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QuickStart PRO 2015 -- Yancey Elementary

QuickStart PRO . . . Coach Rich's Excellent Adventure with Yancey  Elementary School Students
July 2015


QuickStart PRO
is an innovative QCV program that sends 10 and under tennis-teaching resources to elementary schools in rural counties in central Virginia. Using the QuickStart format, tennis is taught to elementary school students as part of the summer school curriculum during the school day. This summer is the third year for QuickStart PRO for Yancey Elementary kids in Esmont, Virginia. Veteran QuickStart PRO Rich Michaels, PTR Scholastic Coach and USPTA Recreational Coach, is leading this summer's session. Rich has just finished a two-week session in Cumberland County and is all ready to go!


Week One -- Day One

Three summer school tennis sessions per day, M-Th, for two weeks. Older kids go first and the youngest last. 43 kids total.  Teachers accompany their kids to class and the Club Yancey Program Director's niece, Ellie, is my go-to on-court assistant for all the classes. I think Ellie is off to 6th Grade in the fall.
 
Compared to Cumberland County Public Schools' program which finished last Thursday, Yancey's daily tennis schedule ends at 11:00 (as opposed to 1:00 in Cumberland). Average class size is a little smaller too, about four kids less per class on average. But Yancey starts at 8:30, versus Cumberland's 9:00. And it takes me 15 minutes longer to drive there. As a result, I'm getting up earlier and so still remain sleep-deprived. I always knew that 5:00 AM was a standard feature on an alarm clock, but I thought it was just there for decoration. Not that anybody would actually get up then.
 
Two coaching milestones reached today. The first group of kids (Grades 3 -5) are collectively the best skilled single group of kids I've ever had the privilege to work with. We did tap downs, bump ups (both grips), and bump ups that alternate between each side of the racquet face. There was nothing I threw at them they couldn't (or wouldn't try to) do.
 
Yeah, the occasional ball wandered away from them, but their faith in their ability was unshaken. I believe fellow PTR member Dr. Ellen Markowitz has been working with some of the Yancey girls on tennis fundamentals. I've been harping for years that school-based tennis programs should consist of classes in which the kids are of the same relative ability level. This is one of those classes. I just hope I don't wind up undoing all that Dr. E has accomplished so far.
 
The other milestone was that the last class is comprised exclusively of kindergartners. No, not rising 1st Graders. Rising kindergartners. First time I've ever coached kids this young as a group. Their teacher told me that for some, this was their first day ever in school. But what a great way to start your academic career. A bunch of classes sandwiched around tennis! Spent today's class just with the balls, (1) Tossing, Clapping, and Catching, and (2) Ball Drop, to name a couple of activities.
 
Pictures were taken today. At least five that I know of.  If this keeps up, I might have to cut down on the blog narratives in order to provide more space for the pictures.  Another first.

Week One -- Day Two

I've worked with the kids from Yancey before, two years ago I think it was, at the Simpson Park tennis courts right across the street from the school. How convenient is that! That time, my primary on-court assistant was Jackie Jenkins, father of former University of Virginia men's tennis standout Jarmere Jenkins.

Jackie and Jarmere's mother Brenda were up from Atlanta to attend the UVa Men's Tennis Senior Banquet. Dad said he got Jarmere started in tennis when Jarmere was two, rolling balls to him that Jarmere would have to try and stop before they got past him. I guess over the years Jarmere mastered that activity and then some.

In 2013, he was the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Division I National Player of the Year, the indoor singles and outdoor doubles collegiate champion, and a member of UVa's first national championship men's tennis team. Did I mention he was also the Atlantic Coast Conference male Athlete of the Year that year? Not just in tennis but in all ACC men's sports. So rolling a ball along the ground appears to be a good way for the little guys to get started in tennis. And we do that.

Today we did Roll Ball for the little guys, with and without racquets. Partnered up the kids and told them to find a line on the gym floor they could use as an aiming point. Sans racquet, two boys picked a center line in the gym. Don't know how long the line is but I'd guess 10 feet or so. One boy rolled it straight down the line to his partner and his partner rolled it right back. Straight down the line. With racquets - a different story. But it was enough to suffice for today's rendition of Alligator River. As a good prep for Red Light Green Light? Not so much. By the way, one of the kindergarten girls is the teacher's granddaughter. So it's likely she had a vested interest in taking true aim at the alligator's feet as he moved down the river in order to slow him down and provide time for her grandmother to "swim" safely away.

