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2012 RJ Reilly Platform Tennis Camps – Serves, Volleys, and More

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This year marks the 20th year of RJR Platform Tennis Camps. A lot has changed in the way the sport is taught since Dick Reilly first rolled out his camps two decades ago.

Prior to 1990, there was limited platform tennis instruction. Over the years, the RJR camps demonstrated the value of concentrated high caliber instruction. Just over ten years ago, the USA PPTA was a offshoot of RJR programs. As a result, more than 230 platform tennis professionals have been certified and there are a variety of camps and “traveling” camps that provide instruction. It has become fashionable for players to improve their game through professional instruction. As a result, more players have an expanded knowledge about how to play the sport and most are enjoying their time on the court.

There is a core set of knowledge taught in each session of the RJR camps; however, it is customized to meet the needs of the players in each group. The core knowledge for the October, 5th-9th 2012 session is provided below.

Session I – Serve and Volley and Positioning
o Technical focus
o Hitting serves with spin. (Note: the serve and first volley are taught as a unit.)
o Fundamentals of volley.
o Tactical discussion
o Placement of the serve and first volley.
o Discussion about how service placement may dictate strategy and positioning for the remainder
of the point.
o Volley placement (deep and down the middle or to backhand side of ad court player).

Session II – Serve and Volley and Lobs
o Technical focus
o Hitting serves with spin. (Note: emphasis is on the role of spin on the serve and potentially the
overhead.)
o Fundamentals of volley.
o Lob.
 Off the deck (off a volley).
 Block (guarding the corner).
o Tactical discussion
o Placement of the serve and first volley.
o Discussion about how service placement may dictate strategy and positioning for the remainder of
the point.
o Volley placement (deep – middle of the backcourt or backhand side of ad court player).
o Lob height (As high as lights or in the sun).
o Lob placement (middle of the backcourt, make them move two directions to hit overhead).

Session III – Service Returns and Controlled Drives
o Technical Focus
o Shorter backswing.
 Increased control.
 Improved positioning for next shot.
o Modest pace.
o Balanced position when hitting the ball.
o Focus on placement.
o Tactical discussion
o Consistent drives.
o Drive placement.
 Consistency – high percentage of returns.
 Return short balls to outside of court at net player (or cross court).
 Return short balls to inside of court at seam, server, or player off the net.
o Help players better understand how to move drives to take opponents out of position.
o Keep pressure on opponents with a series of drives.

Session IV – Wires
o Technical focus
o Proper positioning.
 Back screen shots.
 Side screen shots.
 Side back shots.
 Back side shots.
 Crease shots.
o Center of the swing is at front of body – must be further back for backhand.
o How to lob down the line, cross court, and to the middle of the court.
o Tactical discussion
o Mix up placement of lobs.
o Mix up lobs and drives.

Session V – Tactics in the Wires
o Technical focus
o Proper positioning for greater consistency.
o Balanced when hitting shot.
o Tactical discussion
o When to lob.
o When to drive.
o Shot selection to set up player in deuce court.
o Shot selection to set up player in ad court.
o Review of Rules.
o Most common questions that professionals deal with.
o Questions from players.

Session VI – Controlling the Net
oTechnical focus.
o Proper positioning.
 Deuce court.
 Ad Court.
 Playing with a left-handed player.
o Stance at net
 Feet parallel to net.
 Feet in line perpendicular to net.
o Types of overheads
 Hit with pace (two wires)
 Spin
 Swinging volley
 Push/Pillow
 Waterfall
 Slash
 Roll
oTactical discussion
o Placement of overheads.
o Placement of volleys.
o Communications
o On-court during point.
o On-court between points.
o Off-court to improve on court performance.
o Playing with left-handed players.
o Determine which drives and lobs are going out.

Session VII – Competitive Play
o Men’s round robin.
o Women’s round robin.

Session VIII – Review of Techniques, Tactics, and Specialty Shots
o Review of spin on serve as it relates to placement.
o Controlling the net with proper positioning.
o Deeper serves as a way of improving first volley.
o Consistency in the wires.
o Review of differences between tennis and platform tennis and the subtleties of the sport.
o Maintaining balance on service returns.
o Maintaining balance on short balls and flick shots.
o Team instruction (for players whose partner was present).

In line with the philosophy, “The game teaches the game,” each session included match play to incorporate the topics focused on in the instructional sessions.

