Tennis Recruiting

[hound 109]

I like TRN & for the most part agree with most of the data they put out....but:

- What is with their "articles" on the front page?

The most recent in a handful of non-informative puff pieces is an interview with the Rice Woman's coach.

http://www.tennisrecruiting.net/arti...5C735A35294378

Not only does it provide worthless generic information...."parents supporting a kid is good....not not supporting is not good" & "making sure you will fit in is good" etc....but the interviewer fails to ask the coach why 7 of her 9 players AREN'T even from the US.

This would be a question (& answer) that most readers would be interested in.... since TRN is a website with a US tennis scholarship focus??

Prior articles included an interview of the Baylor head coach (also a team with very few Americans) & an article extolling the virtues & play of a Junior who had been booted out of the previous national tourney for coaching/cheating.

I like TRN.....but like the USTA propoganda magazine i get every 3 months....it's content is becoming pretty much a wasted read except for the actual rankings.

.

[Keysmickey]

Originally Posted by hound 109

I like TRN & for the most part agree with some of the data they put out....but:

- What is with their "articles" on the front page?

The most recent in a handful of non-informative puff pieces is an interview with the Rice Woman's coach.

http://www.tennisrecruiting.net/arti...5C735A35294378

Not only does it provide worthless generic information...."parents supporting a kid is good....not not supporting is not good" & "making sure you will fit in is good" etc....but the interviewer fails to ask the coach why 7 of her 9 players AREN'T even from the US.

Maybe a question that some of it's readers would be interested in.... since it's a website with a US tennis scholarship focus??

Prior articles included an interview of the Baylor head coach (same issue) & an article extolling the virtues & play of a Junior who had been booted out of the previous national tourney for coaching/cheating.

I like TRN.....but like the USTA propoganda magazine i get every 3 months....it's content is becoming pretty much a wasted read except for the actual rankings.

I totally agree. Tennis Recruiting is a great, great tool for college bound kids, I really don't think my daughter would have made it without their format and the respect college coaches have for it (laughingly, tr.net was on the computer screen of virtually every school we visited)

That said, their decision to never rock the boat in the tennis world, never taking a stance unless it's positive, tap dancing around the foreign college tennis player issue and such is very disappointing.

I agree with your take on the interviews as well. The coaches hardly ever give anyone any useful information and as you pointed out NEVER get asked the tough questions.

Recruits need to know HOW to attract a coaches attention, how to keep them interested and such and the content needs to be directed at the 3 and 4 star players. They're the ones needing the help. We all know the 5 star and blue chippers don't really have these problems.

[dallasoliver]

Originally Posted by hound 109

I like TRN & for the most part agree with some of the data they put out....but:

- What is with their "articles" on the front page?

(deleted)

I like TRN.....but like the USTA propoganda magazine i get every 3 months....it's content is becoming pretty much a wasted read except for the actual rankings.

OK... I'll bite. And I'll do so with one of my patented verbose posts that is much too long-winded...

Over the last year, TRN has run 2-3 articles per week - and occasionally we have special article series (e.g., right around the start of the Fall and Spring Signing Periods in November and April; the week after the Claycourt and Hardcourt Nationals in the summer).

The content that we run on the website can be loosely classified as:
(1) profiles of junior players
(2) wrap-ups of national junior tournaments
(3) college commitment announcements
(4) wrap-ups of college tournaments
(5) photo galleries from the junior and college events that we are able to visit and photograph
(6) recruiting advice

Of these six classifications, we contract for (1)-(4) with freelance authors who specialize in tennis (e.g., Colette Lewis, Marcia Frost, Josh Rey, Ali Jones), we do (5) ourselves, and we get (6) for free from a variety of companies who are associated with academies or who specialize in assisting with recruiting (e.g., Scholarship for Athletes, IMG/Bollettieri, Donovan Tennis Strategies).

You seem to be complaining about (6) - all of the articles you list come from (6).

A few notes...

- There are people who like all of our articles - including those in (6). We get feedback - usually more positive than negative - for almost every article that we publish.

- Before we had Class (6), we only ran 1-2 articles per week - the Class (6) articles are easy for us to get, and it increases our content. Those articles in Class (6) just mean that we have more content.

