Beyond The Baselines

Shaun Boyce is a gifted junior instructor. He and his wife, Geovanna, have taken his tennisforchildren.com and tennis for hundreds of kids in the Atlanta area to new heights, year after year. From preschools to home owners associations, Shaun has taken his love and passion for instructing the younger players in our sport on the road across the metropolis that is Atlanta.

Shaun and his wife, Geovanna, are the team behind tennisforchildren.com

Teaching juniors is a distinct talent. It's never easy and it's always a challenge. The challenge to keep the attention of juniors with, say 5 or 8 on a court, and leave them with having learned something not just about tennis and a racquet path, but also about life and sport, is one of the biggest we face as teachers. Whether you are a golf, ski, tennis, or swim instructor, or a grade school teacher, or just mom and dad, you know how hard it is to teach juniors. Shaun, with his lesson plans, his color-coordinated dots on the courts, and his idea that the longer you keep your juniors from playing competitively, the better the stroke and learning techniques, has made his mark in the Atlanta region.

Atlanta is a town of planned communities in a large part. Home Owner Associations dot the city from East to West and now are moving Northward as the city pushes the Northern boundary. HOA’s have tennis courts. "There's a court literally on every corner," says Shaun. Shaun and I discuss how amenities such as pickleball and tennis courts are affecting HOA dues and home resale prices.

Upside-Down Pricing

Shaun brings to the table a new look to pricing. With his programming, he charges more, against the trend of the industry, for the little ones. The younger the players, he says, the harder he and his staff have to work to keep their attention and create a learning environment. So, Shaun charges more for the 5 year old than the 15 year old. It's a new way to look at junior clinics and pricing, and it's a breath of fresh air to listen to how he describes the many changes, in addition to this pricing structure, that he has made as his program has grown.

Shaun is at the cutting edge of teaching juniors in one of the biggest tennis towns in America. Tune in and find out just what makes him tick and what keeps his kids from Tik-Tok while on the courts.

The Club Manager. We think we know the role as members, as boards and governors. Growing up in Stowe, Vermont Elle Anderson thought she knew all about the club up there too, especially as she returned to her home town after a career as an elite athlete.

Anderson returned home in 2020 and wanting to start a family. Well, she not only started a family. She also started the ball rolling at Stowe Tennis Club, one of the best-known tennis clubs in New England, as she now heads into her third season as the club's General Manager.

Elle Anderson, General Manager of Stowe Tennis Club

“You can click on our website and pay dues in about 30 seconds,” says Anderson, and most members don’t realize how much time structuring and offering dues payments takes behind the scenes. "Software is great but you have to invest manpower" to make member services and hospitality to keep up with the new demands from members.

Anderson feels that most clubs, established as non-profits, just dont pay enough attention to operating as an actual business.

A Club Manager Needs To Be A Visionary

She’s seeing her role, entering her third summer at a seasonal club, evolving into a keynote speaker as well as a listener. "I want to understand the new members and what they want," she says. We, as club managers, need to create that time to see what other clubs are doing and how other memberships are evolving, outside our own clubs.

The Appointee From An Elected Board

“I look at my members sort of as constituents,” states the youthful Anderson. As a leader, Elle wants to offer space for discussion and understand various viewpoints while remaining patient, but then demonstrating and educating the board as to show how we can make the club better.

At the bottom of Stowe's ski slopes, join the BeyondTheBaselines.com podcast and one of the most thoughtful and insightful leaders, Elle Anderson, as she snow plows into the role of Club Manager at one of the most elite tennis clubs in America.

After graduating from Arizona State, a young woman who loved to travel had one thing in mind: wanting to work at Club Med. She began to teach tennis there on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. It was there, she realized that adult programming can be the secret behind a greater and bigger club and program.

Michele Krause, the Queen of Cardio, joins the Beyond The Baselines Podcast.

Michele Krause saw an opportunity way back in 2004 to help the Tennis Industry Association launch Cardio Tennis. And since that hurricane-ravaged year in Florida, Michele has never looked back.

How To Double Court Usage and Food and Beverage Revenues

"We see pictures of tennis with one or two people on a court. It's not really a great image. We have this ability to be social... I want to see 6 or 8 or 24 people. I can get up to 24 people on a court... I have a D1 player with 24 people on a court burning 800 calories. Why is group fitness so popular?" asks Michele.

