Overheard from well-meaning fans and some young coaches.
“My athlete is national ranked junior champion and they are a great player.”
I am thinking “Poor junior player-all you hear is how great you are from everyone. I hope you do not listen.”
Here’s me also thinking , “You are not that good-you must learn your craft! You may be the winningest player of all time in juniors. You may be undefeated or whatever, but you are playing juniors. Do it in pros and now you are impressive.”
Am I really saying to junior she or he is not that good?
Well Yes and No! But I mean by that, while having an impressive record and playing well, this player probably has not mastered footwork, mechanics and other aspects of the game.
There are no shortcuts to that and that means work. Not hard work but smart work! It pains me to go to junior tournaments and see braces on elbows of 14 to 18 year olds. That means poor mechanics and probably poor coaching of mechanics! The best advice I can give to a junior champion is to keep working-and keep working.
Work more smart than hard! And as we say and I adopted it as my company’s slogan, “Never Let Good Enough Be Good Enough!”