The middle class (Grades 1 and 2) did what the bigger kids did yesterday: tap downs and bump ups. There were some in that class as well who had no problem, even when challenged by me. I'd ask a kid how many he or she thought they could do of whichever activity we were working on, and if the kid said "seven" for example, seven (or more) was the number they did.

The nets were up today for the first class. Reviewed the ready position and the proper stroke mechanics of forehands and backhands and then turned them loose. Four kids on each court, playing Tag Team Doubles. Rotated the kids in and out so everyone got the chance to play and ended the class with a students vs. teachers match. Kids got to substitute teams after each point but the two teachers weren't so lucky. With only two of them, they had to slug it out no matter which doubles team (pair of kids) they faced. And had to use their non-dominant hand for their groundstrokes to boot. Kids won, 5-2.


Week One -- Day Three

I misidentified my on-court helper Ellie as going into 6th Grade. She'll be in 5th Grade. But not at Yancey. She's up visiting from South Carolina. I told her that since she's been doing such a good job, I'd write a letter to her principal to ask if she could skip 5th Grade. But Ellie said if it was OK with me, she'd rather just be allowed to play with the kids in some of the classes. I agreed. One more day with me and she heads home, to be replaced by her 13-year old brother. Maybe for the next reprinting of "Learn to Rally and Play," there ought to be a new kids' tennis activity listed: Tag Team Coaching.
 
No summer school tennis today. The whole school went on a field trip. However, we can't leave a gaping hole in the blog. That'd be like not covering the middle when playing doubles. So I'll "advertorialize" a little bit here.
 
I'm less than two weeks out from possibly instructing an adult and/or senior tennis program in Buckingham County. Modeled after the International Tennis Federation's Tennis XPress initiative, the goal is to introduce (or reacquaint) these folks to tennis and to perhaps generate some adult volunteer on-court support to help with the county's after-school and summer school tennis programs. Two 90-minute group lessons per week on Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30 - 8:00 for three weeks, featuring slower-moving and lower-bouncing kid-sized balls to make this experience more fun for the participants. This more compressed program (I had originally proposed one weekly group lesson for six weeks) is the county's idea and is likely due to them wanting to complete all summer recreational programming before school resumes on August 3rd. Three people told me that they're interested but the county hasn't advertised the program yet. I don't know who (if anybody) will actually sign up, but to not know about it?
 
Also gave myself a homework assignment of regripping three racquets. I suppose the conventional wisdom is that if a string breaks or a grip unravels on a kid's racquet, just throw the whole thing away and buy new. But waste not/want not. Some of the more popular 25-inch racquets even have stringing instructions published in the Stringer's Digest.  However I don't think they make kid-sized replacement grips. So I'll use some of the five dozen adult overgrips GAMMA sent me several years back to try to get these racquets back in operation. Gonna have to wrap tight and overlap the wraps though. Otherwise the length of these overgrips would go all the way up to the racquet's throat. As a fallback position, I have four new 19-inch racquets I could press into service if need be. The school is short racquets of that length for the littlest of the little guys anyway.

Week One -- Day Four

The all-school field trip yesterday was to the Air and Space Museum in DC and the Kids' Museum in Bethesda, MD. Three hour drive each way, so probably not more than two hours spent on the ground as "tourists". Likely exhausted from all that traveling, a number of kids were absent from school today. Assuming school officials didn't leave anybody behind in DC, maybe those absent were just practicing for their three-day weekend which starts tomorrow.
 
Spent the first class with the big kids going over groundstroke fundamentals. But more importantly, covered some stuff not in "Learn to Rally and Play". Like court awareness, meaning knowing where you are on the court so as not to swing at a ball that if you let it go, will land out. And keeping your head still when hitting forehands and backhands. Showed them that by lifting your head at the moment of impact with the ball, the arm will follow the head. Last but not least, during that students vs. teachers match the other day, I noticed that a number of kids had stopped playing and didn't return to the ready position, instead admiring the shot they just hit. I told them to ALWAYS assume the ball is coming back, and that the best players think two or three shots ahead of that as they're constructing points. If you want to be a spectator in your own match, buy a ticket.
 
