean, they’ve spent their whole life. They’ve spent, you know, they’ve played tennis for 16 years or something like that. And so it means a lot to them, right? Maybe not quite that long, but a long time and they’ve put a lot into it and they’re at it. It’s close to their heart and they’re learning to advocate for themselves. Well, there can be doing that when they graduate. They’re going to have a difficult boss and they’re going to have to, they’re going to, and how they, how they handle that is going to help them with their promotion or whether they get looked over, right? Those are people skills, right? And if they don’t care about it, then it doesn’t, it’s not as, it’s not as difficult, right? So since they care about that conversation was difficult and they learned how to do it in something that, you know, I got, now it’s going to be, I got overlooked for a promotion, right? I’ve got so many stories of, of, of athletes that have done that, done it well. And here they go. Yeah. I have to ask you when that player came to you and said, why aren’t I in the lineup? Or what do I need to do to get in the lineup? What’s your answer to that? I mean, first of all, great question. Like great question. We have a, we have a good team with a lot of depth and, and, and you, you know, you’ve got a good argument. Like, yeah, we should be talking about this. Thank you for coming. to see me. Um, um, and, and, and I gave him specifics. I gave him specifics, um, but also validated him by saying, yes, you, you, um, you have a valid argument. Like this is, this is not an easy in respect to you. This is not an easy decision for me. Yeah. I mean, it’s tough because these kids, like you said, they’ve devoted so much time to getting good. At this game. And you obviously saw something in this player to want to bring them onto your team. And now I guess he’s feeling like, well, hang on a second, you know, coach said he wanted me. Why aren’t I playing? Only six players get to play each match. And the coach’s job is to win these dual matches. Yeah. You know, it’s tough. The other players, the other players improved, you know, the player, that’s the player that’s ahead of him has improved too. So it’s, but that’s, I mean, I just described life right there, right? The other players proved, um, you’re not, you’re not necessarily doing anything wrong, but there are some opportunities for you. So let’s, let’s keep going. Um, and I think, you know, what, what did that player want from me? That player wanted to be heard, right? They wanted to be valued and they wanted to be heard. Um, and hopefully, I did that. Hopefully I did that well. Um, both teaching them to continue to do that, but also one day, one day the roles will switch and somebody’s going to be coming to them in that same way. And, and to be able to handle that with respect and, um, Well, and the player, to be fair, probably also wanted some action items, like give me some things that if I do a B and C, you’re going to seriously consider putting me in. Um, because a lot of times, I mean, let’s face it, these kids are 18 when they show up on campus, a lot of them, they’re still children. They really are. And they don’t always know what is expected and what they need to do. And they need guidance. And that’s what a coach is. A coach is someone who offers guidance. And so I think, you know, I’m, I’m replaying in my head, my son’s freshman year. College where he sought guidance from his coach and basically was just told you just need to figure this out. This is your problem to figure out, you know, which is another way of handling things. I suppose, but, uh, was not the most effective way in my son’s case. I think as a parent, knowing that your child is under the influence of a coach who has that empathy, who recognizes this kid’s coming to me. This was hard. This was really difficult. My role is to really listen, to validate what they’re saying to me, to give them some things to work on and then to take a step back and let them do or not do the work. Let’s see. Let’s see what they’re made of at that point. Yeah. I think that’s from a coach’s standpoint. That’s probably the one of the hardest parts of hard work. The hardest parts of my job are those line up decisions. Sure. And if you’re a caring person as you are, Rod Ray, then, you know, it hurts your heart to tell a kid, you know, something that’s going to be disappointing to hear, but it is your job. You have to do that and you are helping them grow. Right. You know, I had, I had a player who like wanted to play, wanted to play, never got, never really got in, never got in. He didn’t get in his first choice of law school and he was trying to get in law school. It took years, took years, took years. Well, now he’s a lawyer and he had perseverance, right? And he showed me perseverance when he was trying to get into the lineup. Well, then it took him a long time to get into law school. He went to graduate school and, um, um, had different girlfriends along the way. He had his heart broken a couple of times along the way. But yes, he was a lawyer. He’s doing great. Right. Well, there’s that resiliency piece, you know, that I’m, that I’m so proud of with him. Right. No, it’s great. It’s great. As we start to wind down, I want to not forget to talk about your book because you have the saying hard comes first. You’ve heard the book by that title. Um, I want to dive into that just a little bit because pretty much everything we’ve been talking about so far, uh, feeds into your kind of mindset of if something’s easy, it’s oftentimes not worth pursuing. It’s the hard things that help us become better humans. Can you talk a little bit about where that came from for you and how you implement that with your players? Yeah. Um, I mean, um, so hard comes first. Um, the title of my book came out most of, most of my players have a story. Okay. I’ve talked about