Michele looks at why some tennis courts might be being replaced by a condo or a pickleball court. "We replace courts when they are empty, and we have the tools to build our revenue and keep our tennis courts and build even more tennis court."

Live Ball Games Is Cardio, But There Is A History

As live ball drills make inroads to clubs and tennis facilities, Michele reminds us that the majority of time on the court is competitive games after a drill-based warmup. "There's a lot of mystery about live ball across the country. It means different things depending on which facility you are teaching." There is a history to liveball, says Michele. "Live ball was born in Southern California." It was established around 2 vs 2 with champs and challengers - and that's very different from Cardio Tennis," says Krause.

"Live Ball should be normal tennis instruction... we don't like lines" of people waiting to hit. Michele notes that Cardio Tennis can be played, because it's with orange balls, by beginners to higher level players.

Triples Is The Greatest Game In Tennis

"Triples is the best game you can play on a tennis court," says Krause. Triples has to be last for every Cardio Tennis. "The main act of Cardio Tennis is Triples, and it has to be saved until last." Michele is set on creating a Triples movement in the USA. "Triples is an event unto itself... and I am going to push out Triples even before Cardio Tennis." Krause plans on holding the largest Triples event ever at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona on April 24th to kick off her marketing awareness for the game.

But Krause points to that Triples doesn't require a separation of ability levels and allows more players across different levels to be social together on a triples court... and after in a larger social circle. Michele, with this statement, proves why she is at the cutting edge of our industry. Profitability, court usage, member experience... they are all served by Triples and Cardio Tennis. She's known this before 2004... she's known this since her years way back when at Club Med in the Bahamas.

Andres Robelo loves tennis. He grew up with tennis. His parents played tennis. But he couldn't find a game in Miami.

"I could run a business with technology. I could book a table at a restaurant or order a car with software. I couldn't order a tennis game," and behind this came the fruition of Play By Point and PlayByPoint.com. But during his journey, he's found an interesting tidbit of information. Private members clubs have decision makers, but those decision makers are rarely the operators of the facilities.

Play By Court, Manage By Committee

He was shocked when he first realized how hard it was for a department head with a major disconnect between boards and committees. Committees may have wanted a lottery system, a patchwork, or set times for all courts. Whatever the committee wanted, Andres would create the software. However, Andres would find that the expert was the department head, and that department head wasn't making the ultimate decision.

Education and awareness was the discussion at the beginning. We learned quickly that every club is different" and we had to slowly educate the decision makers how technology could be customized to a club's needs. But, even with that patience and only four clubs in his first year, it's been difficult.

Now boasting a plethora of clients, Robelo can comment on the private members club and home owner association industries.

"It's how private members clubs are structured. The decision makers are not often the operators. The person who makes the key decision, I can assure you, doesn't realize the impact or consequences that any decision will have." The challenge is communicating how technology can help to the board of the club or the HOA.. "Its not their time or their sweat that the technology saves," says Robelo. They don't see the added values of having a second software, separate from golf or whatever software they may be using.

Boards, says Robelo, are getting better at trusting the system and the department heads they employ. Robelo has seen this more in the past two years during Covid and the rush on the courts. "As more people move to Florida, members are seeing their courts packed" and are using technology to maximize and optimize court usage, states Robelo. As board members skew younger, the younger members more often realize the impact of technology, and perhaps Covid was a catalyst for this shift.

Change Is Difficult

The industry has seen a move toward tee times across almost all golf courses in the nation as play on the course is up as well. Robelo points to other businesses outside the country club industry. "When you go to a movie theatre, do you tell the movie theatre when you want to see the movie? No, the business sets the rules." Clubs need to understand that they are businesses in a competitive environment.

There are directors who also dislike change. Directors, left in the dust, are still using dusting off their paper-based systems for lessons and reservations. Robelo realizes that change is different, especially for these static and staid directors.. We think it might be that these directors rather not having members and committees know their schedule and incomes. Whatever the reason, the number of directors that are paper-based is being whittled down. Clubs are looking, these days, for transparency and are slowly realizing they are businesses.

By Ed Shanaphy, CMAA

As 2022 brings in a new breath of life to so many in our industry as we battle a virus, so too does the job market show even more signs of life and recovery.

As we look to either expand club offerings or find a new, dynamic club manager or department head, we must consider the pathway to success. Far too often, it's been years since a governing club board has had to fill a major role. This usually means these governing bodies are out of practice in terms of communication and out of the practice of hiring. And in these times, finding candidates can be an a seemingly impossible task.

