OCTOBER 2019

 

FEATURE 2

 

Publisher's Notes - FEATURE 1 Rod Heckelman - FEATURE 2 Delaine Mast - FEATURE 3 Rich Neher WO19 - LETTERS
Facility Award - Organization Award - Male Pro Award - Female Pro Award - Pickleball - Suzanna McGee Fitness
Gary Horvath League Participation - Marsha Friedman - Ed Shanaphy - Gary Horvath Player Development

 

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Delaine B. Mast has served TENNIS for more than 40 years and has helped to get over one million people, from all walks of life, to play TENNIS!

Mast has a long history of volunteerism within the USTA, having served on ten national committees or task forces since 1987. Currently, she serves on the USTA National High School Committee. She was a Director at Large on the USTA Board of Directors, 2011-2012, where she was Vice-Chair of the Strategic and Creative Planning Committee and the Board Liaison to the Service Council. She served on the Leadership Competencies Task Force that determined the current National Volunteer Leadership Competencies. She served as a member of the Creative Opportunities Task Force, 2009-10, and was the presidential appointee on the Executive Committee and a member of the Strategic Planning Committee, 2007-08 where she helped to create the "USTA Strategic Directions". She also served as a member of the Nominating Committee, 2001-04; chaired the USA Tennis 1-2-3 Committee, 2001-02; and, as a member of the Community Development Committee, 1997-2000, assisted in creating and developing the concept of Community Tennis Associations. She has also served as a Community Development Volunteer National Trainer since 1993; she was, in fact, one of the nine original national trainers and has conducted more than 50 workshops.

On the sectional level, Mast has served in a variety of capacities with the USTA Middle States Section, including as President, 1999-2000, and Delegate, 2001-02. Since 2005, she has served as the Chair of the USTA Middle States Scholarship and Grant Committee, which she initiated in 1992, and she previously served as the Central Penn District President, Executive Secretary and the first Area Training Center Administrator.

Mast graduated with honors from the University of Tennessee in 1983 and embarked on a long career in tennis. She has served since 1986 as the men's and women's tennis coach at J.P. McCaskey High School in Lancaster, where she mentors inner-city students. She was the first female coach in the Lancaster Lebanon League to coach a men's varsity team. Since 1986, she has also served as the National Director for World TeamTennis (WTT) Recreational Leagues, and as the co-founder and Executive Director of the Junior Tennis Corporation of America, which has provided free tennis instruction to over 10,000 youth. Locally, she serves as the Executive Director of Tennis Central, a National Junior Tennis and Learning Chapter and 2015 Middle States NJTL Chapter of the Year, whose mission is to serve up opportunities to strengthen the community through tennis and education.

In 1998, Billie Jean King and WTT created the Delaine Mast Award to be given annually the top WTT League Director. Mast has been inducted into the USTA Middle States Tennis Hall of Fame, named the Lancaster Lebanon League High School Coach of the year along with being recognized in 2015 with the USTA Volunteer Service Award for 25 years of service. She received the USPTA's Norman Bromall Service Award for her contributions to the game. In 2010, was selected as the Professional Tennis Registry Member of the Year for Pennsylvania for her contributions on and off the court and received the prestigious Mangan Award from USTA Middle States.

Mast resides in Lancaster, Pa., with her husband, Doug, and sons, Darren and Alex. In 2002, the Masts were named the USTA Middles States Family of the Year, and they received the USTA Ralph W. Westcott Family of the Year Award one year later. Mast is a proud Board Member of the PTR and resides in the USTA Middle States Section. In 2016, Mast was named the Eve Kraft Community Service Award Winner and in 2017 received the prestigious International Tennis Hall of Fame Education Merit Award. Last year, Mast was recognized by the Tennis Industry as "Grass Roots Champion of the Year" for her commitment to growing TENNIS!

 

 

How Can We Get More People Playing Tennis?

When I was asked to write about this topic, I wanted to share my personal opinions from my over 40+ years in this business, growing the game. People and TENNIS are my passion and my life. I roll my sleeves up every day and figure out how to show others, young and old, how much you can learn about life from this sport and how enjoyable it is. You cannot help others figure out what they need to do, if you have never done it yourself!

I have helped more than one million people take up tennis over the years and if you ask people what I do that know me they tell you: "She does tennis!" I love that description because that absolutely fits. Wearing multiple hats has helped me grow the sport, not impede me. We have all talked and written about how fragmented our sport is, so I won't dwell on that topic, but I will tell you that it's the diversity and being inclusive, both on and off the court, that has always served me well. Whether it is as National Director, WTT Community Tennis; inner-city high school tennis coach, NJTL Chapter ED, PTR teaching pro and Board member, USPTA member, USTA Board member, Section and District President, volunteer committee member, tournament director for all levels, teaching professional, club consultant and last, but most importantly, a player and parent of two accomplished players and outstanding young men (one is a successful Tennis Director at a club and the other is in medical school!)