A sampling of comments from the participants shows the value of instruction in a camp setting:
o I came away with  a game-changing serve.
o I now feel confident in the ad wires.
o And I feel unstoppable in the deuce wires.
o We learned the importance of having the ability to be a Steady Eddy on the court.
o I learn to like drills and compete in them, just as if they were a match.
o My volleys have never been so good.
o I found that the wires are much easier by knowing where the ball is going.

Whether your sport is platform tennis, tennis, volleyball, or skiing, most players find that they enjoy it more if they learn to improve their skills and tactics through quality instruction.

 

Do Your Kids Receive Specific Instructions from Their Coaches?

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With the fall sports season in full swing, parents have an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of their children’s coaches. Specifically, do the coaches give succinct directions?

The following examples differentiate between instructions that are not specific and those that are.

Example 1: Volleyball passes that are too low and off target.

The non-specific coach: “Come on girls, get those passes higher and to the setter!”
Result: The players shanked the next six passes before going back to their old pattern of off-target passes.

The specific coach: “Girls let’s hit 20-10 sets to the middle? Do you understand what I mean when I say 20-10?”
Result: The back row players answered, “No.” The coach said, “Make your passes 20 feet high or about 2-3 times the height of the net. They should land on the 10 foot line in the middle of the court so the setter can get to them easily. The specific instructions helped the players improve the direction, depth, and height of their passes.”

Example 2: Erratic passes (volleyball) caused by players being too upright

The non-specific coach: “Come on girls, get lower to return those serves!”
Result: Minimal long-term change in the quality of service returns.

The specific coach: “By being balanced and getting lower you will be in position to make better passes. There are two visuals that may help illustrate how low a player may need to be when returning serve. First, bend your knees much like you do when you are sitting on the edge of a bench. Another way to think of getting low is to bend your knees so that you see all of your opponent’s court while looking under the net.”
Result: These guidelines provide checkpoints for the players that will ensure more consistent passing.

Example 3: Hit tennis lobs that keep the opponents off balance

The non-specific coach: “Okay guys, mix up your lobs.”
Result: Players have mixed results as they experiment with “mixing up their lobs”.

The specific coach: “There are several ways to make it more difficult for opponents to hit effective overheads. One way is to hit lobs so the opponent has to move in two directions to hit the ball. More specifically, make them move both backwards and at least two steps to either their forehand or backhand sides. An even simpler way to look at it is to lob over your opponents’ backhand side.
Result: By having a purpose for each lob, the backcourt player hits a higher percentage of effective lobs.”

Example 4: Serve to one of three locations to develop a more effective tennis serve
The non-specific coach: “Okay guys, keep your opponents off balance with your serve.”
Result: Players may try a number of ways to keep their opponents off balance such as changing technique or altering pace and spin.

The specific coach: “Hit your serve to one of three zones: the outside corner, at the server’s body, or to the inside corner to keep your opponent off balance. For example, taller players may be able to reach balls hit to the outside corners, while they may have difficulty returning balls hit at their body. You may need to practice to do this effectively in both the deuce and ad court.”
Results: In this case, specific instructions provide the server with target areas for service practice. As well, the directions provide tactical guidelines for match play.

Do your kids’ receive specific directions from their coaches?

If you aren’t sure, ask your kids the following questions:
• Does your coach communicate in a way that helps you understand exactly what to do in drills, practices sessions, or game situations?
• Does your coach provide you with specific instructions for improving?
• If not, do you ask questions about what the coach means specific to your abilities? For example, specifically what does the coach mean when he/she says, “mix up your serve?”
• Does the coach use keys, single words, or short phrases to concisely convey a key message? Keys for the above examples might include:
o 10-20 pass
o Get low and look under the net
o Lob over the backhand
o Inside corner, body, or outside corner
If you don’t have keys, ask your coach to help you develop keys.
• Do you let your coaches know when their concise instructions help you understand a concept, technique, tactic, or how to correct a mistake? For example, the player might say, “By following your advice, I won three points in the first set by lobbing over the backhand side”.
• Do you ask your coach for clarification when specific directions are not given?

Quality coaching requires a coach who provides specific directions and players who communicate about the effectiveness of those directions. Top notch players and coaches are first-rate communicators.

 

Control of Intercollegiate Athletics

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It is easy to criticize the NCAA and at times they make themselves an easy target. It is clear that management of college sports has been a challenge since their inception.

