Sean Hannity Vs Usta

[sundaypunch]

Originally Posted by t135

Hannity is an arrogant liar who will say anything, true or not, to put another buck in his pocket. Who cares if he plays tennis. The courts are littered with POS's around the country. No news here.

I think the guy is an assclown also. Don't be naive though, he has reached a very wide audience with his commentary. You hate the guy yet feel compelled to repeatedly comment on the issue here.

He has people talking about the issue which was exactly his intent.

[chalkflewup]

He should keep his day job.

[t135]

Originally Posted by li0scc0

You missed calling him a racist (of course given your rant you would have spelled it 'racits!!1!'. Need to work on your vitriol to get it right. Always next time.

You really think he's a racist? I've never gotten that impression from him.

[BMC9670]

Originally Posted by t135

I feel relatively certain that the people who cast the USTA as a failing evil empire of american tennis are folks looking for someone to blame for the fact that their kids aren't truly outstanding tennis players. And never will be. So rather than face the truth they search for someone or something to blame. The insane tennis parent syndrome kicks in. Blame it on "the man".

"rather than face the truth they search for someone or something to blame." Which brings us full circle to Mr Hannity and his schtick. It seems he fits the crazy tennis parent mold rather well. Or is it the armchair quarterback syndrome? I can do that too, here goes...the problem with American tennis is not enough gifted athletes pick up a racquet and immerse themselves in the game. I wonder what the USTA could do to fix that problem for us?

I don't see why everyone looks to the USTA to "produce" the next American champion anyway, and I don't know why they think they can. They never have. Past great American champions have come from varying unique circumstances - not a "system". They may have entered an academy or been helped by the USTA, but not from scratch. Not even close.

Look around at the top players. Look at history. Tennis champions come from a spark, a talent, and an environment that encourages it from an early age, be it a private coach, a crazy tennis parent, or a pro-athlete uncle, etc, there is very little "system" to it.

[Alohajrtennis]

Originally Posted by t135

I feel relatively certain that the people who cast the USTA as a failing evil empire of American tennis are folks looking for someone to blame for the fact that their kids aren't truly outstanding tennis players. And never will be. So rather than face the truth they search for someone or something to blame. The insane tennis parent syndrome kicks in. Blame it on "the man".

"rather than face the truth they search for someone or something to blame." Which brings us full circle to Mr Hannity and his schtick. It seems he fits the crazy tennis parent mold rather well. Or is it the armchair quarterback syndrome? I can do that too, here goes...the problem with American tennis is not enough gifted athletes pick up a racquet and immerse themselves in the game. I wonder what the USTA could do to fix that problem for us?

Wow. You obviously have not read what he wrote or payed any attention to what numerous other people have written. You are way to busy dealing in stereo types of "insane tennis" parents and making wild suppositions about other people motives and intentions without any evidence.

let me spell it out : Hannity does not believe his children will be professional tennis players. He says this in plain English, you either choose not to read what he wrote or just assume everything he writes is a lie. Neither do I believe mine will be. Neither do most of the people who object to the schedule change. I don't believe my children tennis skills have anything to do with the USTA, for better or worse.

It's actually precisely because of this that we object to the change in the scheduleThe makers of the new schedule appear to believe that national competition is only appropriate for very, very top echelon of players who they feel have pro potential. Everyone else should just stay in there region and not bother the truly elite. The unneeded presence of the inferiors a these national events is costing the really good players too much time and too much money. We believe this attitude is wrong. Just as 99% of the kids who play in the little league world series will never play in MLB, we believe it is ok for kids who will never be pro's to participate in national competition. We believe regardless of the result, it is an experience for them worth having. Junior tennis is a childhood experience, it's not a minor league for the ATP.

It seems to me some of the proponents of the schedule change seem to be the one who will benefit from it. With kids already ranked in the top 10, they can still go to the national events anyhow, but now can pretty much stay in Florida or SoCal, do not have to travel to Arizona at Christmas to defend a ranking, and when they do travel it will be a couple days shorter becuase they don't have to deal with the riff-raff.

[chalkflewup]

Originally Posted by t135

You really think he's a racist? I've never gotten that impression from him. Interesting. I'm not familiar with that spelling of the word either, you must be bilingual?

