I will be coaching a high school team. Please help me with structure.

[HunterST]

I will be coaching a high school team. I was a late starter to the game, so I never played on a high school team. I have participated in countless group lessons and clinics, etc, but never a team.

I am very confident in my ability to help the players with technique, strategy, and overall matchplay, but I'm not quite sure of the best way to organize a practice, deal with challenge matches, etc.

This is what I'm thinking right now.

• 15 minute dynamic warm up.
• 30 mins of rotations on general skills. Cross court hitting, volleys, serves, returns.
• 30 mins of work on a specific skill/drill. Moving while hitting, approaching the net, defending the approach, etc.
• 30-45 minutes of play.

What do you guys think of this structure? The one thing I have no idea about is setting up challenge matches. How does that work?

Thanks for any help.

 

[TennisDawg]

I will be coaching a high school team. I was a late starter to the game, so I never played on a high school team. I have participated in countless group lessons and clinics, etc, but never a team.

I am very confident in my ability to help the players with technique, strategy, and overall matchplay, but I'm not quite sure of the best way to organize a practice, deal with challenge matches, etc.

This is what I'm thinking right now.

• 15 minute dynamic warm up.
• 30 mins of rotations on general skills. Cross court hitting, volleys, serves, returns.
• 30 mins of work on a specific skill/drill. Moving while hitting, approaching the net, defending the approach, etc.
• 30-45 minutes of play.

What do you guys think of this structure? The one thing I have no idea about is setting up challenge matches. How does that work?

Thanks for any help.

I coached HS for several years. The first thing I did was setup a team ladder. I did this by first grouping players by skill/ ability. I used the previous years experience varsity/JV or junior tournament experience and overall experience level. I setup up matches within each group to rank the players. I then combined the groups, starting with the most advanced group down to the lowest level. Then you have the order of your team and our ready to start pre-season matches. You can start having challenges matches. I allowed players to challenge 2
Spots above their position. Most challenges matches took place before Region play, after that Varsity is pretty stable, I encouraged JV to challenge often. Some times they challenged varsity, but JV had to show me game before I would allow it and if the varsity player or players were shaky. If Varsity players were solid I usually didn’t allow it. It wasn’t perfect but I thought it was fair and
that is important. I had a lot of practice plans, you can probably find them online.

 

[WildVolley]

I think that Dave Smith's book on coaching is worthwhile. Setting up a ladder and developing a challenge system is beneficial and can definitely improve overall play while limiting the belief that the coach is guilty of favoritism.

http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/Coaching_Mastery_-_Ultimate_Blueprint/descpageSGTA-CMAST.html

 

[TennisDawg]

I think that Dave Smith's book on coaching is worthwhile. Setting up a ladder and developing a challenge system is beneficial and can definitely improve overall play while limiting the belief that the coach is guilty of favoritism.

http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/Coaching_Mastery_-_Ultimate_Blueprint/descpageSGTA-CMAST.html

I have that book I agree it’s a great book for HS coaching.

 

[Friedman Whip]

I will be coaching a high school team. I was a late starter to the game, so I never played on a high school team. I have participated in countless group lessons and clinics, etc, but never a team.

I am very confident in my ability to help the players with technique, strategy, and overall matchplay, but I'm not quite sure of the best way to organize a practice, deal with challenge matches, etc.

This is what I'm thinking right now.

• 15 minute dynamic warm up.
• 30 mins of rotations on general skills. Cross court hitting, volleys, serves, returns.
• 30 mins of work on a specific skill/drill. Moving while hitting, approaching the net, defending the approach, etc.
• 30-45 minutes of play.

What do you guys think of this structure? The one thing I have no idea about is setting up challenge matches. How does that work?

Thanks for any help.