The following is taken from the North American Society for Sports History 1981 Proceedings. The two-page document, was authored by Ronald A. Smith, professor at Pennsylvania State University. His comments are particularly interesting given the recent Jerry Sandusky scandal at PSU.

Preludes to the NCAA: Early Failures of Faculty Control of Intercollegiate Athletics

Neither the creation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 1905-06 nor the origin of The Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives (Big Ten) in 1895 was the beginning of inter-institutional faculty control over intercollegiate athletics. The movement for inter-institutional faculty control began in the early 1880s. In 1882 Princeton’s faculty created the first college faculty committee to control athletics which, from the first, had been student controlled. A year later Harvard’s faculty formed an athletic committee. Faculties had been reluctant to take control of athletics from students, but  as the number of contests and the time spent away from campus increased, faculties increasingly moved away from laissez faire positions to paternalistic ones. By 1900 nearly all colleges had created some type of athletic committee under full or partial faculty control. It was a relatively short step for the faculty of individual colleges to move toward inter-institutional control of athletics.

President Charles W. Eliot and his Harvard faculty took the first step toward interinstitutional control when Eliot wrote to other New England presidents on behalf of his faculty asking them to consider joint action concerning professionalism in college sport. There was no positive response, but a year later, in 1883, the Harvard Athletic Committee called a meeting to discuss the professionalism issue. This first gathering of faculty from eight institutions in New York City on December 28, 1883, predated the first conference of the Big Ten by eleven years and was twenty-two years to the day before the original meeting of the NCAA. Resolutions were drawn up and sent to twenty-one eastern institutions with the condition that when five colleges adopted them, they would be binding. Only Harvard and Princeton faculties adopted them, and the first attempt at inter-institutional control was unsuccessful.

Following the football season of 1886 President James McCosh of Princeton sent a circular to other eastern college presidents once again urging intercollegiate cooperation to eliminate athletic abuses. Yale, the dominant athletic school in America, was least interested in joint athletic control. When Yale refused to become involved in the McCosh attempt, the proposal died stillborn. More than a decade and the birth of the midwestern Big Ten Conference passed before another major effort to consider eastern inter-institutional faculty control would surface.

With charges of questionable ethics in athletics, increased professionalism in colleges, and the need for standardized rules, the idea of a permanent organization of colleges working cooperatively appeared again in the mid-1890s. Problems, especially in football and baseball, continued to plague student-controlled athletics. The concerns were numerous. Tramp athletes transferring with impunity from one college to another to participate in athletics, baseball players participating in summer resort leagues for pay, students participating in athletics without making normal progress toward a degree, the hiring of professional coaches, pre-season and summer practices, and the commercialization of athletics through large gate receipts were all prominent concerns. On February 18, 1898, a major conference at Brown University convened to discuss these concerns. All of the colleges of the present-day Ivy League, with the exception of Yale, sent a faculty member, an alumnus, and an undergraduate, but the work of the conference was accomplished by an all-faculty committee. The 1898 faculty committee Report on Intercollegiate Sports was a potent call for cooperative action to cure the evils of intercollegiate athletics.

The Brown Conference Committee Report asserted that colleges “are not engaged in making athletes. . . .” The faculty report indicated that colleges “should not seek perfection in our games, but, rather, good sport.” To bring about what the committee believed was a saner system of athletics, it proposed twenty rules for adoption by the various eastern colleges. Among the rules were insurances for faculty control, ensuring bona fide students, limiting eligibility to four years, restricting contests to home fields of the colleges, eliminating athletic scholarships and summer baseball for pay, and demanding faculty approval of all coaches, captains, and team managers. The proposed rules were never adopted en masse by eastern institutions. The Brown Conference suggestion that yearly conferences be held “to consider regulations and the proper development of the athletic sports” did not bear fruit at this time. The 1898 conference was unable to foist a British-like amateur sport ideal on a fiercely competitive, win-oriented system which had developed in American colleges.

From the 1880s when Princeton and Harvard formed athletic committees and the first attempts at inter-institutional control of athletics were made to the failure of the 1898 Brown Conference, university officials without great success were endeavoring to come to grips with the most visible extracurricular activity in colleges. Not until 1905 when a crisis in football occurred did colleges on a national level join together as they searched for order in athletic affairs.