I feel relatively certain that the people who cast the USTA as a failing evil empire of american tennis are folks looking for someone to blame for the fact that their kids aren't truly outstanding tennis players. And never will be. So rather than face the truth they search for someone or something to blame. The insane tennis parent syndrome kicks in. Blame it on "the man".

"rather than face the truth they search for someone or something to blame." Which brings us full circle to Mr Hannity and his schtick. It seems he fits the crazy tennis parent mold rather well. Or is it the armchair quarterback syndrome? I can do that too, here goes...the problem with American tennis is not enough gifted athletes pick up a racquet and immerse themselves in the game. I wonder what the USTA could do to fix that problem for us?

While it isn't popular here, I admire your perspective. And I think you are right, Hannity is completely consumed with junior tennis.

[Leelord337]

I love this quote from Hannity in that article.

"They also learn that sometimes life is not fair and there are those who do not "play by the rules." They are put in situations like being down 2-5, 15-40 in the 3rd set and then find out they can fight their way back. You can’t get that kind of education in a classroom. All of these are GREAT lessons for life. "

[t135]

Originally Posted by Leelord337

I love this quote from Hannity in that article.

"They also learn that sometimes life is not fair and there are those who do not "play by the rules." They are put in situations like being down 2-5, 15-40 in the 3rd set and then find out they can fight their way back. You can’t get that kind of education in a classroom. All of these are GREAT lessons for life. "

It's one of the great lessons people learn from sports. Tennis included.

So important for kids to experience that when growing up. Need more kids experiencing that on the tennis court. And tennis is one of the few sports that you can continue to be inspired by like that throughout life when you aren't a kid anymore. One of the few things we can all probably agree on.

[t135]

Originally Posted by Alohajrtennis

It's actually precisely because of this that we object to the change in the scheduleThe makers of the new schedule appear to believe that national competition is only appropriate for very, very top echelon of players who they feel have pro potential. Everyone else should just stay in there region and not bother the truly elite. The unneeded presence of the inferiors a these national events is costing the really good players too much time and too much money. We believe this attitude is wrong. Just as 99% of the kids who play in the little league world series will never play in MLB, we believe it is ok for kids who will never be pro's to participate in national competition. We believe regardless of the result, it is an experience for them worth having. Junior tennis is a childhood experience, it's not a minor league for the ATP.

I fully understand all this, and you stated the point well here. And I mostly agree.

[LeftyServe]

Originally Posted by MarTennis

The 10 year old has two years to become the best and make the issue moot. Our children have plenty of time to totally take over the 12s, hard work and God Willing.

And two years ago, the USTA was saying that 12's tournaments are not critical and the 10-12 group should not be focused on nationals, blah, blah, blah. Now it seems they're saying, or at least implying, that the kids need to to be top-ranked in 12's to even get the opportunity to play in Level 1 and Level 2 tournaments in the older age groups.

[rolliges]

While I object to the USTA's heavy handedness and feel a lot of young kids will miss out on prime development opportunities by fewer high-level competition (especially in regions with deep talent pools), it is possible that there is a way to improve the system.

Some countries have A,B,& C groups within an age level at National tournaments. The A's are elite and so on. That way everyone who wants to can compete, earn some points, stimulate the economy, and most importantly, develop as tennis players.

[chalkflewup]

Originally Posted by t135

I fully understand all this, and you stated the point well here. And I mostly agree. The USTA is pursuing an agenda, and it's a good one. I agree that a bloated, sanctioned national tournament program may not serve the interest of the USTA national player development program very well. Kids can enjoy competitive tennis opportunutites at a more local level until they earn the right to break through to the next level. Pushing the talent back down a level doesn't eliminate competition, it raises the competitive bar higher. If a player isn't good enough to make sanctioned USTA national tournaments they don't belong there just because it's a fun experience to be had by all. Either the results are there or they aren't.

And nothing prevents anyone from setting up junior tournaments as they see fit to encourage higher levels of competition for those who haven't earned the right to play the new national tournament schedule.

Spot on that pushing the talent back down a level raises the competitive bar. What riddles me is... Why don't the majority of the tennis parents see it this way?