1st and 2nd Grade class did Lobster Trap. Single-handed and double-handed. Pretty good job too. The kids then went back to single handed, and after the "lobsters" had caught the ball, they made a unit turn to their forehand side, dropped the ball, and hit it over the net to Ellie (whose job it was to "feed" the lobsters). A unit turn to the backhand side followed forehands.
 
Little guys did Red Light Green Light AND Inch Worm. We started off RLGL by just standing still, trying to balance the ball on the strings. Then raised our non-dominant hand to wave at the teacher, and capped it all off by slowing turning in a circle. Then it was off to partner racquet-to-partner racquet ball pass, using the standard RLGL Stop/Go format. Not world-class, but much better than last time. Cut them some slack on Inch Worm though. Let them use their non-dominant hand to help steady the ball during the pass to their neighbor's racquet.
 
And if I haven't mentioned it, the blog pictures are sure to be a dead giveaway. We're playing tennis in the school's gym. We got the gym in the morning and Albemarle County Parks and Recreation has it in the afternoons for Summer Playground. Both of us have to put up with a foosball table (pictured at left) AND a washing machine and clothes dryer in the play space. I'm thinking on Monday when we return to school, I might just bring a load of laundry with me to wash in the first class session, dry in the second, and if time permits, fold in the third, hoping to squeeze in a game or two of foosball between the various wash, rinse, and spin cycles.

Week Two -- Day Five

Watched the US National Team defeat Japan yesterday 5-2 in Women's World Cup Soccer. But the US women didn't start out playing at that level when they were little. They started out like us, at the beginning. One US player began playing at the age of four when her mother signed her and her sister up for a local parks and rec program. But only after mom had checked out a book from the library on how to play the game. THAT'S grassroots soccer!
 
The US women had won the World Cup before, in 1991 and 1999 (plus gold in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics). But it was the 1999 World Cup victory over China that was the catalyst for the largest-ever surge in any kids' sport in history - girls' soccer. Some of those four-year olds back in 1999 are now likely top-level collegiate players today. Tennis however was late in getting to the party, only recently sizing the game for the specific age, physical development stage, and ability level of each participating child. So those early QuickStarters are now probably entering their junior or senior year of high school. It'll be a couple of years yet before we know how successful this approach to youth tennis was. For both girls AND boys.   . 
 
Finished my self-imposed homework assignment of regripping racquets. Four in total, the latest arrival - having no grip at all. The staples that hold the grip in place were still there though, protruding out of the pallet (the thing the grip attaches to). That wouldn't have been a fun experience for the two-handed backhand guys.  And the hugs have started.  Four from just the kindergartners. I always enjoy that and it's most likely due to the inordinate amount of high-fives, back-pats, and thumbs-up I pass out while I tell them, "You're doing great. Keep it up".
 
Service tosses and complete service motion today for the big kids. I find it interesting that even though it's the serve that starts the point, and it's the only shot in tennis that only you control, it's one of the last things taught. Maybe it should be taught first because if you can't serve, NOBODY will get a chance to hit any of these forehands and backhands we've been practicing (like the 1st and 2nd Graders did today).
 
Lobster Trap today for the little guys. One-handed version only (I've learned this from experience for kids this age). I then helped the kids swing the racquet to hit the ball back over the net to Coleman (Ellie's brother), the "lobster feeder". This is why I like teaching kids. I get to see (almost 500 times now) the smile on a kid's face after he or she hits the ball over the net for the first time (and with luck, in the direction they're aiming). Or maybe it's because in my own playing days, I spent way too much time NOT hitting the ball over the net. It's just not fair the rules require that the ball go over the net AND land on or between the lines for it to be good. If I were in charge, I'd pick one or the other.


Week Two -- Day Six
 
Forgot to mention the other day that just after pulling out of the school parking lot to head home, I almost was in a car wreck -- with a house! More specifically, half a house. Some woman in a white pickup truck with a "Wide Load Follows" sign and roof light flashing motioned for me to pull off to the side of the road, which I did. And then she yelled at me to pull a little farther off the road. So I backed my car into a nearby field (Note to Self: A Honda Accord is not an ATV). And here comes the house. Followed by another pilot car. And the other half of the house. Those guys barely made the right turn off of eastbound 6 onto Porters Road without taking some trees and road signs along with them. Once the caravan had passed, I extricated myself from the field and continued on my merry way. As for the two half houses? Likely glued together somewhere by now.  Wonder which pilot car the "Some Assembly Required" instructions were in?
 