 

Another Weak Performance by American Men in a Grand Slam

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The U.S. men posted another weak performance in the final Grand Slam of 2012. Of the 128 men entered in the U.S. Open, 20 were Americans. Only two made it to the round of 16.

The 2012 event was noteworthy because of the lousy weather, the retirement of Andy Roddick, (America’s top player for much of the past decade), and someone other than Djokovic, Federer, or Nadal won the event (Andy Murray).

The singles results for Americans are listed below.

Round of 128
The 20 U.S. men players had a strong start – 12 wins and 8 losses. While all players are incredibly gifted athletes, only Roddick and possibly Fish, Blake, and Isner have limited name recognition in the U.S.
• Winners – Mardy Fish, Jack Sock, Sam Querrey, James Blake, Tim Smyczek, Brian Baker, John Isner, Bradley Klahn, Steve Johnson, Ryan Harrison, Andy Roddick, and Dennis Novikov.
• Losers – Donald Young, Robby Ginepri, Michael Russell, Denis Kudia, Bobby Reynolds, Rajeev Ram, Rhyne Williams, and Jesse Levine.

Round of 64
The American players continued their winning ways in the second round – 7 wins and 5 losses.
• Winners – Mardy Fish, Jack Sock, Sam Querrey, James Blake, John Isner, Steve Johnson, and Andy Roddick.
• Losers – Tim Smyczek, Brian Baker, Bradley Klahn, Ryan Harrison, and Dennis Novikov.

Round of 32
At the Australian Open 1 of 11 American men made it to the round of 32, while none of 8 American men made it to the round of 32 at the French Open. Four made it to the round of 32 at Wimbledon. Seven Americans were in the round of 32 at the U.S. Open. (It is hard to believe that reaching the round of 32 is now considered a milestone for American men’s tennis players).

The 5 American men had 2 wins and 3 losses.
• Winners – Mardy Fish and Andy Roddick.
• Losers – Jack Sock, Sam Querrey, James Blake, John Isner, and Steve Johnson.

Round of 16
Both players bowed out in the round of 16, although Fish withdrew for medical reasons.
• Losers – Mardy Fish and Andy Roddick.

At Wimbledon, the 12 American men won 14 matches and lost 12.
At the French Open, the 8 American men won 3 matches and lost 8.
At the Australian Open, the 11 American men won 7 matches and lost 11.
At the U.S. Open, the 20 American men won 12 matches and lost 20.

For the 2012 Grand Slam season, the American men won 36 matches and lost 51.

The outlook for American men’s tennis is bleak with the combination of Roddick’s retirement, the less than stellar performance of the other American men and the dismal results of the junior boys. The results of the American men at this year’s Grand Slam singles tournaments raises a question about the return on investment of the millions of dollars spent by the USTA on player development.

Mixed Results for American Women at U.S. Open

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Thank goodness for Serena Williams!

Once again Serena demonstrated that she is unequivocally the top player in women’s tennis and the only elite singles player in the United States.

While there are a handful of juniors and a half-dozen women under the age of 24 who have shown promise, time will tell if they will become elite players. Mallory Burdette and Sloane Stephens showed that they may be more than one-hit wonders by reaching the round of 32. Time will tell.

This year 16 of the 128 women players were from the U.S. and four reached the round of 32.

Round of 128
The 16 U.S. women players had an embarrassingly weak first round – 5 wins and 11 losses.
• Winners – Varvara Lepchenko, Mallory Burdette, Sloane Stephens, Serena Williams, Venus Williams.
• Losers -. Samantha Crawford, Victoria Duval, Julia Cohen, Melodie Oudin, Jamie Hampton, Nicole Gibbs, Coco Vandeweghe, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Christina McHale, Irina Falconi, and Vania King.

Round of 64
The women fared well in the second round – 4 wins and 1 loss.
• Winners – Varvara Lepchenko, Mallory Burdette, Sloane Stephens, and Serena Williams.
• Loser – Venus Williams.

Round of 32
With the exception of Serena Williams, the other American women lost (Stephens had a strong showing) – 1 win and 3 losses.
• Winners – Serena Williams.
• Losers – Varvara Lepchenko, Mallory Burdette, and Sloane Stephens.

Round of 16
Serena William remained on the winning track – 1 win and 0 loss.

Quarterfinals
Serena defeated Ivanovic handily – 1 win and 0 loss.

