NOVEMBER 2019

THIS ISSUE Publisher's Notes - Letters - Facility of the Month - Organization of the Month - Male Pro of the Month Female Pro of the Month - Spotlight Pickleball - Suzanna McGee Fitness - Marsha Friedman PR Trending - Rod Heckelman - Javier Palenque - Roger Stenquist - Rich Neher Feature - Gary Horvath Chris Hagman - Joshua Jacobs - Where Are They Now?

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In a few weeks, we are going to have a new CEO for the USTA, he is going to find a great surprise in the first few days of his job. Whatever he imagined, and the reality of the mess he has to deal with are two different things. He will learn that the people who hired him are the problem and ask himself daily: does he have the gravitas to ask them to leave? The sooner they leave the better for the sport? This new CEO has been working for a while for Amer Sports a company that discloses quarterly to its investors a management review, yearly financials, and management key decisions, all of course with the respect all investors deserve.

This is normal for any business. What he will find at the USTA is a series of black holes, dark secrets, a complete lack of transparency and a mind-boggling lack of respect for the investors. Who are the investors you may ask? Well, it is us, parents, coaches, kids, parks, club owners, and players all over. He will discover that the place has been run like the Banana Republic and that the only way to fix the problem is to hire people who don't work there. How fast he rids himself of the dead weight will tell us quickly how serious he is about fixing the problems.

Let me make some simple points to help him in his discovery:

1) Solve the lack of transparency problems immediately. No business can function like this. Disclose everything from day one, open all the books for all to see. This is s sure way to gain the confidence of the people that have been hurt the most by the engrained culture of secrecy of the USTA.

2) Acknowledge that all the vast resources that USTA has and its sections only feed payroll and overhead which does nothing to grow the game. Then, of course, he has to find a way to have the resources reach the grassroots who are the only people who can grow the game. This means conditioning the resources to the sections to have the absolute minimum amount of people possible. Yes, there have to be lots of firings or layoffs.

3) Decide to keep the mission to grow the game and act to grow it, or simply change the mission to reflect that it only cares about the entertainment event called the US Open, in which case he should voluntarily have the USTA rid itself of the non profit status like the NFL and NBA did if he wants to be taken seriously.

4) He then has to take on the issue of tennis participation and realize that years and years of giving money to the sections all it has accomplished is reducing the participation overall in the country. This has left a vast void in participation which needs a massive change of mindset. It needs investments. So, he will have to start telling us where is the money going to come from? From our point of view its very simple: spend $100,000 for some 9-5 person with pension and benefits or spend $100K in kids who have no chance of playing the sport otherwise. To me, that is a very easy choice, but he has time against him as there will be no resources available if he intends to keep people employed. USTA people are grossly overpaid, this needs fixing ASAP. A supreme court justice makes $240K per year, make a list of how many people in USTA make more than that and have a reality check, a nonprofit with so many overpaid people and the sport dying. It is simply dishonest.

5) Listen to discerning voices, there are great people willing to help and work to grow the sport. I can assemble quickly a team of fantastic individuals who only care to grow the game. There is progress in dissent and diversity.

6) Realize that the biggest demographics have been missed and fix it.

7) Know that time is against you, not yourself and your job, that is easy you can play politics and be safe or play it right and help the dying sport from disappearing.

8) Read my articles I have written 89 articles so far and have already written another 52, read them there are many suggestions there on how to fix each and every one of the problems he faces. I especially suggest you read this one read by over 25K people globally.

I wish you luck, but what you need are "cojones", if you really want to fix the game we are here to help all you need to do is reach out.

One last point, I believe that as a nonprofit you have the moral and social obligation to grow the game, and that means the game in parks, clubs, leagues, schools, and cities. The professional game is not part of the nonprofit remit.

"I say no to ineptitude and yes to growing the game"

I can be reached @palenquej or jpalenque@yahoo.com