- We have no control over the content we get in (6). Our partners make it available to us, and we can decide whether to run it on our site or not. It is by far the least time-consuming for us. We do have some additional control over what we run in (1)-(5) since we are paying for it, but we often yield substantial control to the authors (e.g., Colette Lewis of ZooTennis writes a weekly column for us, and we let her write whatever she wants - I think we get much better content because we give her free reign.)

- As you point out, our rankings and player/college database are the central elements of our website. The articles are there as "extra stuff". Noone at TRN has any background in journalism - we are all technical wonks who love sports in general, tennis in particular, and get into things like rankings. As such, our small company does not spend too much time planning articles.

(climbing up on soapbox)

All that said, I think that the TRN content is much better than you give it credit. There have been years when we have been the only site to cover all 8 age divisions of the Clays and Hardcourts. I think our Countdown to Signing Day (which starts Monday, by the way) and College Recruiting Class Rankings provide a lot of buzz in junior tennis. I also think our content - college commitment announcements, etc. - helps provide a better link between junior tennis and college tennis... that link has not been historically strong.

(climbing back down)

At the end of the day, we are a small company, and we are doing the best we can to carve out a niche and fill a need. Some people hate us or think we are off track (read some of the other threads on this forum) - and others love what we do. Some are mixed in their feelings. There is no way we can please everyone - just ask any successful company.

What we will do is to continue to try to provide the best product that we can, and we are always open to suggestions. Indeed, one of the reasons that we now do our Top Prospect Ratings (i.e., the "stars") twice a year - and increased the proportion of 2-Star recruits - is because of emails and comments on this board.


I hope this clarifies how things work at our site. At this point, I think we will continue with the Class (6) articles. Like I said, many people like them. And there are many people for whom the comments in those articles are not vacuous - there are many, many newbies for whom college recruiting is a mystery.

Best regards,
Dallas

[dallasoliver]

Originally Posted by Keysmickey

That said, their decision to never rock the boat in the tennis world, never taking a stance unless it's positive, tap dancing around the foreign college tennis player issue and such is very disappointing.

While we do have a popular website, at the end of the day we are a group of four (somewhat geeky) individuals who love both tennis and rankings. While we do have individual opinions on the subjects you mention above, even the four of us do not always agree. And, frankly, since we have no formal weight with the USTA, ITF, ITA, NCAA, or any other relevant governing body, there is little use in TRN taking public stands on these issues. Some people have suggested that we sanction our own tournaments and "compete" with the USTA. We have no interest in doing something like that, but even if we had the desire, it just isn't realistic.

That said, we do make our opinions known privately to our contacts in the USTA and ITA.

Originally Posted by Keysmickey

I agree with your take on the interviews as well. The coaches hardly ever give anyone any useful information and as you pointed out NEVER get asked the tough questions.

Recruits need to know HOW to attract a coaches attention, how to keep them interested and such and the content needs to be directed at the 3 and 4 star players. They're the ones needing the help. We all know the 5 star and blue chippers don't really have these problems.

The first paragraph above seems again to be going after the Class (6) content that I covered in my previous post.

But the point of your second paragraph is well-taken - and it is not the first time I have heard that comment. We are working on some new content that provides general advice. But you'd be surprised - many 5-Star players actually do have problems with recruiting.

I hope this helps.

Best,
Dallas

[dallasoliver]

One last note... I am about to be overwhelmed for the next month with our Countdown to Signing Day and Signing Week article series - doing those in additional to my usual tasks. I probably won't have time to write more of these posts - and I always take a lot of time to consider my thoughts before writing here. So do not be offended if I drop out of the discussion - hopefully there are others who will take up the mantle of defending TRN.

[rptennis]

Dallas,

Great post man! just a quick question off topic. How often do you guys update the player's ranking with his/her ITF results?

Thanks!

[ClarkC]

Originally Posted by rptennis

Dallas,

Great post man! just a quick question off topic. How often do you guys update the player's ranking with his/her ITF results?

Thanks!

There are FAQs at the tennisrecruiting.net site.