I have experience in this area and have the scars to prove it.
Couple of questions come to mind.
What kind of team do you expect to have? Is this an elite program where most of your players are junior tournament players who have had years of coaching already? Or more like a team with maybe one or two good players and the rest are guys who are self taught and never had a lesson in their life? Big difference in how you might approach things.
What kind of coach are you going to be? Unpaid volunteer? Paid as a 'tennis expert' type coach? Are you planning on being on the court hitting or feeding for each practice? I assume you will be a volunteer coach of some sort and are not presently an employee of the school. Because at least in my neck of the woods if you were presently a school employee and also a knowledgeable tennis player you would already be coaching the team.

 

[loosegroove]

I have experience in this area and have the scars to prove it.
Couple of questions come to mind.
What kind of team do you expect to have? Is this an elite program where most of your players are junior tournament players who have had years of coaching already? Or more like a team with maybe one or two good players and the rest are guys who are self taught and never had a lesson in their life? Big difference in how you might approach things.

I was going to ask the same thing. My highschool team consisted of a bunch of rich kids with countless hours of private lessons, so the coach didn't really do much in the way of coaching, nor could he offer much relative to the skillset of most of his players.

 

[Friedman Whip]

I was going to ask the same thing. My highschool team consisted of a bunch of rich kids with countless hours of private lessons, so the coach didn't really do much in the way of coaching, nor could he offer much relative to the skillset of most of his players.

Correct. With players like these you have a reasonable chance of being able to get them to do a variety of drills among themselves. Although no guarantees. Groundstroke drills yes. But say hitting consecutive shots from the baseline back to a teammate at the net so he could practice volleys. Not so easy. Kids love to bash the ball. Control and placement of the ball. Not so much.

My experience was much different. Most of my girls had very little experience and did not even know the rules of the game. When hitting among themselves novice players have a hard time keeping any sort of rally going so 'drills' are pretty much out of the question. The basic drill is can you keep a rally going for 4 or 5 balls in a row with any shot and any number of bounces.

 

[fuzz nation]

To expand on the thoughts in post #7, one thing that can be GREAT for kids at lower levels is to get them used to hand feeding each other. They can give each other lots of consistent feeds to hit perhaps down the line or cross court, and they can also feed more consistently to let the hitters play balls while hitting on the move. Much more productive compared with trying to sustain baseline rallies that they're not ready for yet.

I'll have a bundle of stuff to share, but I'll be back - have to get some VIP racquets strung!!!

 

[SpinToWin]

Footwork training is imperative in my book. Otherwise: have some equipment with you to practice certain things. I like medicine balls to practice the proper mechanics of the two handed backhand for instance. You will not have all of them engaged at all times, so for those exercises where you work on focus/technique under strong strain, I would recommend jumping ropes, agility ladders, etc. Other things to consider: Practicing set pieces such as serve and second ball from the baseline, drive volley, offensive baseline shot following it into the net, etc.

 

[Simon_the_furry]

I will be coaching a high school team. I was a late starter to the game, so I never played on a high school team. I have participated in countless group lessons and clinics, etc, but never a team.

I am very confident in my ability to help the players with technique, strategy, and overall matchplay, but I'm not quite sure of the best way to organize a practice, deal with challenge matches, etc.

This is what I'm thinking right now.

• 15 minute dynamic warm up.
• 30 mins of rotations on general skills. Cross court hitting, volleys, serves, returns.
• 30 mins of work on a specific skill/drill. Moving while hitting, approaching the net, defending the approach, etc.
• 30-45 minutes of play.

What do you guys think of this structure? The one thing I have no idea about is setting up challenge matches. How does that work?

Thanks for any help.

Go a little easier on the dynamic warmup, trim it down to 5 minutes of stretching so they're still fresh.
Give them maybe 10 or 15 minutes to just rally with each other. Then work on general skills and specific skills, based on what you see from their rallying and from their previous playing.