Semifinals
Serena blew out Errani – 1 win and 0 loss.

Finals
Serena wins in three sets against Azarenka – 1 win and 0 losses

At the Australian Open, the 10 American women won 9 matches and lost 10. (Serena won 3 matches)
At the French Open, the 12 American women won 15 matches and lost 12. (Serena won 0 matches)
At Wimbledon, the 10 American women won 14 matches and lost 9. (Serena won 7 matches)
At the U.S. Open, the 16 American women won 14 matches and lost 15. (Serena won 7 matches).

In the 2012 Grand Slams, the American women won 52 matches and lost 46. Serena Williams was 17-2. She won 17 of the 52 matches won by American women.

Given the track record of the USTA Player Development Program, hopefully, Serena can stay healthy for a long, long time.

Outlook for American Men’s Tennis Remains Bleak

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The performance of the American juniors at the U.S. Open was like the New York weather – there were good days and there were  bad days.

The boys’ results were an embarrassment to the USTA Player Development efforts, while the girls ended the year on a positive note.

FIFTEEN of the 64 players in the boys draw were Americans (which is a lot). None of them were paired against Americans in the first round, which increased the chances of an increased number of players advancing. Only 4 advanced past the first round.

Their results follow:

Round of 64
The boys had a combined record of 4-11 in the first round.
Winners: Harrison Adams, Stefan Kozlov, Michael Mmoh, and Martin Redlicki.
Losers: Mackenzie MacDonald, Alexios Halebian, Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, Jared Donaldson, Mitchell Krueger, Henrik Wiersholm, Ronnie Schneider, Jared Hiltzik, Spencer Papa, Noah Rubin, and Deiton Baughman.

Round of 32
The boys had a blasé second round, 2-2.
Winners: Harrison Adams and Stefan Kozlov.
Loser: Michael Mmoh, and Martin Redlicki.

Round of 16
The boys failed to advance beyond the round of 16, 0-2.
Winners: None.
Losers: Michael Mmoh, and Martin Redlicki.

A summary of the season for the American boys follows:

  • In the Australian Open, the boys were 4-3 and Mckenzie McDonald lost in the semifinals.
  • At the French Open they were 9-6 and Mitchell Krueger lost in the semifinals.
  • At Wimbledon, the boys were 7-8 and Mitchell Krueger lost in the semifinals.
  • At the U.S. Open, the boys were 6-15.

Overall they had 26 wins and 32 losses in the 2012 Grand Slams and they failed to win any championships. There is a lack of depth and consistency in the American boys, based on their performance in these tournaments.

TWENTY girls represented the U.S. in the singles draw. None were pitted against fellow Americans in the first round. Their results follow.

Round of 64
The girls had a modest showing in the first round, 11-9.
Winners: Taylor Townsend, Jamie Loeb, Alexandra Kiick, Victoria Duval, Anne-Liz Jeukeng, Caroline Doyle, Chalena Scholl, Tornado Alicia Black, Kyle S. McPhillips, Sachia Vickery, and Samantha Crawford.
Losers: Christina Makarova, Brooke Austin, Krista Hardebeck, Louisa Chirico, Nicole Frenkel, Jennifer Brady, Kimberly Yee, Rasheeda Mcadoo, and Gabrielle Andrews.

Round of 32
The girls posted mediocre results in the second round, 5-6.
Winners: Taylor Townsend, Victoria Duval, Caroline Doyle, Sachia Vickery, and Samantha Crawford.
Losers: Jamie Loeb, Alexandra Kiick, Anne-Liz Jeukeng, Chalena Scholl, Tornado Alicia Black, Kyle S. McPhillips.

Round of 16
The girls had a solid third round (Crawford ousted Vickery), 3-2.
Winners: Taylor Townsend, Victoria Duval, and Samantha Crawford.
Losers: Caroline Doyle and Sachia Vickery.

Quarterfinals
The girls had a solid quarterfinals, although Townsend was upset, 2-1.
Winners: Victoria Duval, and Samantha Crawford.
Loser: Taylor Townsend.

Semifinals
One player advanced in the semis, 1-1.
Winner: Samantha Crawford.
Loser: Victoria Duval.

Finals
Winner: Samantha Crawford.