Working with Billie Jean King for more than 30 years, I have found her three lessons to be successful to serve me well:

1. Relationships are EVERYTHING!
2. Never Stop Learning!
3. Always be part of the solution!

 

1. TEAMS are the Key to Success! Provide Programs That Put People on Teams and Get Them "Playing" As Soon As Possible!

I learned from Seth Abraham, former President of HBO, who became my friend during our time together on the USTA Board, when we were talking about how to grow tennis and why he believed in World TeamTennis when he told me that the "U.S. LOVES their TEAM Sports!" He said; "Our challenge is how do you keep the essence of the game and understand and provide what the consumer wants. Younger fans want faster games and immediate results." If we keep it simple and realize what the facts tell us, people play because they can play with their friends, get some healthy exercise and have fun! It also grows the financial side of the business because the more people you can put per square foot, the more revenue you can bring in. Get them playing as soon as possible and realize that it doesn't have to be perfect tennis. They just need to PLAY instead of always learning to play. That is why Billie Jean created World TeamTennis; so, men and women could play on the same team together, learn to support and lead each other and count equally in the results. I have watched this format work for men and women of all ages and abilities. We created the Philadelphia Freedoms TeamTennis Challenges five years ago for 10U orange ball and 12U green ball teams to learn healthy TEAM competition, allow coaching, utilize substitutions and cheering so that it is fun and competitive! This format works! The WTT Professional League is also a pioneer in being a professional sport that is played with men and women, equally, on the same team. CEO Carlos Silva says, "WTT just completed its 44th professional season with a record 400,000+ viewers for the finals on CBS Sports Network and it is all about the matchups that make the experience special."

2. Invest in a "Program Provider"

Don't expect the teaching pros to plan and deliver the programs. We have created this culture of teaching pros only getting paid when they are on the court teaching. So, any good pros that I know are teaching 35-70 hours a week and truly don't have the time to plan, arrange, make phone calls, while teaching on-court to put food on the table. A successful programmer has a different set of skills than what is needed to be a successful teaching professional. We need to support and value Program Providers. There is a couple dozen "pied pipers" in the U.S. who are outstanding at growing our sport and providing quality programs. We need to clone them!

3. We Can Only Grow TENNIS at the Local Level

I have compared our sport to a "multi-level" marketing pyramid over the years because we come up with these great ideas at the top level, provide some funding to the next layer, who provide funding to the next layer, who provide some funding to local providers if they are willing to fill out all the necessary paperwork in order to get funding. Everyone above is depending on the guy at the bottom to deliver! By the time it gets down to the local level, there is not much left to work with for all the time you spend filling out the paperwork. I call it a "morphine drip." For example: I can run a FREE after-school program, throughout the school year (twice a week) for $3000 and apply for up tof $500 to help with the cost of the program. If you do the math, you quickly realize that the numbers don't add up. But I can bring 240+ kids into our sport. We have to provide more support to the local programs because that is the ONLY place where TENNIS can grow! It is where the rubber meets the road!

 

4. Get Involved and Connected in Your Community

Net Generation has been the first platform that has really helped at the local level by providing tools and resources to the people on the ground to help them grow the game! In my School District of Lancaster, there are 16 elementary schools, five middle schools and the high school. By connecting with Net Generation, we have been able to acquire equipment, prizes and curriculum for all the elementary schools and all PE teachers are now teaching tennis as a unit. Teachers love the APP because it has their lesson plans done for them! It is HUGE to expose kids to the sport at a young age and it is a great recruiting tool for your programs! What other organizations in your community can you connect with? Here are some of the ones that have been great connections for me: Park and Recreation Association, Police Athletic League, Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, School District of Lancaster, Franklin and Marshall College, High School Athletic Director and National Federation of High Schools Association (NFHS).

5. Use Social Media - That is Where Everyone, Especially the Young People Live!

This has been a very important lesson that I have learned. I didn't think I had time to keep up with Facebook and Instagram since I didn't do much personally. YOU MUST MAKE THE TIME! Young people live on Instagram and especially the "stories". The older people look at Facebook. That is a cheap and effective way to communicate and market to them. You reach them almost immediately!

6. Stay Focused on Growing the Game! It Takes All of Us to Grow TENNIS!

We need all the help we can get from all parts of the industry and we all need to help each other. Stay away from the political battles of fighting for a piece of the pie. The pie is always bigger when people are not taking pieces for themselves! There is room for everyone, and it requires collaboration on everyone's part to keep the pie from shrinking! Back to BJK lesson #3 at the top: "Be part of the solution!" Don't see Pickle Ball as a threat to our sport, look at how you can work with it to enhance your programs. For this reason, I am a big supporter of the new PickTEN program that PTR just announced. In fact, I am going to run a PickTEN TEAM Championship, spring 2020, to see if we get interest from teams of players who want to compete as a team in both pickleball and tennis! I think it sounds like fun!

7. Utilize the "Pied Pipers" to Help Others Get Started!

When is the last time, or the first time, we have gotten the "Pied Pipers of Tennis" into a room to discuss how they grow tennis in their communities? As I am growing older, I love nothing more than to help a fellow tennis enthusiast figure out how to get tennis programs going in their community. I work with people daily! There are at least a dozen others, that I can think of, that would love to just help others spread the love of tennis to their communities. We need to capitalize on their knowledge and experience and utilize their expertise to grow the game!

I love to work with people and help them figure out what would work well for them! If anyone out there wants to talk, I am ready and willing to SERVE!

Call me: 717-587-7184
Text: the same number above