The short answer is that USTA and ITF results are obtained by computer every week. There is no special answer for ITF as opposed to USTA.

[dallasoliver]

Originally Posted by rptennis

How often do you guys update the player's ranking with his/her ITF results?

[Clark and I posted at the same time, and his answer was just fine, but here is my $0.02.]

Rankings are updated weekly. We import/enter new match results every week, and the rankings are updated weekly according to this schedule:

Tuesday - College Recruiting Lists - Boys
Wednesday - Babolat College Recruiting Lists - Girls
Thursday - IMG TennisRPI Rankings - Boys
Friday - IMG TennisRPI Rankings - Girls

I hope this helps.

- Dallas

[Keysmickey]

Originally Posted by dallasoliver

While we do have a popular website, at the end of the day we are a group of four (somewhat geeky) individuals who love both tennis and rankings. While we do have individual opinions on the subjects you mention above, even the four of us do not always agree. And, frankly, since we have no formal weight with the USTA, ITF, ITA, NCAA, or any other relevant governing body, there is little use in TRN taking public stands on these issues. Some people have suggested that we sanction our own tournaments and "compete" with the USTA. We have no interest in doing something like that, but even if we had the desire, it just isn't realistic.

That said, we do make our opinions known privately to our contacts in the USTA and ITA.



The first paragraph above seems again to be going after the Class (6) content that I covered in my previous post.

But the point of your second paragraph is well-taken - and it is not the first time I have heard that comment. We are working on some new content that provides general advice. But you'd be surprised - many 5-Star players actually do have problems with recruiting.

I hope this helps.

Best,
Dallas

Dallas, you've read my posts and you've read my e-mails ... You know I'm a fan of your product. A BIG fan.

That said, I don't think you realize what a huge following and influence you have in the tennis world. With your support, a rival to the USTA tournament schedule could be bourne (the L3 tournament directors cannot be happy with what has transpired this past year). Just imagine a schedule in which the MAIN criteria would be the college bound player. Give college coaches what they want and you will succeed. Sponsor / support quarterly tournaments, guaranteed to have x many coaches in attendance and just see what happens. Maybe one tournament each quarter would be enough.

I understand your agreement with zoo and such but if they just want to be cheerleaders or ostrich's then you have to decide on which side of the fence you choose to be. I have read many, many articles praising top girls from Florida, girls I know for fact were raised on cheating and gamesmanship. This is what Team Mc wants ... Shows desire, I'm told. It isn't what champions are made from, though.

College bound tennis players need direction and support. They're not getting it from USTA. Hopefully someone will step up.

[klu375]

Originally Posted by Keysmickey

Dallas, you've read my posts and you've read my e-mails ... You know I'm a fan of your product. A BIG fan.

That said, I don't think you realize what a huge following and influence you have in the tennis world. With your support, a rival to the USTA tournament schedule could be bourne (the L3 tournament directors cannot be happy with what has transpired this past year). Just imagine a schedule in which the MAIN criteria would be the college bound player. Give college coaches what they want and you will succeed. Sponsor / support quarterly tournaments, guaranteed to have x many coaches in attendance and just see what happens. Maybe one tournament each quarter would be enough.

I hope you understand where TR.NET gets its data from. "Rival to the USTA"??? I do not think so.

[Keysmickey]

Originally Posted by klu375

I hope you understand where TR.NET gets its data from. "Rival to the USTA"??? I do not think so.

data = public domain???

Maybe I am just dreaming. Maybe these 'pie in the sky' things are not possible. BUT great things always come from big dreams and 'where there's a will, there's a way' always rings true in life, doesn't it?

[hound 109]

Dallas, as i mentioned, i LIKE TRN. Having it exist is 100% better than not having it exist. (& the numbers that the "geeks" put out is amazingly good & accurate data imo ).

I also like the fact that you respond. Even when there are times I might disagree, i respect you & your site.

I realize you don't make $$ responding to posts on TW....& probably won't be able to respond here, but I've got comments to the below:

Originally Posted by dallasoliver

OK... I'll bite. And I'll do so with one of my patented verbose posts that is much too long-winded...