 

[TennisDawg]

I coached HS for several years. The first thing I did was setup a team ladder. I did this by first grouping players by skill/ ability. I used the previous years experience varsity/JV or junior tournament experience and overall experience level. I setup up matches within each group to rank the players. I then combined the groups, starting with the most advanced group down to the lowest level. Then you have the order of your team and our ready to start pre-season matches. You can start having challenges matches. I allowed players to challenge 2
Spots above their position. Most challenges matches took place before Region play, after that Varsity is pretty stable, I encouraged JV to challenge often. Some times they challenged varsity, but JV had to show me game before I would allow it and if the varsity player or players were shaky. If Varsity players were solid I usually didn’t allow it. It wasn’t perfect but I thought it was fair and
that is important. I had a lot of practice plans, you can probably find them online.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I initially used round robin pro sets within each team group to rank each player. After that I used the ranked groups to set the ranking order of the team, As in player # 1 thru
# 20, for example.

 

[TennisDawg]

Correct. With players like these you have a reasonable chance of being able to get them to do a variety of drills among themselves. Although no guarantees. Groundstroke drills yes. But say hitting consecutive shots from the baseline back to a teammate at the net so he could practice volleys. Not so easy. Kids love to bash the ball. Control and placement of the ball. Not so much.

My experience was much different. Most of my girls had very little experience and did not even know the rules of the game. When hitting among themselves novice players have a hard time keeping any sort of rally going so 'drills' are pretty much out of the question. The basic drill is can you keep a rally going for 4 or 5 balls in a row with any shot and any number of bounces.

I agree. More than likely you will have a wide variety of experience. You gave to prepare for matches and get the team lineups for your 1st preseason match so you don’t have a lot of time. It is a challenging job.

 

[Traffic]

I will be coaching a high school team. I was a late starter to the game, so I never played on a high school team. I have participated in countless group lessons and clinics, etc, but never a team.

I am very confident in my ability to help the players with technique, strategy, and overall matchplay, but I'm not quite sure of the best way to organize a practice, deal with challenge matches, etc.

This is what I'm thinking right now.

• 15 minute dynamic warm up.
• 30 mins of rotations on general skills. Cross court hitting, volleys, serves, returns.
• 30 mins of work on a specific skill/drill. Moving while hitting, approaching the net, defending the approach, etc.
• 30-45 minutes of play.

What do you guys think of this structure? The one thing I have no idea about is setting up challenge matches. How does that work?

Thanks for any help.

From what I gathered from my son's HS team, here are my observations. BTW, we had over 60 kids sign up for tennis team.
Head coach decided that he and another coach (for JV) could not manage 60 players effectively so it became a cut sport. We had a week of try-outs.

First day was basic attendance and stuff. Then running and basic fitness drills. Then finish off the day with getting onto courts and playing 1/2 court champs and challenger and get a basic number of wins to help sort out where you should start next time.

Next day. Some more running and basic fitness drills and more champs/challenger points. This time, more focus on the point plays. Would stop play after 15min and tally results of number of wins and then have top players move up a court and low players move down a court.

Third day, repeat. But this time announce initial cuts.

Initial cuts were based mostly on effort. Did you show up for all practices? Did you show up on time and prepared? Did you put forth a strong effort in each of the drills. This weeds out anyone just looking to get some PE credits from those that actually want to play tennis.

Fourth day, repeat. At the end of practice, anyone on the bottom court was cut.

5th day, same.

We had 12 varsity and 28 JV with a little over 30 kids cut.

The varsity players all belonged to private clubs and played at a high level. The top JV kids as well. They could be on varsity for many other schools. In fact, some of the kids that had more than a year at a private clubs were part of the "cut" group.

Varsity players primarily played challenge matches to help establish ranking within the team. Rotation of doubles partners to see who did well in doubles and did well in pairs. The varsity coach pretty much had his line-up by the end of the 2nd week. There was no real ladder matches during the season. His thought was his job was to take good players and win matches.

For JV, the coach had challenges matches going to help establish initial rankings. But they did a lot more drills and point plays. The JV coach added a bit more helping the kids improve attitude.