February 2008 -- Few will argue that "no-cut" tennis benefits the thousands of high school students given the opportunity to play for the sheer love of the game.
But true believers in this open-court approach to team building maintain that schools don’t have to sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity. And the industry’s player base grows stronger in the process.
No-cut tennis means no tryouts; no one is turned away who wants to play. These programs provide young people the opportunity to represent their school - and, in many cases, get their first taste of a sport they will play for a lifetime.
The United States Tennis Association has a three-member High School No-Cut Advisory Team that encourages coaches to start no-cut tennis teams and answers e-mail questions about administering large programs.
At the end of 2007, the number of no-cut programs registered as participants in the USTA High School No-Cut Initiative numbered 1,780, according to Kirk Anderson, USTA national director of Recreational Coaches and Programs. More than 68,000 players participate in these programs.
"This type of program will develop more serious players than any cut program," said Dave Steinbach, USPTA Professional 1 and a member of the USTA’s three-coach advisory team.
Steinbach, who heads the tennis program at Brookfield Central High School in Brookfield, Wis., said his claim about the player-producing power of no-cut tennis "is born out by the success of our program."
"Before I became coach and instituted a no-cut program (in 1982), Brookfield had not won a conference championship, much less a state championship," he said. "We have now won 13 team titles and 12 state runner-up titles."
Last year Steinbach’s teams at Brookfield Central High School numbered 120 boys and 119 girls - the largest number of girls and boys players in any high school competitive program in the country, he said.
"When the program reaches the size of our program, it is a big deal to be part of the action. You cannot win state team championships with just a few good players.
"The program is like a pyramid with a very large base," Steinbach continued. "When 120 athletes are interested in becoming a varsity player (top 15) it takes a year-round commitment."
The Brookfield boys have a spring season and the girls play in the fall. Both programs have a varsity, varsity reserve and three junior varsity teams. Each team sports 16 to 30 players, practices every day, and has a schedule of a minimum of 12 duel matches or tournaments.
"We have been able to find answers for any possible drawbacks that have been presented," Steinbach noted. "Sometimes you have to think outside the box for the answers, but we have always been able to find them. To reach the size of our program was not overnight, so all the problems did not surface in one year."
Art Klein, like Steinbach, knows the challenges of juggling schedules, courts and players of different levels. Working with a 71-player program, he admits to being "a little bit skeptical" when he first faced the prospect of dealing with such a large number of kids.
Klein, a USPTA Developmental Coach, is now in his third year as an assistant coach for the girls’ tennis program at Morristown High School in Morristown, N.J. Steve Geller is the other assistant coach.
Pat Mattos has never had a losing team in her 35 years as the girls’ varsity coach at Morristown. Four years ago the team was rated one of the top 10 high school girls’ teams in the state.
The girls’ program, which is much larger than the boys’ counterpart, takes up six courts at a middle school and four in a public park. "We work it so the varsity plays away matches and the junior varsity finds an open day when they can practice or play at the middle school courts," Klein explained.
"We’re giving some of these girls a chance to try tennis and find out if they like it," he said. "It’s sort of a way of competing against sports where there’s a lot more recruitment activity."
Tennis recruitment at Morristown consists of distributing fliers in middle schools and holding a pizza party at the end of each school year. A lot of word of mouth is involved as well.
Klein coaches freshmen, approximately 95 percent of whom have never played tennis before. They start with the basics - learning a forehand, backhand and how to keep score. Then they move on to drills and a doubles ladder; only the varsity team has singles spots. Doubles competition teaches these beginners the rewards of self-improvement, teamwork and mental toughness.
"We want them to work hard, we want them to improve their skills," Klein said. "Our hope is they will move up to the J.V. team the second year and compete against other schools."
Players are initially rated and separated into teams during a two-week orientation and training camp each summer, with parent volunteers helping to organize the effort.
"Most of the kids are going to remain in the beginner group, but you might have two or three who can go straight to the J.V. team or even work with the varsity kids," Klein explained.
Those who show varsity potential compete in a round-robin playoff format. "Anybody could end up on the varsity team. But it’s tough to go through the process because there are so many kids," he said.
Training camp sometimes produces a surprise success story or two. "This past year the No. 1 (varsity) singles player was a ninth-grade player no one had seen before. We knew she had played in a couple of tournaments."
Over the course of the season, "I had two (freshman) girls last year that started out as absolute beginners and ended up being the No. 1 doubles team on my ladder. When you see that happen it’s tremendous," Klein said, adding that at least 10 other girls improved dramatically.
From his perspective, the work "is very demanding, but it’s also very rewarding because when I see the improvement that kids make in the space of two months it’s about the best reward a coach can get."
For more information on teaching high school tennis visit USPTA’s own High School Coaches Resource Center at www.highschoolcoaches.uspta.com. For details on the USTA High School No-Cut Initiative, registration details or to contact the advisory team, visit www.usta.com/highschoolcoaches.
