Tuesday, February 3, 2015

An Amazing Weekend

Hi out there everyone,

As we moved through our second week of Spring practice, the incredible excitement began to build into a confident routine of hard work, fitness and more precise tennis.  This set the perfect stage for a special weekend last weekend.

Though the years are going by and it was longer and longer ago, for me as a college player at UC Santa Cruz, being a part of Slug Tennis was something big.  I was fortunate to build meaningful relationships with so many people.  One of them is Morgan Shepherd.  Mo Shep was the assistant director of my first Nike Tennis Camp I worked at; a fellow Slug who was then coaching at Pomona Pitzer before moving to Boise, ID to work with Greg Patton (shout out to our Tennis and Wine Camp Brother Greg and his amazing family including CPatt who we miss!).  Morgan coached with Greg at Boise State and also ran many programs for Idaho tennis before coming back to Northern California where he lives and coaches privately now.  He came back to get a degree in somatic psychology and I was thrilled we had the opportunity to bring him up to campus to work with the team.

Not knowing exactly what Mo would bring to the table, I'm so proud of the way the team approached the weekend with open minds and hearts.  Morgan became part of our team and worked with us together on our practice and match play as well as individually with each players game.  It was an incredible experience with a great tennis mind sharing his knowledge, research on the mind-body connection and love of tennis with us.  Thanks Mo Shep, we'll carry forward many of the lessons you gave us.

We also got to name another Whittie of the Week and Lindsey was voted by her teammates to have contributed at the highest level.  She's always working really hard and this week with a lot of focus on playing singles and doubles to get our groove back, everyone was impressed with how as an opponent she brought out their best and as a partner she was so positive, supportive and uplifting.  What a week for everyone and I'm sure our first year from Bend will keep building on what she already does so well.





FINALLY, we were able to add one more match to our schedule!  Get our your calendars because we'll head over to Lewiston, ID this Sunday for a 9am season opening dual match with the NAIA top 20 Warriors!  I'll be tweeting updates @coachhein and @whitwomentennis so we hope you enjoy the energy of our first match against a great opponent.  With both teams shorthanded, we defeated LCSC this fall on the grass courts at Baker City, but Coach Kai Fong with his full squad will pose a tough challenge right off the bat that we can't wait to engage in.

Okay, one more thing...sorry.  But, since you're looking at your calendar and our schedule, you'll notice we have all our home matches between February 20th and March 14th when we leave for Spring Break in California.  We aren't setting a specific family/alumni weekend, but we hope if you're planning travel you'll let me know so we can enjoy your company and support and plan some activities around the matches for you to interact and get to know this amazing team even better.

Allright, its time for practice, I'm off to the courts!

-Coach John