As boards nominate search committees, and search committees nominate candidates and finalists, the pathway becomes cloudy. As a hiring force, search committees and hiring bodies should not only investigate the candidates thoroughly, but also look at the committee's own composition and desires and continually monitor that not one particular voice or objective becomes overbearing.

The five mistakes that committees can often make when hiring all lead back to just that: Maintain an objective viewpoint and listen to all the voices as you narrow the field of candidates to just that one, special person who fits the job. Easier said than done! Have a listen and find out where your five major pitfalls might darkly lurk.

Ed Shanaphy is President of BeyondTheBaselines.com which is a subsidiary of SBW Associates, Inc. With his experience in hiring internationally as Managing Director of two London-based conglomerates, he brings to the search committee a viewpoint gained from completing hundreds of searches for his own entities and, more recently, private members clubs.

by Ed Shanaphy, USPTA, CMAA

Kate Cole and Laura Fox are the Instagram influencers creating a social media storm for women tennis players. Kate’s Instagram account, which focuses on tennis, cocktails, fitness and how she makes time for all that around motherhood, has over 1,600 followers. Laura Fox, known as The Tennis Fox, is renowned for her outfits and has been entertaining the enormous group of tennis-playing women and mothers across the country and around the globe with her daily posts on social media.

Laura Fox is The Tennis Fox on Instagram.

Both have been approached by brands to influence their clubs, their facilities, their teammates and their followers. Laura, having been approached by major brands, has found paid influencing unfulfilling, But both women have found the conversations, through comments and direct messages on Instagram, as a wonderful addition to their play and have enjoyed building a community around their tennis games through Instagram.

Setting Goals Through Adult Tennis

Once in motherhood, you don’t have business goals, and these women are setting goals for themselves as they would have done had they remained in the working world rather than taking on the enormous task of motherhood. “When you have kids, you’re not going to see the fruits of your labors for years…” and Laura says that she has found a way to replace those work goals with her tennis game. Kate, moving often as her husband is in the Navy, uses tennis as an outlet for her hectic lifestyle. As a ranked junior, she is now experiencing what she feels the game is all about – being social. Unfortunately, as a junior tournament player, she hadn’t truly enjoyed the game, looking at it more as a task on the weekends, rather than a sport for a lifetime.

Team Tennis: Upfront Financial Commitment or Pay-As-You-Go? Which Methods Works Best For Women's Teams?

Kate Cole is tenniscocktailsandmotherhood on Instagram

These two women face the challenges that most amateur players face - how to raise their USTA NTRP rating and how to deal with team polics. Clubs and facilities struggle with team selection and how to best monetize interclub play. Laura, who has played under two varied versions of team play at two different facilities, noticed that the higher ranked the player, the less often show up for clinic. Is it because they can keep their position by not showing up and hiding their true level of play? We shall never know, as Laura has moved on from that club to a facility that requires prepayment for the entire season.

Every Club Should Have A Nineteenth Hole

Golfers are famous for re-living, stroke-by-stroke, their round in the clubhouse after walking off the eighteenth green. Laura bemoans that this is not always the case in tennis.

Instagram provides that opportunity to Laura to publicize her match and serves as her post-match debriefing. Unlike at her previous club, her present facility is focused more on tennis than on the social side, and she has turned to Instagram to bring together a community of people. As an influencer through her clothes and tennis outfits, Laura was influencing long before she was an Instagram influencer. But it’s truly interesting to understand how she relives her winners and her unforced errors on Instagram on a daily basis. Perhaps Instagram is the new Nineteenth Hole Café.

Kate simply hopes that her Instagram page inspires others to get fit and play tennis. It’s a social sounding board for her as she moves around the world as the matron of a service family. But, somehow she finds the time to make her reels engaging, educational and just plain fun. "I like to hope that I can inspire others to get more fit."

Well, Kate and Laura are inspirational and educational for all of us in the country club and tennis industry. Their views, their dislikes, their loves and their fears are all shared on Instagram and those are born on the courts and on the gym floor every day.

You may also join the ladies on our brand new YouTube show right here and see them in person!The Beyond The Baselines YouTube Show

by Jennifer Gelhaus, USPTA and Director of Tennis

In our sports-hungry culture, we watch the NHL, MLB, NFL, the ATP. Finally, we are receiving coverage of the WNBA more often and watching the LPGA and the WTA. In this age of inclusion and diversity, women's sports are, perhaps, finally gaining some ground in terms of public viewing on a national television basis. But our perception of "coach" isn't changing one bit, according to a professor of sport management.

