Chapter 18 of the ITA College Coach Masterclass will be released on Wednesday, May 19th. This chapter features three different perspectives on developing various community tennis programming opportunities on your campus. In the meantime, you may want to review some of the documents the USTA has produced around the community hub concept. Applications for the USTA Community Hub Grant will be available on June 1st. We will be providing a link to this application to all ITA member coaches.

Did you know that Steve Wilkinson is the all-time winningest college tennis coach at any division with 923 wins to his name? What's even more impressive is that his goal was never to collect a bunch of titles, records, and awards but to develop great sportsmanship and character in his teams and students.

I would highly recommend coaches learn more about this truly amazing man and coach, and many of his life & coaching philosophies in his memoir entitled Let Love Serve.

One of his many enlightened philosophies was to never question the opponent's calls, no matter how egregious. He believed that when you build trust with your opponent - competition becomes more cooperative and enjoyable. He also discusses the Six Pillars of the Gustavus Tennis Program which could help you develop your own program philosophy if you don't currently have one established.

The book is filled with helpful lists for coaches from what you can do to communicate trust with opponents, managing non-umpired matches, running a successful summer camp, how a coach can avoid being perceived as hypocritical and even a list on how he turned terminal cancer into a gift.

Click here to learn more!