[Mitch Bridge]

Because the qualifying spots from the sections are not fair. There are players that coulddo well at nationals that will not make those tournaments now because of the smaller draws. With the old system, players could hussle up L3 points to make up for the inequality of the sectional with national points tournaments. Now they are out of a way to balance the ranking system, which is completely off base. Socal's 100th ranked player is better than the 10th best player in 10 of the 17 USTA sections. This section should have 20% of the national spots in order to equalize the system. When you drop down to a 64 draw, the tournaments are still going to have weak players that make the field that 100s of other players could beat, thus making it an unfair system. Larger draws made up for this, and allowed all of the better players a fair chance to excel....if it is not broken don't fix it! The old system was an excellent system whereas birthdays didn't matter, and the inequity of the sections didn't really matter either. Now the sectional imbalance is the major issue. This system only works if you have 5 regions instead of the sections. Florida,Socal, west, central and east with equal qualifying spots.

[tennisforlife77]

Tenniseurope runs 322 individual junior tournaments across Europe each year. These do not include junior events sanctioned by individual countries. Compare this to the less than 20 national events sanctioned by the USTA. The access to high level competition in Europe for juniors is almost unlimited - 4-5 events per week to choose from. The same 200-300 kids in the US are going to be competing with each other over and over again as part of the limited national schedule. In my opinion it is hard to imagine a more short sighted approach to developing tennis in the US

[chalkflewup]

More national tournaments so the elites like Hannity can fly their kids to tournaments every weekend is not the solution. We need more kids playing the game closer to home, not further away. We do need kids playing matches everyday and you don't need a tournament to do that. We need less blaming of the system and more parents taking direct responsibility.

[tennisforlife77]

Originally Posted by chalkflewup

More national tournaments so the elites like Hannity can fly their kids to tournaments every weekend is not the solution. We need more kids playing the game closer to home, not further away. We do need kids playing matches everyday and you don't need a tournament to do that. We need less blaming of the system and more parents taking direct responsibility.

I think you need to get over the fact that Sean Hannity wrote the letter. His views are representative of not all but a significant percentage of the junior tennis constituency. If you are going to restrict national playing opportunities to the extent the USTA has done with their new schedule you had better make sure you have a really accurate selection process. Random sectional quotas don't seem to be the way to go. What Europe is offering in terms of high level competitive opportunities for juniors is on a totally different scale with a completely different philosophy ie make high level competition as accessible as possible to as many players as you can. The results speak for themselves - Europe has 8 out of the worlds top 10 players and 75 of the top 100. For the US the numbers are 1 and 7.

[justinmadison]

My son played US national tournaments before we moved to Europe last summer. After moving to Europe I was absolutely amazed at the number and quality of national, European, and ITF tournaments available for him to play. After being exposed to both systems it quickly becomes apparent that access to more high level tennis and tournaments equals improved performance. Not that surprising.

I do not think there is a significant contingent of national players or parents in favor of the changes made by the USTA. It is remarkable to see how united parents and players are in opposition to the USTA’s plans.

I don’t know much about Sean’s politics but at least he is willing to say “My name is Sean Hannity I have kids who aspire to be national players and I believe these changes are bad because …” It is very rare to find anyone who will state “My name is … and I have kids who aspire to be national players and I believe these changes are good because …” Very rare.

[Mitch Bridge]

Originally Posted by chalkflewup

More national tournaments so the elites like Hannity can fly their kids to tournaments every weekend is not the solution. We need more kids playing the game closer to home, not further away. We do need kids playing matches everyday and you don't need a tournament to do that. We need less blaming of the system and more parents taking direct responsibility.

If the system is to blame then blame the system. In a country of our size it is going to be logistically challenging therefore more expensive to compete. Flying to national events as often as possible is the solution. Playing the same 5 kids in your section over and over is not the solution.

[chalkflewup]

Flying around the country just so you don't have to play the same 5 kids is not the answer. We need to grow the game locally. How can a family that earns $45,000 a year fly around the country? Ain't gonna happen.

[coaching32yrs]

I never understood parents and players obsession with national tournaments in the 12's, 14's, and 16's. When my players are 10-15 yrs old and they need some tougher matches against different players I play them up 1 or 2 age brackets in our section. Why travel across the country? Get them playing "adult" tennis as quickly as possible. 12 and 14 year old defensive tennis wins at those ages, but hinders long term development.