Approach shots and volleys were the order of the day today in the first class. I soon saw that some of the kids were probably thinking, "Forehands, backhands, serves, approach shots, volleys - there are too many moving parts in tennis to keep track of". Ended the class with singles exhibitions. Flight A and Flight B Singles (to use some college tennis lexicon). Boy vs. Girl.  Two courts. One "set" (first to six POINTS, win by two).  In Flight A, the boy was just whopping all over the girl, and lead 5-0 when I moved on over to the Flight B court. Totally different story there. The girl won 6-1, and told me afterwards that was the first athletic thing she had ever won in her life. I asked her if she thought she'd remember this and she replied, "Oh yeah!"
 
Serves for the 1st and 2nd Graders. It's supposed to be underhand for them but there are two 9-year old boys in the class. So overhand for them. Four serves, two to each "service box". One guy had trouble keeping the ball - in the building. The other guy, four serves, four aces. And two of the younger girls gave the overhead serve a shot (I demonstrated both and let the kids take their pick of which one to hit). Both girls had decent tosses, OK ball contact, but terrible aim. We can straighten that out though, as long as the ball goes over the net and lands somewhere in the court on which they're playing.
 
Everything but the kitchen sink today for the kindergartners. Applause, Racquet Splat, Bungee Jump (stationary), and Clear the Court. Boys vs. girls in that one too. Divvied up the kids by gender and the balls (11 balls on each side of the net). Go! The girls got the hang of this game right away. But two of the boys, each after tossing just one of the boys' balls over the net to the girls' side, just stood there. And collected what the girls continued to toss over. But in the final ball count after one minute of play, there were only 8 balls on the boys' side and 14 on the girls'. Since we had five girls and four boys in the class, and with two of those boys hoarding what they could, I guess it was a good idea for me to name one of the female teachers an "honorary boy" for this event.

Week Two -- Day Seven
 
Pictures were taken in two of the classes today, with my iPhone, since I apparently had the only fully-charged camera phone in the school. I have a car charger that I plug my phone into for just such occasions, but the phone's not charged now. 45 new pics today. which is 35 percent more photos (I actually calculated this) on my phone than I left the house with this morning.
 
About 1/3 of those photos were from the 1st and 2nd Grade class which did 3-2-1 Jungle Rally and Tag Team Singles. Both were a little above the kids' existing skill set.  Tag Team Singles in particular involves a lot of choreographed movement, since each kid is only allowed one hit and then has to get off court quickly while another kid, taking the first kid's place, has to get on court quickly. Neither "quickly" happened, so that was somewhat disappointing.

But not disappointing was today's kindergarten class -- far from disappointing in fact. They first played Splat, a game in which the kids have to throw a ball underhanded over the net in order to try and hit a four-ball pyramid on the other side. I think only one kid actually hit the balls but this was a great time to reinforce the concept of underhand tosses. I don't know if throwing overhand is a learned gross motor skill or not. But we got this straight now, to which one little girl can attest.  In her second underhand throw ever, she hit one of the two standing racquets I had positioned on the flanks of those balls.
 
And No Way!  Yes Way! The second activity for the little guys was Tennis Hockey. Rolling a ball along the ground with your racquet, making a sharp right turn, and then rolling the ball between the "goalposts" (another two standing racquets). I would have bet anything that these guys would have started off rolling the ball with so much roll they'd never catch up to it. Was not to be. Each kid rolled the ball slowly and smoothly and if the ball veered off either or both of the two lines we were using as directional controls, brought the ball back onto the line and when close enough, rolled it through the "goalposts". Excellent ball and racquet control, a principal skill required by tennis.  If those lines had just been painted and were still wet, those balls would all be the color of the paint. Phenomenal job kids!  
 