Over the last year, TRN has run 2-3 articles per week - and occasionally we have special article series (e.g., right around the start of the Fall and Spring Signing Periods in November and April; the week after the Claycourt and Hardcourt Nationals in the summer).

The content that we run on the website can be loosely classified as:
(1) profiles of junior players
(2) wrap-ups of national junior tournaments

One of these "wrap-ups" was the gushing cheerleading of the winner of this event (With several quotes from the DAD) w/o mentioning that the player (& Dad) had been cited for coaching in the PREVIOUS tournament & had forfeited the match.


(3) college commitment announcements
(4) wrap-ups of college tournaments
(5) photo galleries from the junior and college events that we are able to visit and photograph
(6) recruiting advice

For the most part, 1-5 is great.


Of these six classifications, we contract for (1)-(4) with freelance authors who specialize in tennis (e.g., Colette Lewis, Marcia Frost, Josh Rey, Ali Jones),

It's been my observation that Ms. Jones provides more INaccurate info than accurate info.....& frankly seems like a mouthpiece for the USTA. Nothing wrong with this....but full disclosure would be nice.


....we do (5) ourselves, and we get (6) for free from a variety of companies who are associated with academies or who specialize in assisting with recruiting (e.g., Scholarship for Athletes, IMG/Bollettieri, Donovan Tennis Strategies).

You seem to be complaining about (6) - all of the articles you list come from (6).

I am....they are either puff pieces (virtually all of the Scholarship for Athletes articles) or advertising pieces (IMG etc.)

At best they're a waste of bandwidth & at worst they perpetuate much of what's (slowly but surely going) wrong with Junior (& college) tennis.


A few notes...

- There are people who like all of our articles - including those in (6). We get feedback - usually more positive than negative - for almost every article that we publish.

Dallas, no informed person would "like" the puff pieces or advertising pieces....unless they had skin in them being posted.


- Before we had Class (6), we only ran 1-2 articles per week - the Class (6) articles are easy for us to get, and it increases our content. Those articles in Class (6) just mean that we have more content.

- We have no control over the content we get in (6). Our partners make it available to us, and we can decide whether to run it on our site or not.

I wouldn't run them. The rest of your site is Great....why drag it down?


It is by far the least time-consuming for us. We do have some additional control over what we run in (1)-(5) since we are paying for it, but we often yield substantial control to the authors (e.g., Colette Lewis of ZooTennis writes a weekly column for us, and we let her write whatever she wants - I think we get much better content because we give her free reign.)

She's great.


- As you point out, our rankings and player/college database are the central elements of our website. The articles are there as "extra stuff". Noone at TRN has any background in journalism - we are all technical wonks who love sports in general, tennis in particular, and get into things like rankings. As such, our small company does not spend too much time planning articles.

(climbing up on soapbox)

All that said, I think that the TRN content is much better than you give it credit. There have been years when we have been the only site to cover all 8 age divisions of the Clays and Hardcourts. I think our Countdown to Signing Day (which starts Monday, by the way) and College Recruiting Class Rankings provide a lot of buzz in junior tennis. I also think our content - college commitment announcements, etc. - helps provide a better link between junior tennis and college tennis... that link has not been historically strong.

(climbing back down)

At the end of the day, we are a small company, and we are doing the best we can to carve out a niche and fill a need. Some people hate us or think we are off track (read some of the other threads on this forum) - and others love what we do. Some are mixed in their feelings. There is no way we can please everyone - just ask any successful company.

What we will do is to continue to try to provide the best product that we can, and we are always open to suggestions. Indeed, one of the reasons that we now do our Top Prospect Ratings (i.e., the "stars") twice a year - and increased the proportion of 2-Star recruits - is because of emails and comments on this board.


I hope this clarifies how things work at our site. At this point, I think we will continue with the Class (6) articles. Like I said, many people like them. And there are many people for whom the comments in those articles are not vacuous - there are many, many newbies for whom college recruiting is a mystery.

Best regards,
Dallas

Understood Dallas. Your site is great. I hope it's around for decades & you all prosper.

But even a great restaurant might have a bad desert (that they bring in from a 3rd party). If they do, they might consider dropping it from the menu.

Thanks.

