What Traits Do Successful College Athletes Possess with Dave Mullins

Welcome to Season 8, Episode 42 of the ParentingAces Podcast! This week I chat with Dave Mullins about his recent Masters Thesis research around which players improve as tennis players during college and what specific qualities they possess. I will likely be driving across the US as you listen to this week's episode! Dave is a former top college tennis player himself who moved into college coaching after a brief run in the World of Finance. He coached on both the men's and women's sides and brings incredible knowledge and experience to his latest role as the Managing Director of Community Engagement and Coach Empowerment at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA). In this week's episode, Dave shares with us some of what's on tap for the ITA in the coming months in terms of recruiting information, coach support, player support, and even parent support. He also shares the insights he gleaned from his research into what attributes are common among those college tennis players who improve the most during their college years. Dave interviewed several experienced college coaches about players they had coached who had achieved the most over their time on a college tennis team.  If you would like to reach out to Dave, you can email him at dmullins@itatennis.com. You can also find him on Twitter @DaveMullins_ITA. He has graciously offered to share his research with the ParentingAces Community, so please reach out to him if you'd like to read it. As always, a big thank you to Morgan Stone, aka STØNE, for our intro and outro music this season. You can find more of his music at SoundCloud.com/stonemuzic. If you’re interested in House Music, please be sure to check out his social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.  If you’re so inclined, please share this – and all our episodes! – with your tennis community. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the ParentingAces website. If you haven’t already, be sure to become a Member of ParentingAces – we have 4 options for you – by clicking here. We have also started a Patreon page for those of you not ready to take the plunge as a Premium Member. You can make a donation of any size to support our podcast by clicking here. In exchange, you will have access to extra audio and video recordings not available elsewhere as well as other benefits – go to our Patreon Page for more info. Thank you!