Fomer college student-athlete and now world acclaimed professor, Dr. B Nalani Butler, Ph.D. joins the BTB Podcast.

Dr. B. Nalani Butler, Assistant Professor of Sport Management at Kennesaw University, joins host Jennifer Gelhaus on the Beyond The Baselines Podcast to discuss how from childhood we view "coach" as a man. The movies and television shows - we think of "Coach" as a male and that perpetuates the idea that coaching is typically a male activity.

Butler borrows her experience from playing sport herself and has compiled research and studied with some of the most revered names in the field. "You see men coaching both men's and women's sports," but you rarely see a woman coaching a men's sport. "Ideologies about coaching in our culture," is that a coach should be a male figure.

Dr Butler points to Title IX and remarks that it is uniquely American and similar legislation does not truly exist anywhere else in the world. And, although passed as federal law in the 1970s, it wasn't truly enforced until the mid 1980s. Pat Summit was one of the champions of the legislation. Butler points out that she and her podcast host, Jennifer, were really just the second wave of Title IX athletes - "I couldn't find women's cleats or jerseys at the time," says Butler. "Mia Hamm still roles up her sleeves," something Butler believes is a habitual leftover from a time when it was only men's jerseys for women players, a time not so long ago.

Butler, a former NCAA athlete, has more recently co-authored the fourth edition of Social Issues in Sport, a textbook which introduces students to the study of sport as a social phenomenon. The book explores current trends in sport and examines complex connections between sport and politics, economics, religion, race, gender, youth and more.

Having worked with professional teams such as Cincinnati Reds to the International Olympic Academy's International Session for Educators, Butler is well-versed to discuss the mistakes we, as a society, make when trying to diversify sport in an age of inclusion. Join her on the BTB podcast today and find out why the Coach, even in the TV sitcom Cheers, always seems to be a man in our mind's eye.

Angela Wilson was fortunate enough to have really good coaches who were in the game of coaching. That made the difference for her growing up playing junior tennis and into her college career at the University of Indiana. Her foundation really helped her to become a great coach long before she became Club Manager. But, it was also a driver. Her love of coaching battled with the time she needed to devote to club management.

Angela Wilson, General Manager, Western Athletic Club

With her accounting background, Angela realizes how difficult it is for some coaches, who stay in coaching and on the court for a long career, to become a manager. She was thrust into the management of a tennis club at the age of just 25. And to this day, through her love of tennis, she finds it hard to stay off the court. Angela readily admits she has to limit her time teaching on court to just 10 to 15 hours per week. She admits it's tough to see a Director of Tennis out there instead of herself. "I love teaching from little kids to beginners to adults, but right now I'm just doing payroll!"

With a new court reservation system at Western Athletic Club in Cincinnati, Ohio, Angela realizes that she has to first understand the entire software system before tutoring and helping front desk staff and members as they switch over to the new system. "It doesn't leave me a lot of time to get back on the court. "My back end has to be really good to allow me time on the court. I love teaching, but at some point I had to do the PPP loan application."

Pickleball Slowly Progressing From Open Play At The Parks

When asked about monetizing indoor pickleball courts, Angela believes that pickleball is travelling the same path that tennis travelled. She sees pickleball players starting to pay for court time. "They are down for it and ready to play with their friends and ready to pay for it . Angela foresees growth into the indoor arena. She harks back to the 1970s when players played tennis mainly at the public recreational courts and left a racquet at the court's door to notate that they were waiting, much like the quarters on a pool table marking the next game. Pickleball, she believes, is at the same place and will mature and progress into clubs and indoor facilities. Like tennis did in the 70s, pickleball players are starting to note levels and play within levels. Whereas everyone at first was playing with everyone, now, just like tennis did when the USTA brought out NTRP ratings, Angela sees pickleball players looking to play with players of their level. With that growth and maturity, Angela has just converted two indoor tennis courts into six pickleball courts citing the demand at her own club

Angela Wilson sees the monetization of pickleball in the not too distant future. Her club just removed two indoor courts to create six pickleball courts.

