Quote:
Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA
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Sidebar: HS numbers are down in Georgia generally, since the top players rarely play HS tennis (similar to baseball, softball in a lot of places, etc). Less than 1/3rd of the top girls tennis recruits in this 4-year cycles are playing HS, or even attending a traditional HS. They're either in full-time academies or part-time with homeschooling (something I didn't realize until diving into it deeper today and discussing with the kid, etc). And zero of them are in a public HS here.
Anyhow, I'm staying on board for the another lap, looking forward to it.
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Oh and on this, I think Georgia just has a lot more access to world-class coaching than we have in Oregon. Our best players have to go to California to get that and because none of them live there, there's a ceiling. You still some really good players come out of the state, I think they mostly play high school tennis because parents can't take the time to travel them around the country to tournaments and at the 6A level at least, you're still getting access to some of the best players in the state, so it's like a free USTA Level 4 tournament at the top tiers.
But yeah, generally speaking the sport just doesn't have the resonance that other sports do in the state and only about 5000 kids played it this year. Oregon is essentially more like Idaho/Montana/Wyoming in terms of its tennis because of the sheer size of the state versus bigger states.
Like everything, coaching these days doesn't have the same returns it used to have. The money isn't great, it's a massive time suck and obviously tennis pros usually don't want to spend the time doing it because they can make more coaching private and for non-tennis pros like me...if you're not just a labor of love gym rat (or have a coaching playing it) then it's kind of a lot of hassle.
I never understood why so many retirees were doing it when I was a kid, but now I get it, having done this for 5 straight seasons (and having signed up for one last ride next year with the girls in Oregon again)