First Class - Tennis Skillastics. Skillastics teaches the kids cooperation, problem-solving, and teamwork. It's like the game Monopoly, but instead of paying rent or buying buildings, you do a certain number of repetitions of whatever tennis or fitness activity is required based on the space upon which you land. First game was three teams of four people. Both teachers and the sole 5th Grader as team captains. Played for about 25 minutes and then reorganized the teams. Now two teams of five kids with each teacher coaching a team. Everybody loved it! Especially the team that was using the red die and red beanbag as their game token. Apparently one of the boys had asked his team captain (teacher) that if his team won this Skillastics Championship, could the team be exempt from homework tonight? And the wager was accepted, even though that was contrary to the "No Gambling", "No Running", and "No Spitting", rules posted above the foosball table.
 
This is the last day of summer school tennis for the older kids. Well at least the last day of the "indoor season". Because we're going on a field trip tomorrow, weather permitting, to the Simpson Park outdoor courts! Five minute walk each way from the school to the courts, so about 30-35 minutes of actually playing. And I've been told that since I've pretty much kept my hands to myself and have paid attention in tennis class these last two weeks, I'm in the running to be a line leader tomorrow for the trip over! Is it time for me to get up for school yet?

Week Two -- Day Eight

Bump ups and tap downs for the little kids. That's about as far as we could push the envelope for those guys. "Jail" (aka Survivor) and Clear the Court for the 1st and 2nd Graders.
 
But clearly the event of the day (possibly of the whole summer school tennis program) was the "field trip" to the Simpson Park tennis courts. I had been thinking about doing this since that first day when I saw the skill level of those 3rd, 4th, and 5th Graders. I wanted to keep it a secret from the kids so I asked the acting summer school principal if it would be OK to take the kids off school property during the school day for this. He thought it was a great idea and told somebody else, who told somebody else, who told the kids. A fait accompli as it were.
 
Left the house a little earlier today to swing by the courts to see if they were ready. They were and we were. Arranged with the teachers in the second class to come to the gym 10 minutes later than usual because I wanted to go a full 45 minutes on the outdoor courts. Started off playing doubles on each court and rotated the kids in and out individually as we had been doing. Ended with all the kids on the courts simultaneously, a doubles match on one court and Tag Team Singles on the other (which went well I might add, likely due to having a teacher on each end directing traffic). By the way, the boys were ecstatic. Now they finally got the chance to put into action those big power swings they had been practicing inside for the last two weeks when the "court" was 42 feet shorter.
 
When we first got there, I gave the kids an orientation to the court, which I was very happy to see, included permanent lines for the 60' x 21' court dimensions for orange ball players ages 9 and 10. Explained what the doubles alley was for (something they'd never seen before) and decided that rather than just throw meaningless tennis terminology around like crosscourt, angle volleys, and hitting deep to deep, I'd go simple: "Aim for the green" (the surface color of the court itself). Skipped over doubles tactics as well, like poaching, I formations, and the like. It was all I could do to get the kids to remember (1) if they were serving or returning, and (2) where to stand on the court depending on their answer to (1).
 
Recognizing the top of the bounce is an issue. So simplified that too. Reminded them again that if a ball comes in high over the net, it's gonna bounce high so be ready to move back.  If it comes in low, it's gonna bounce low (this is pre-topspin tennis) so be ready to move forward. Don't just stand there and wait for the ball to come to you or for it to fall on top of you. Give it your best guess as to where you think the ball is going to go and how high you think it will bounce. Then try and get there in position before the ball arrives.
 
I had a GREAT time with the Yancey kids and I think they had a fun time with me too. Especially one girl who came up and gave me a hug yesterday AFTER I had told her she'd lost her turn for rolling her team's die off the master Skillastics mat. And one girl in the 1st and 2nd Grade Class today didn't want me to go. Wanted me to stay for a third week. Pleading, she hung on me like white on rice. Only one quibble. It would have been nice to have had that PE teacher's storage closet open before I got there in the morning. Had to hunt for someone with a key every day. The nets stayed up and were pushed off to the side each night but the balls and racquets I had to put away before Albemarle County Parks and Recreation came in for their turn with the washer and dryer. No problem though. The first class never got started late.
 
So I finally have some time off to chase my lawn mower around the yard again. Still offering private lessons on Fridays (which end on July 31st). Next school-related tennis activity for me is to serve as the trainer for a 2 1/2 hour School Tennis Workshop in Pittsylvania County, Virginia's largest county by land mass, on August 4th. Since I don't have GPS, I'll break out something called a map. Gotta pay close attention though because if I overshoot my target, I'll wind up in North Carolina.

 


 

 

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