from Coach Newman

I recently posted to my Facebook page that one of the best parts of my job is participating in the community building events that surround the Austin Tennis Academy.  A week ago Sunday it was participating in Esmeralda’s run.  Tonight is was being the Master of Ceremonies for three ATA Seniors signing their national  letters of intent to play college tennis.  Allie Carlisle: UT Tyler, Austin Priess: Abilene Christian University and Austin Mayo, Northern Colorado University all went through their ceremony this evening.

These events are rituals.  We have a formula, we follow the formula, it is comfortable and it is familiar.  The event starts with me welcoming everyone.  We alternate having these signings on Mon/Wed or Tue/Thur so that both Junior Development and Junior Academy players get to be a part of these inspiring moments.  All ATA Academy players and coaches are present.  Coaches talk about the grads, grads give speeches and then they sign their papers.  Some of the things that make this ceremony a ritual…Each player has a cake a balloons.  The cake always has the logo of their chosen school and the balloons are the colors of the school.  Each player signs their NLI and they sign an ATA pledge.  Players and parents sign the documents with the same pen that every player who has signed papers in the past 10 years has used to sign THEIR papers.  Each player gives a speech.  Many of those speeches are full of emotion, many tears are shed.  Everyone takes pictures and eats cake after each player’s ceremony is complete.

These are certainly special moments for the grads and their families who have spent years, if not a decade in pursuit of the goal of playing college tennis.  However, they are special for everyone else too.  For the younger high school students, they can begin to see themselves up there, giving a speech at their ceremony.  For our JD and JA students, they can begin to picture themselves playing as long as these grads and playing college tennis like these kids are going to do.  It can be inspiring for the younger ones.

It gives us all a chance to celebrate the passion, work, enthusiasm, joy and gratefulness that these young people have set a goal, worked long and hard to achieve it, and are now on their way to setting a new set of goals.  As I said, it is a ritual.

As we were walking out this evening, Coach Doug Davis commented:  “I can’t imagine another tennis program doing these signing ceremonies better”  “We are doing something very special with these events”.  I agree with Coach Davis.  If you made it this evening, thanks for coming.  If you did not, engage your ATA player tonight on what they learned at the signing!  And, we hope to see you at next year’s signings.