A summary of the season for the American girls follows:

  • In the Australian Open, the American girls had 18 wins and 6 losses. Taylor Townsend won the event and Krista Hardebeck was defeated in the semis.
  • At the French Open the American girls had 10 wins and 7 losses, although nobody advanced past the round of 16.
  • At Wimbledon, the U.S. girls had a disappointing showing with 7 wins and 8 losses and three players advanced to the round of 16.
  • At the U.S. Open the American girls had a strong showing with 23 wins and 19 losses. Samantha Crawford won the event and Victoria Duval was defeated in the semis.

It is going to be awhile before someone other than Serena Williams (male or female) wins a Grand Slams title for the U.S; however, the American girls had a respectable 2012 season, with two championships. They demonstrated there may be some backups for the Williams sisters when they retire. That hope and change was not evident on the boys side.

 

The Other Major League (Baseball)

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Major League Baseball is America’s national pastime, but over the past 70 years many people don’t know that the U.S. has had two major leagues in addition to MLB. Researcher Sharon Taylor-Roepke discusses the least known, the AABGL, in her comments taken from the 1981 North America Society for Sports History 1981 Proceedings.

In 1992 Tom Hanks, Madonna, and Geena Davis starred in the movie about the AABGL. Hanks made one of many famous quotes from Out of Their League when he said, “Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There’s no crying! THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!”

The Other Major League, 1943-1954

In 1943 there existed three categories of Major League baseball, each representing the highest levels of their class: the white male major leagues, the black male major leagues, and the All American Girls Baseball League. The latter is THE OTHER MAJOR LEAGUE which, to date, is unacknowledged by the legitimizing institutions of organized baseball. Consensus declaration, financial stability, and elite athletic performance distinguish a “major” league.

The All American Girls Baseball League was a sustained popular attraction, declared a major league by its originators, and played and operated with professional expertise. The brand of ball played was “dead ball” baseball, and the game evolved in a fashion similar to male major league baseball.

The athletes were the top of their class and recognized as such by former male major leaguers. Wally Pipp, former N.Y. Yankee first baseman, termed Dotty Kamenshek the “Rockford Peach,” a better fielder than most major league (male) first basemen. Sophie Kurys stole more bases in a single season than any other major league ballplayer in history. She may never be acknowledged as the great ballplayer she was because organized baseball does not view women as real ballplayers. They are unrecognized by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and have been ignored in numerous histories of the game. They are less visible in baseball lore than their black counterparts who were ignored for many years.

The A.A.G.B.L. began a slow but persistent decline when Arthur Meyerhoff, Management Corporation owner, sold out to the franchise owners. Conflict between the Meyerhoff corporation and local city owners led to significant cutbacks in promotional funding and resulted in the League’s demise.

The All American Girls Baseball League, begun by P.K. Wrigley in 1943 as a nonprofit wartime entertainment, slid to a quiet death under the misdirected guidance of independent owners in 1954, The League’s innovative game with its charm school training, central player ownership, balanced team philosophy, and superbly trained female athletes died with most of the U.S. minor league system in the early 1950s, a victim of poor management and the entertainment competition of the postwar era.

 

Battle of the Heavyweights – Barbecue Sauce,T-Shirts, but no George Foreman Grill

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Social media has made it possible for former athletes to remain in the public eye long after their careers are over. Former heavyweight boxing champions Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield are a case in point.

Earlier this year Holyfield announced the release of Real Deal Barbecue Sauce, vowing that it would be the World Champion of Barbecue Sauces.

Tyson tweeted, “Holyfield’s ear would’ve been much better with his new BBQ sauce.  For those who have conveniently forgotten, Tyson bit off part of Holyfield’s ear in a boxing match about 15 years ago.

More recently Tyson released the Mike Tyson Clothing Line, which includes a t-shirt featuring his tattoo. (Those with kids and babies will be pleased to know that it comes in white, black, pink, and blue.)

Holyfield donned one of the tattoo t-shirts and tweeted a picture of him wearing it. He said,” Mike Tyson bit my ear and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

The only thing missing from this “battle of the tweets” was a promo bit for George Foreman grills.

While those with a warped sense of humor may find levity in this exchange of verbal punches, others will say that these tweets beg the question, “Did these two gents take too many punches to the head?”

Football as Social Entertainment

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History is powerful! We can see the errors of our ways in past dealings. As well, it is possible to see that some of our current challenges were a thorn in the side to  leaders 100 years ago.