[ClarkC]

Originally Posted by klu375

I hope you understand where TR.NET gets its data from. "Rival to the USTA"??? I do not think so.

Originally Posted by Keysmickey

data = public domain???

Maybe I am just dreaming. Maybe these 'pie in the sky' things are not possible. BUT great things always come from big dreams and 'where there's a will, there's a way' always rings true in life, doesn't it?

Sure, the data is in the public domain. If the USTA and TRN have a falling out, then instead of getting a computer feed from the USTA computers, TRN can pay 500 workers to sit around typing in the results from tournaments all over the country.

So, no, not every pie in the sky idea is achievable.

[Keysmickey]

Originally Posted by ClarkC

Sure, the data is in the public domain. If the USTA and TRN have a falling out, then instead of getting a computer feed from the USTA computers, TRN can pay 500 workers to sit around typing in the results from tournaments all over the country.

So, no, not every pie in the sky idea is achievable.

OK, so tr.net can't be that organization, my only point is that, IMO, the United States needs someone to step up and compete with the USTA.

[klu375]

Actually it is in the best interests of junior tennis community for both ranking systems to co-exist peacefully. USTA rankings provide a system for tournament access and tr.net actually shows how players stack up against each other. USTA ranking forces kids to play tournaments while tr.net recognizes achievements of kids who may not have opportunities to travel. It would be nice if USTA accepted the role of tr.net and started awarding wildcards into Nat tournaments based on tr.net ranking. It would be nice if tr.net made their ranking algorithms more transparent and somehow incorporated the scores (closeness) of the matches into the rankings. I guess everyone (and not just college coaches) would like to be able to compare players that belong to different recruitment classes. At least tr.net could publish rough guidelines - something like R(G2014)=R(G2013)-25 or R(B2014)=R(B2013)-50.

[TennisCoachFLA]

Originally Posted by Keysmickey

OK, so tr.net can't be that organization, my only point is that, IMO, the United States needs someone to step up and compete with the USTA.

It would be nice. In some areas like S. FL. the clubs and park programs could develop their own tournament and ranking system.

How sweet it would be to have some sort of tiered system based purely on skill level and not age. Pure S. FL. opens where super talented 11 year olds play 35 year olds of similar skill level. Hmmm, sounds a lot like some of the European countries. I bet it would produce some amazing juniors.

Unfortunately this system would only work for tennis dense areas like S. FL. and Atlanta. In these areas you could have a killer tourny network all within a few hour drive.

[SoCal10s]

the thing I sort of question is that families join the USTA and pay for membership and pay to play the tournaments and USTA are entitled to use any data because they are using members permission to do so.. but TR uses the players data(win/lost)ect without any written permission for their own profits ... maybe some kids (and parents)don't want to give out free information what their kids do and where they go.. but TR gets away with it.. to me this sounds like lawyers should be involved..

[justinmadison]

Originally Posted by TennisCoachFLA

How sweet it would be to have some sort of tiered system based purely on skill level and not age. Pure S. FL. opens where super talented 11 year olds play 35 year olds of similar skill level. Hmmm, sounds a lot like some of the European countries. I bet it would produce some amazing juniors.

Unfortunately this system would only work for tennis dense areas like S. FL. and Atlanta. In these areas you could have a killer tourny network all within a few hour drive.

I am totally confused by this post. We already have what you are wishing for. There are 20 USTA men’s open tournaments in Florida every month. Go and play one.

[Soianka]

Originally Posted by SoCal10s

the thing I sort of question is that families join the USTA and pay for membership and pay to play the tournaments and USTA are entitled to use any data because they are using members permission to do so.. but TR uses the players data(win/lost)ect without any written permission for their own profits ... maybe some kids (and parents)don't want to give out free information what their kids do and where they go.. but TR gets away with it.. to me this sounds like lawyers should be involved..

I am sure that TR would remove any player who requested to be removed from their system.

Just like how your personal information may appear on spokeo.com or similar websites because of information in the public domain..but they will remove it if you request.

[Soianka]

Originally Posted by Keysmickey

OK, so tr.net can't be that organization, my only point is that, IMO, the United States needs someone to step up and compete with the USTA.

That would be a really good thing, I think.