really successful, former players, incredibly successful. Most of them have a story, um, a back, a backstory. Um, they, they overcame an injury. They overcame, um, dysfunction in their family. They, their family overcame job loss. They, the child overcame, didn’t get in the lineup. And then now as a lawyer and, and usually there’s, there’s some kind of story. And, and so, you know, and I think we, we want to spoil our children, right? I’m a parent. I want, I want to give them everything in the world imaginable, right? Um, and, and that’s not always the best thing for them. Um, because we, we learned through hard, like hard comes first. We learned, we learned through challenges, you know, so in my case, I had two kids, um, one who, who played for me at Watford, um, got a degree in finance, um, postgraduate a year, um, studying data analytics and now he’s coaching at LSU and they have one of the, one of the best women’s teams in the country. And then my other son ran cross country in college. Um, and he has, he has autism and, um, and I learned so much from, from him and that experience, like, um, hard comes first. I couldn’t fix autism. So I ended up, I had to fix, I mean, and I tried, I tried to, you know, especially competitive father. I tried to fix, I tried to fix it. I poured more money and energy into it and tried to change it and fix it. And I couldn’t. And the result is that I’m the one who grew along the way, right? He’s a super cool kid, young man, not a kid, super incredible, incredible human being. But, but I grew from that experience, right? My family grew from that experience. My marriage grew from that experience. Um, my tennis playing son grew from that experience and it’s influenced my coach. I was coaching in a way that I, there’s no way I would coach the way that I do today. If I hadn’t had that, that influence of, of a special needs son in my life. Um, so that that’s kind of so many, so many stories, um, and examples where, yeah, something difficult was then parlayed into something incredible, right? Um, so tough things can be used for good. Um, I have relationships with other men who have children with special needs. Um, and, uh, and I’m doing okay and I get to be a resource for them. Um, so it’s, um, but tennis, tennis, tennis teaches tennis is, it’s so great. You know, I’m, I’m teaching a little boy right now. He’s, he’s 11 years old. And I’m like, and he loves tennis, you know? And I’m like, if this guy keeps, if he sticks with it, he’s going to have the cool est experience, you know, but he’s going to lose a lot along the way. Right. He’s got to get, he’s got to get good at losing in order to win. Right. Handle that. And that’s, that’s true in life. Like hard comes first. Know that right. My college students life’s not going to get easier after college. It’s going to get harder, but you’re going to get better at dealing with the hard. Right. That’s so true. And I think one of the challenges as the parents of these young players is recognizing and remembering the opportunity in the hard stuff. Right. And helping our kids understand that because they’re still developing. Their brains are not done growing yet. Um, we have to be the voice of reason sort of, um, in all of this. And so, you know, let’s say our kids has a bad day on the court. Maybe there were some bad line calls during the match or their serve wasn’t working. They had a lot of double faults that day. Understanding as the parent, the opportunity for learning from that, and then teaching that to our child by saying things like, yeah, your serve was a challenge today. Gosh, aren’t you so glad you’re going to be able to get out on court with your coach? Next week and you’ve got something really concrete to work on. That’s going to make the week, you know, have a good purpose because you’re going to have something that, you know, needs some work before your next tournament and you get to go out there and do it. How cool is that? You know, you don’t have to walk off this court and this is the end of what’s your opportunity to grow from this, right? No, you have the opportunity now over the next week, two weeks before your next tournament. To really put the effort in the work in and get better at it. So next time you see an improvement, I think that’s a cool thing about sports. Great coaching, Lisa. I mean, I’m like, what you just said, what you just said, I’m like, I’m taking notes, right? That’s awesome. Yeah. But, but it’s hard as the parent, if we lost out there to separate yourself and find those opportunities. And so that’s yet another reason. Why we really have to work hard at keeping our, ourselves separate, letting the tennis be owned by the child. Yes, we’re supporting it, but, but it’s not ours. It’s theirs. Yeah. All right. Rod, if people want to get ahold of you, cause I know after watching or listening to this, people are going to be like, Oh my gosh, how do I get my kid in with him? What’s the best way for people to talk to you? I’m on, I’m on, I’m easy to find. I’m on, I’m on Instagram. I have a website. I’d love for people to sign up for my blog. It’s hard comes first and spot to join the winning team. My cell phone number, I’ll give you that 864-809-8827. You can send me a message if you have questions. I think that’s got it. Yeah. And we’ll have all those links in the show notes on parentingases.com or wherever you’re consuming this. So make sure to check the show notes for Rod’s contact info and his social media links. Rod, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you. I’m, I’m sorry. It’s taken two years to get you back on. Let’s not wait another two years before we do this again. Lisa, thanks for having me. Yeah. Great job. Absolutely. And to my audience, thank you all so much for tuning in. We’ll catch you next time on Parenting Aces. Thanks for tuning in and sharing us with your tennis community. [inaudible]