Hospitality and Wellness

"I'm in the wellness business. We want to provide a place where people can move and have fun. I am trying to make the club like Club Med. If you want to do something special you'll have to pay, but fitness is always free with dues." The strategic plan must be working, as Western Athletic Club has recently added not only a full-time Director of Tennis but also a sales manager. "We needed more spokes on the wheel (in terms of adding personnel), and tennis is growing at the club.

How to avoid member pitfalls? Angela says your members need to know "that you care and that we try. We're not always perfect, but we try to make the club a very nice place." Whatever Angela is doing at Western Athletic Club, it's working. Boating over 700 tennis players, the club is certainly making its mark within the indoor tennis industry nation-wide.

Tennis has a beautiful history, and Jim McCready is at the forefront of keeping that history alive and in front of tennis and sport fans across the world.

Former Director of The APTA and a legend both on the tennis and platform tennis courts, Jim states that "tennis has been his life." His collection subtitled, Tennis At The Turn, started at The Belle Haven Club in Greenwich, Connecticut with a couple of 19th Century beautifully crafted wooden racquets. 40 years later, Jim is still accumulating racquets, memorabilia and art all connected to the history of tennis and sport.

Jim was way ahead of his time, doing the "year-round gig" teaching paddle and tennis at not only the Belle Haven Club, but also at Armonk Tennis Club (NY), Montclair Golf Club (NJ), and Spring Brook Country Club (Morristown, NJ). As a paddle and tennis instructor, Jim was well placed to become a historian of racquet sports. His love for the game pours over into his curatorial power over a dynamic, historic collection.

Jim believes that racquet sports are unmatched in teaching life's lessons. Whether part of the industry or just a player, racquet sports teach that individualism required as we tread the floorboards of life.

Belle Haven Club, Greenwich CT - where The Driftway Collection was born.

In regard to the collection, "trying to find a pristine racquet from the turn of the century is getting harder and harder." Having exhibited the collection around the world including in London, the former Family Circle stadium in Charleston, SC, and elsewhere, Jim is looking to possibly find a permanent locale and gallery for his tremendous trove of tennis treasures.

Jim takes us through the evolution of tennis from the Royal Game, otherwise known as Real or Court Tennis and how the racquets changed from angled and small heads to where the head straightened out and were enlarged for lawn tennis and those early Wimbledon competitors. Where did the scoring come from? Jim is the man to take us through the evolution of tennis just prior to the first Wimbledon in 1877. The game hasn't changed much - a slightly lower net and the composition of the racquets, but much has not changed since those lofty days in the English countryside.

You can find out all about Jim and his collection at The Driftway Collection online or check out his Instagram and Facebook pages of the same name.

Jennifer Gelhaus has always been before her time. She started college early at the tender age of 16, after being recruited from her native Venezuela to play Division II tennis here in the United States. She left home and took a chance. She took a step into college coaching before moving to Long Island and serving as Director of Juniors at one of the most prestigious clubs in the nation, Maidstone Club. Now, she's taken a leap once again, and has moved on to become Director of Tennis at East Chop on Martha's Vineyard. In her second year, she shares with us some of her secrets of success.

Jennifer Gelhaus, Director of Tennis at East Chop on Martha's Vineyard.

Success In Business Is Crucial For Tennis Directors

Her success lies not only in her forehand and instruction, but, perhaps even more so, in her acumen as a business woman.

"This is the thing. People don't really view the club tennis industry as a business. That's a problem. This is one of the reasons, too, that I didn't envision this for myself growing up. People don't understand what we do. We are not just teaching tennis all day. There's a lot that goes going into running a club. Its very different to be on a court teaching forehands all day." We are not sure anyone could better educate a board or a membership than Ms. Gelhaus.

How To Build A Program? Communication

For Jennifer, it's not about being on the court. It's all about communicating to your members. Servicing the many different needs of a membership is a top priority. "But if you don't communicate your business you're not promoting your programs, and if you are not promoting your business, you will not get people on the court," says one of the leading Tennis Directors in New England, if not the nation. From texting to emails to newsletters, Jennifer is in constant touch with her East Chop membership. With every club-wide newsletter or communication, Jennifer receives up to 10 lesson requests.

Availability To Members Is Essential

"I love tennis, but I don't love being on court all day. I don't have any desire to do that," remarks Gelhaus. She wisely discusses how hours on the court stop her from engaging with her members. If she has 10 hours on court maybe she influenced a dozen, she says. "If you don't have that contact off court with your members, you are only influencing 6 people in a clinic or a few during privates," but you are not working with the other 600 members of your club, she believes.