(Inspired by the podcast episode #2: “Former British № 1 Doubles Player, Father of 3 and Academy Owner” w. Dan Kiernan on The Adam Blicher Show — Dissecting High Performance in Tennis)
Maybe a little bit of a bold statement.
I’m a big believer that players make players. Coaches provide an environment for players to make players. I don’t believe for one minute that there is a coach in the world that is magic. Who can sprinkle magic dust and take any player from this to this without the player having an unconditional drive, effort and want to achieve something. Obviously when the player has got that, then the coach provide the support network, the knowledge etc for the players to make players.
Where this lane of thought comes from is that I have experienced a lot of players and parents of players that have thought if I just go to this coach then progress and succes is guaranteed. If I had sent some of the players that I have worked with through out the years to Lendl, Brad Gilbert or Edberg and they had the same attitude and lack of values, even those guys wouldn’t have taken the players to Wimbledon.
Coaches make environments. Players make players.
A little formula that we have here at SotoTennis Academy is:
Talent + Environment & opportunity + Unconditional effort day in & day out = Succes
Succes can be defined in a lot of different ways, but talent is out of anyone’s control, so let’s not worry about it. What’s actually the point of even talking about it with the players. The parents are offering their kids an opportunity by sending them to us, our job is to continuously provide an environment and an opportunity for every kid. We let them know their responsibility which is unconditional effort day in and day out. That’s all they need to worry about. If we as coaches are doing our job well, they can just focus on that.