NCSA’s College Coach’s Corner recently received feedback from Coach Christman about his men’s and women’s tennis programs at Waynesburg University. Here is what he had to say:
1. How would you describe yourself as a coach?
From my bio – Coach Christman takes a holistic approach to developing players that includes balancing academics with athletics, sports nutrition, strength and conditioning, in addition to strokes, tactics, and match strategy. Christman’s teams were among the first to incorporate tennis specific movement and fitness training into their programs during the late 90’s and he is recognized for developing training and play plans for players and teams. His college and junior players are known for fitness, footwork, court quickness, and modern compact strokes. He stresses all-court play and pressuring tactics for both men and women. Christman is a USPTA teaching pro, certified in sport specific strength and fitness by Pat Etcheberry, the most successful tennis specific strength coach in the world, and is a string playtester for the USRSA. He annually speaks at USTA College Day events to describe NCAA Division III tennis and opportunities to play within 200 miles of the event site in any division. He has written a brief guide on how to find a good college coach and tennis program (one of several handouts at college day events).
2. What is unique about the experience at your school?
Waynesburg University is a small Christian university and NCAA Division III institution that stresses academics and our tennis program balances academics, athletics, campus life and community service so our players can participate in the total college experience. That said, tennis gets the same treatment as the major sports at Waynesburg in how we are equipped, travel, eat, train and are recognized by the campus community. We have our own athletic trainer, a tennis beat reporter for our nationally recognized university newspaper, and year round training facilities with tennis specific equipment.
3. What do recruits need to know about you?
Ten things I believe as a coach – There are concepts that world class players and coaches use that I find to be successful and in concert with my objectives as a coach. I believe they are important for players to become champions and have incorporated them into training programs for a number of successful players.
1. Communication is essential between players, their coach, and their support team (family).
2. Consistent improvement and good results can come from short, well-planned, high intensity workouts.
3. Workouts should be fun.
4. Tennis is a running sport.
5. Bio-mechanically sound movement and strokes are the most effective way to prepare and hit quality shots consistently.
6. Integrating tactical play into every drill, practice and training session produces greater results quicker.
7. No player should ever lose a match because of fitness.
8. It is easier to prevent an injury than to rehabilitate from one.
9. Rest and good nutrition are as important as practice and training.
10. Competitive players should have annual training and play plans.
4. What do you look for in recruits?
Academic commitment, attitude, potential for improvement, solid footwork, and attitude again. I often choose to recruit the player who just lost the match because they have the better attitude (on and off the court) and appear to have the ability to get better. The first question I ask a recruit is how are your grades? The second; how are your SAT/ACT scores? The third; what major are you interested in? If answers to those three questions match up well with our academic scholarships, I recruit them hard because they may be able to get an academic scholarship to Waynesburg equal to or better than athletic scholarships available from other institutions. If their answers don’t match well with our academics, I let them go to an athletic scholarship program. Consequently, virtually every player in my program is on scholarship. The scholarship may be a few thousand dollars a year to a full ride and it doesn’t matter if I have eight players of fourteen players; virtually all of them are on at least a partial scholarship. The result of that kind of recruiting is a program that qualifies both men’s and women’s teams for nationally recognized ITA All Academic Team awards annually for the last ten years and a high number of individual ITA Scholar Athletes. The men’s team this year had four all conference players and three of the four were ITA Scholar Athletes (3.5 GPA). The fourth missed by .03.
5. What is the one thing every recruit needs to do with the recruiting process?
Identify schools with quality academic programs in their chosen major where they may have an opportunity to play.
6. What sort of questions do you really like to hear from recruits?
I like to hear recruits ask about academics, what graduates are doing, team closeness, and their opportunities to improve while at Waynesburg.
7. What turns you off when you are recruiting a student athlete?
Dealing with a parent – agent. A parent who doesn’t let their child talk, talks about how good their child is in generalities, and asks for extras (money, housing, favors) and/ or expects to ‘manage’ their child’s training and play. I have also stopped recruiting players when I observed poor behavior by the player or parent at a tournament site.
8. What do you think your program is the most successful at?
Developing leaders who help their fellow players maintain a high standard of excellence in all aspects of college life as a student-athlete.
9. Why should a recruit consider your program?
We are proud of our all conference players, conference champions, and all academic players but what we are most proud of is that virtually 100% of our players go onto the graduate school of their choice or a good job in their field upon graduation.
10. If a recruit is interested in your program, how should they reach out to you?
I can be reached on my office phone, cell phone or by e-mail. You may also complete our online questionnaire or mail in our hardcopy questionnaire or send me their player profile.
College Coach’s Corner: Richard Stockton College of New Jersey Women’s Tennis Coach, Phil Birnbaum
