2015 ITA Coaches Convention

The charismatic and lively Tim Russell, ITA’s new CEO, opened up the day with a few personal stories and then talked about a number of topics but said his main goal is to not only preserve college tennis but to strengthen, grow, and transform it. There are some other notes from Tim’s opening speech further down below.

The keynote address was delivered by 1993 Michigan State graduate Molly Fletcher who might I add is a tremendous speaker. She brought a lot of energy, enthusiasm, and inspiration to the room which was a good thing because there was a lengthy strategic planning session that followed. 

The main focus of the session centered around what the ITA should be doing to help grow the sport. There were a lot of good suggestions brought up which included increasing corporate sponsorships, helping schools with marketing, making the ITA’s website more functional and user-friendly, and most importantly getting the sport in front of the masses to help increase it’s popularity. There was a solid list of suggestions that will be condensed and once that happens Tim said an action plan will be put in place and he stressed that the ITA will be held accountable to make sure the approved suggestions are carried out. There was also some discussion about what type of ball the women should be using – extra duty or regular duty. I’ll admit I didn’t really know there was a difference between the two but evidently there is some science out there that hitting the regular ball may put less wear and tear on the body. The women currently use the extra duty ball and while there isn’t anything on the table about making a change the ITA did want to hear everyone’s opinion on the subject.

Tim brought up the topic of schools cutting tennis programs and mentioned that he personally reached out to the higher ups at UMBC to specifically find out why tennis got cut as opposed to another sport. He said the answer he got was actually a fairly simple one – UMBC chose to cut tennis because it would effect the least number of people. UMBC’s won-loss record and number of conference titles wasn’t really a consideration; it was simply chosen because tennis has fewer student-athletes than any other sport (17 total between men’s and women’s) PLUS it was the school’s least attended sport. 

In the afternoon session I sat in on the Division 1 roundtable meetings (there was one for each division) and the first topic discussed was officiating. The USTA made a business decision to no longer sponsor or fund the ITA’s officials so starting next summer the ITA will certify its own officials. There was some concern among the coaches about whether or not this could lead to a shortage of certified officials for this coming season but almost 90% are already certified so it didn’t sound like that would be too big of an issue. 

There was some discussion about the ITA Summer Circuit and trying to grow it with more events. In the past the format has only permitted 1 weekly tournament per region but going forward the emphasis will be on geography instead of region. The new format will allow for multiple tournaments per region as long as there is enough distance separating the sites.  So for example if there is a tournament in Miami they wouldn’t permit another one in Fort Myers but they would allow one in Atlanta. This way more student-athletes could participate and they wouldn’t have to travel as far either. 

The coaches talked about the way the first fall individual rankings are done and thought it was time to change up the process to make them more relevant. For those that didn’t know the first fall individual rankings are simply the previous season’s final rankings with all the seniors removed. Since entry into the main draw of the All-Americans is based on rankings you have guys/gals getting those coveted spots based on results that are several months old. Some suggestions were to add UTR to the equation or possibly include ATP/WTA points earned over the summer.  

Another hot topic was the format for the NCAA Championships. Many have complained (including myself) that the NCAAs are too long because you have the final 16 teams playing matches over a 6-day period (Thurs-Tues) followed by another 6 days of the individuals (Wed-Mon). More times than not winning the individuals turns into a battle of endurance instead of ability. When the D1 Operating Committee met earlier in the week they were 2 main items up for discussion with each a potential way to alleviate the fatigue factor of the current format. 

The option that had the most support and made the most sense was to move towards a Super Regional format which is currently utilized by other sports such as baseball and softball. The opening 2 rounds of the NCAAs would be played on the campus of the top 16 seeds (same as now) but then you’d have those 16 regional winners paired up based on seeding with the higher seed hosting the Super Regional on its campus the following Saturday. The winner of those 8 Super Regionals would advance to the final site with the quarters, semis, and finals to be played on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Having the Super Regional and Final 8 matches on the weekend would ensure a larger turnout plus it would allow for a day off on Monday before having the individuals start on a Tuesday. The individuals would also have their quarters, semis, and finals on a weekend so again that would likely increase the turnout. This format would reduce the final site to a maximum of 8 days of competition as opposed to 12.

There was also discussion about moving the individual portion of the NCAAs to the fall but that would require a lot of work and would take years to implement due to certain NCAA rules and even then there wouldn’t be a guarantee that the results/turnout would be any different.

With costs and the student-athlete experience at the forefront it was determined that using the Super Regional format would solve the most problems, be implemented the quickest, and add more excitement and draw bigger crowds due to having all the matches on the weekend.

The NCAA D1 Tennis Committee won’t meet again until July so if a format change is made that’s when it would happen. The NCAA D1 Final 16 sites are already set through 2018 (Tulsa 2016, Athens 2017, Winston-Salem 2018) so if a format change is made it may not occur until 2019 unless some kind of agreement could be reached with the 2017 and 2018 hosts which have already made financial commitments to host a 12-day tournament. 

The guys at PlaySight closed out the day by making an informative presentation about their capabilities and it sounds like several schools are making a push to add streaming video in the near future which we would all love to see (literally).