jcgatennismom
Hall of Fame
The below 5/7 podcast with Tim Russell gives a hint at fall. I stopped counting how many times he or the host said"regional tennis"-if you are bored make a game out of it. Sounds like a lot less flying, fewer Futures on campuses. Instead Tim suggests campuses host tourneys (UTR?) open to juniors, collegians, recent grads, and young pros. TBH, the only time D1 collegians choose to play tourneys with juniors is if prize $ or ATP/ITF points are involved. UTR events have been held in Nov or Jan on campuses in the past; if a P5 hosts it, only the bench players, juniors, and MMs show up. If a MM hosts, only the lowest lines, juniors, and D3 players show up. Hopefully ITA will host tourneys that are both competitive and regional if AA is not held in Tulsa or the national Oracle fall Cali tourneys. Tim did not say those would not happen, but he implied so.
He also talked about realigning conferences for nonrevenue sports which makes sense, mentioned breaking down some of the ITA regions into subregions for fall regionals, e.g. Central, and spoke of the need for coaches to do big $ fundraising-implied they should be doing it now while they cant do much recruiting. The other big change he is suggesting is to hold NCAA team championships for Division 1,2, and 3 at the same time in Orlando each year possibly starting in 2023 and moving NCAA singles and dubs championships to fall. He also wants to move the December coaches convention to Orlando-dont think Orlando can compete with the beaches of Naples... Tim seems keen on all this USTA collaboration; USTA College Match Days were great, but I dont think teams will want to go to Orlando every year. Only makes sense if it will save ITA $. If it just benefits USTA, it should be a no go-they dont have a good track record of building and maintaining trust with their customers, e.g. the rest of tennis players outside college.
College Tennis Talk with Davidson Kozlowski
Anyway those of you who know coaches, what have you heard about fall? On the one hand players should be happy just to get to play, but on the other, players will be hungry for challenging competition. The benefit of All American was every year, at least 1-2 guys would win 7 matches to go from preQ to Q to MD-could be a freshmen, a P5 bench player, a MM guy, or someone else outside top 125. If the national fall tourneys are replaced, I hope ITA comes up with new tournament models played on a regional basis that give players similar opportunities. I do assume the ITA regionals will be held but not sure what the rest of fall will look like. There have always been many fall invites, but only a few true national fall events.
On the logistics level, I wonder if athletes along with other returning students, will have to be tested at the start of school, and then temperature checked after that. I assume only the football and basketball teams will have the budget for more frequent tests. There were several players sick with regular flu at National Indoors-most notably Brandon Holt who played before he was fully recovered-I assume he was just weak and no longer contagious. Will be interesting to see if athletes will no longer be able to play if they have any cold, cough, or sniffle. Lots of players have played when less than 100%. There is a NCAA return to play protocol for concussions; I wonder if NCAA will create a return to play protocol just for COVID or if they create one that relates to any flu or infectious illness. Athletes usually recover quickly-many want to practice 24 hours after their fever drops. Pity the player with seasonal allergies next spring arguing to play.... Players may develop coughs just from all the chemicals and disinfectants in their classrooms...
Since CAL State has said courses will all be online for its campuses, I assume those players wont get to play in the fall. Any others?
He also talked about realigning conferences for nonrevenue sports which makes sense, mentioned breaking down some of the ITA regions into subregions for fall regionals, e.g. Central, and spoke of the need for coaches to do big $ fundraising-implied they should be doing it now while they cant do much recruiting. The other big change he is suggesting is to hold NCAA team championships for Division 1,2, and 3 at the same time in Orlando each year possibly starting in 2023 and moving NCAA singles and dubs championships to fall. He also wants to move the December coaches convention to Orlando-dont think Orlando can compete with the beaches of Naples... Tim seems keen on all this USTA collaboration; USTA College Match Days were great, but I dont think teams will want to go to Orlando every year. Only makes sense if it will save ITA $. If it just benefits USTA, it should be a no go-they dont have a good track record of building and maintaining trust with their customers, e.g. the rest of tennis players outside college.
Anyway those of you who know coaches, what have you heard about fall? On the one hand players should be happy just to get to play, but on the other, players will be hungry for challenging competition. The benefit of All American was every year, at least 1-2 guys would win 7 matches to go from preQ to Q to MD-could be a freshmen, a P5 bench player, a MM guy, or someone else outside top 125. If the national fall tourneys are replaced, I hope ITA comes up with new tournament models played on a regional basis that give players similar opportunities. I do assume the ITA regionals will be held but not sure what the rest of fall will look like. There have always been many fall invites, but only a few true national fall events.
On the logistics level, I wonder if athletes along with other returning students, will have to be tested at the start of school, and then temperature checked after that. I assume only the football and basketball teams will have the budget for more frequent tests. There were several players sick with regular flu at National Indoors-most notably Brandon Holt who played before he was fully recovered-I assume he was just weak and no longer contagious. Will be interesting to see if athletes will no longer be able to play if they have any cold, cough, or sniffle. Lots of players have played when less than 100%. There is a NCAA return to play protocol for concussions; I wonder if NCAA will create a return to play protocol just for COVID or if they create one that relates to any flu or infectious illness. Athletes usually recover quickly-many want to practice 24 hours after their fever drops. Pity the player with seasonal allergies next spring arguing to play.... Players may develop coughs just from all the chemicals and disinfectants in their classrooms...
Since CAL State has said courses will all be online for its campuses, I assume those players wont get to play in the fall. Any others?