The following is taken from the North American Society for Sports History 1981 Proceedings. The one-page document, entitled “Football as Social Entertainment Comes to Oregon State University” was penned by Dr. Arnold W. Flath, professor at Oregon State University. Flath was nationally recognized for this thought- provoking study of sports and society.

With the 2012 college football season around the corner, Flath’s comments provide an interesting perspective on the sport, 30 years after it was written.

Football as Social Entertainment Comes to Oregon State University

Football on the campuses of American colleges and universities evolved from the British game of rugby and the playful American college student’s ball kicking games during the 1800’s. The game became popular over the objections and resistance of most college faculty members and college presidents. Intercollegiate football came to Oregon State University campus in 1893 with the enthusiastic support of Corvallis citizens, Oregon State University students and faculty, and University President J.M. Bloss. The newly installed President Bloss brought his administrative talent and the game of football to the Corvallis campus from Purdue University where he had previously served on the faculty.

Not only were the Corvallis fans introduced to intercollegiate football, they were treated with parades, social gatherings, and entertainment apart from the field. While other campuses may have seen football and intercollegiate athletics as “educational experiences”, the response of the Oregon State University students and the Corvallis townspeople to the events attending the games was all that was necessary for the establishment of football as social entertainment.

The football entertainment included parades through Corvallis to attract people to the game site on the campus, dinners for the competing teams in the homes of local social and political leaders, and “football entertainment and socials” held at the college chapel in the evening following the afternoon games. The entertainment opened with remarks by the competing college presidents, followed by musical solos, and magic lantern shows by popular faculty members with slides consisting of views of departmental work, college buildings, sketches of the football captain, and a portrait of the Oregon State University mascot, a well-known coyote. After the lantern exhibition, a general social time occurred, allowing many new friendships to be formed and old ones cultivated.

Although earlier Oregon State University presidents had balked at the introduction of intercollegiate athletics, the success of the 1893 football team and the success of the social entertainment attending the games set the tone for the role of intercollegiate athletics to the present. It was recognized “that athletic events have, and are, fulfilling some social need, or they would not be supported to the extent they have been and are being supported. We conclude that the principle benefit of intercollegiate athletics to the university community is a means of communicating with the general public. Accordingly, it is logical to evaluate the program primarily in terms of its contribution to university relations rather than in terms of the accomplishment of educational objectives. The administration of the program should reflect this fact” (Report to the President of Oregon State University from the Commission on University Goals. Corvallis, Oregon, August, 1970, pp. 150-151.)

Wanted: Best Coaches in the Country to Coach Bad Players

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As the fall sports season rolls around, parents have to deal with the issue of who is going to coach their kids’ (fill in the sport) team. Will the coach know how to deal with young kids? Can they teach skills? Will the kids get to play a fair amount of the time? And God forbid, will the coach be a pedophile?

There is an axiom in individual college sports such as golf, tennis, skiing, track and field, “Players with A-level talent always beat players with B-level talent. It is not possible to coach B-talent to beat A-talent”. Right or wrong, some coaches believe that rule holds true in youth sports also.

In other words, many winning college programs have coaches whose primary strengths are recruiting, motivating, and organizing. They have winning records because they recruit more players with A-level talent than other coaches and they do a better job motivating them and keeping them happy.

John Calipari recently addressed this axiom as it relates to team sports. He was asked whether it’s difficult to get young blue-chip talent to jell as a team. In other words, how difficult is it to coach a group of A-level talent players?

The $5.2-million-dollar-a-year coach responded, “I’ll tell you what’s hard – coaching bad players.”

If it is really difficult to coach bad players and A-talent always beats B-talent, then why bother coaching bad players or players with B-talent? The answer is simple. All superstars begin their careers as bad players, even if they have A-talent. And the number of athletes with B-talent, or less, far outnumbers the elite players who play in the Olympics or major championships.

Hats off to Calipari for being able to recruit and manage elite athletes. He is a successful coach based on the number of games his teams have won.

Kudos also go to the coaches who like to work with bad players and those with “B” talent or less. In fact, a case can be made that this group of coaches should occassionally grace the cover of Sports Illustrated.

In other words, we need to have the absolute best coaches at the entry level, not on prime time television. Having the top coaches mentor young athletes when they start playing a sport will keep kids in sports and motivate them to be active for life. That will solve a lot of the problems facing our society.