Tennis Anyone?

So you might have noticed I have been pretty much absent from the blog world here lately, and there is a good explanation(at least I think so) I have been up to my eyeballs with tennis!  For those that don't know I am the coach of a high school girls varsity tennis team, and when the calendar flips to March my life goes into complete tennis mode.  I have been doing this job for a long time now, and I have to say it's quite reward I love working with the girls, watching them grow as tennis players, and getting to know them as people.  I went into this season not exactly sure what to expect you see we had the school's best ever season last year posting the best ever won loss record, winning our second ever sectional, first ever regional, and my top player was 4th in the state in singles however 6 of the girls that started on that team graduated and the 7th was coming off tearing her ACL so this year I knew one thing we would be young and inexperienced.  I have taken a lot of pride in building our program up, when I took over the job 11 years ago they had never had a winning season, and my first few years were frustrating because that didn't change, and I was wanting to win more than the girls.  However, 5 years ago that all changed when the incoming Freshmen were not only studs, but they were winners and fought for every point, and now we are going on our 5th straight winning season, and this year turned out to be pretty damn special. 

This year's team was a young team, but man they were hungry to win we started out the year playing a Freshman at 1 singles, Sophomores at 2 and 3 singles, my only Seniors at 1 doubles, and a Sophomore and Junior at 2 doubles and 6 of those girls had never played varsity before.  We started out our season 0-2 and I thought that might happen considering the nerves and having so many rookies but we got it turned around.  We went to an invite in mid April one we had never won before and brought home the first place trophy, and that was when I realized I had another contender.  Every year though we hit a wall, it's odd our season goes by so fast however teams always hit a wall, and when we hit ours it was with a MAJOR thud.  We had a lot of in fighting on the team, some drama with the two Seniors, and the only way I thought to get them out of was to be frank and told them to get their heads out of their asses and play tennis!   The scary part this slump happened right before the post season, thankfully we went to a tournament the Saturday before our sectional started and man it was like a completely different team we lost in the final but we played great.

That momentum carried into this past week which was the start of our state tournament run, which starts with sectionals.  While the IHSAA(governing body of HS sports) ruined high school basketball here by going to class tennis is a 1 class sport and our sectional is at a school 5x the size of us.  We went in as defending champs, but it was definitely a wide open tournament.  In the first round we got a very easy 4-1 win and that was great beacuse it got the jitters out, then came the semi finals.  We had to face a team that was really strong, who we had already beaten 5-0, and had changed their line up.  It was a tense battle, but we prevailed 4-1 and headed to our 4th straight championship appearance.  We took on the Kats a school that is 5x the size of us, and absolutely hate losing to us farm kids.  I was so nervous going into this match and in the end I shouldn't have been my young inexperienced team played like seasoned veterans, we got 3 points very quickly and defended our title.  We play again Tuesday in the regional against the #2 team in the state not expecting much but hey we got there!

So 2012 season ended up being one of my most satisfying, now the pressure is really on to see if we can three peat!!  Enjoy a couple of pictures here, I always reward the girls after winning by tumbling on the tennis courts I am mid backhandspring here. 

Also I promised the girls if we won they could dump our water jug on me here the Seniors are ready to go they look to eager, and I pissed them off because I moved like a chicken haha

A word from Bekah

So, what do you do when you don't know what to write about and you're worried about losing the 4 people that are actually still reading this blog leaving?  Well, you ask your writer friend to write a post for you, and out of the goodness of her heart she does it!!  Of course I did give her the title of the post which I came up with, "Phats is AMAZING!"  So, without further ado here is one of my best and oldest friends posts about why I am amazing.  Thanks Bekah!   P.S she is a much better writer than me please check out her blog :)

Writer's Block. Don't you hate it when that happens?? You know what else you should hate? When you get writer's block and you ask another blogger to bail you out. Furthermore you offer the topic of "how wonderful I am."

 

It's an open door I cannot help but walk through.

 

Phats is wonderful.

 

(There. I said it. In print.)

 

He was wonderful back in 1st grade when he was stuck in the Roses Reading Group with Kelly, Kristen and me. Okay so we had to go by the name Comets because apparently there's something very not cool about the name Roses. (We were the Roses. Just don't tell him.) We were the wonderful readers, though. For real. We were plowing through chapter books like The Boxcar Children when everyone else was back on three words on a page readers. (Not bragging. Honest. Just reporting the wonderful facts about wonderful Phats of the Roses Reading Group.)
PHATS NOTE- I AM NOT NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN A ROSE.  COMET ALL THE WAY!

 

He was wonderful again in 6th grade when he had his kidney transplant. I really have a lot of admiration for him for going through that. Can't be fun to do something like that EVER in life - but in 6th grade? Life is nothing but awkward in 6th grade. Throw in organ transplant during Thanksgiving vacation, and that's a whole new level of crazy school life. But, as a good Roses reader would do...he not only came through the surgery healthy and well, but he came back into 6th grade life (with a class full of questionable comrades) and succeeded.

 

He was a wonderful Mayor Munchkin (or whatever the name is. I don't think I've ever seen the movie and the musical was a LONG time ago, okay??) in our school musical. In fact, I went to the musical every single year pretty much just to see him. (Phats. Not Mayor Munchkin. He wasn't Mayor Munchkin every year, you know.)

 

During high school, junior year, we ended up having lockers side by side (because we were the first two nerds to show up for registration that year and they assigned lockers as you registered.) That was the most fun I ever had during passing periods in high school! (The rest of the years we were alphabetical and we're not going there with the stories.)

 

And I have to say, in the post-high school world, where most people completely (and often purposefully) lose their high school friends, Phats is a better friend than ever. He is my personal weather service and has saved me from getting caught out on the running trail in a thunderstorm...more than once. He's checked on me when my life was completely falling apart, and he has kicked my ever loving tail in every SINGLE game of Dutch Blitz we've ever played.

 

Because, of course. He's wonderful at that too.

 

So there you have it. Frame it, Phats. It's not going to show up in writing again.

 

Maybe.