Coach...Help me with my college playing son!!!
Okay this is going to be a bit long and I will try not to ramble. My son is a junior at a small college on a tennis scholarship. He has this year and his senior year left.
Ever since he decided that he wanted to persue tennis as a way to pay for college and playing year round in USTA juniors and high school, it has been hard for us parents, coaches and teaching pros and even therapy to get him out of what I would call a bad attitude.
He has been a player with a very competitive spirit since the 8th grade. It isn't that he's throws tantrums (anymore hehe) but he gets very down on himself if he loses. Instead of looking at it as the other guy or guys (in doubles) were just better today, his words are "I suck."
He's probably a 4.0-4.5 player right now.
We have tried postive mental attitude books by major sports coaches and pros, training, pep talks, tough love, therapy, sports movies with a positive spin yet he still doesn't 'get it'.
He's been told over and over that he's got the physical skills to be a top player at his college but not the mental part. He's been told that the mental part is 95% and physical is just 5%.
Here's the situation at the college. The coach (who isn't much into 'coaching' it seems...just tells them to run and hit more balls to get better) is bringing in more foreign students because he wants to compete at a national level. They have went to nationals several years in a row but get bounced out 1st round.
So my son is fighting for a 5-6 spot on the varsity squad. College teams are usually 1-6 or 1-8 for varsity. We have told him he can't control what the coach does on the team and if he wants to be on varsity he needs to put in the extra effort. He feels he doesn't need to b/c the other guys don't. But he has trouble beating the other guys (4 guys are fighting for 5-6 spot right now).
We tell him over and over to focus on the positive and not the negative BS but he doesn't get it and tells us that PMA stuff is BS. Because he 'tried' it for 2 weeks and it didn't work.
We, as parents, are very frustrated on how to handle this. I know he's 20 and an adult but to us he's still mentally a kid. It sucks when he calls or texts us and tells us not to come watch him play because he isn't playing the spot he expected to or that he lost in a challenge match and is lower on the ladder now.
I have tried to have a sit down and just tell him he has to want it bad enough and then do the extra work. He tells me he has no extra time, but has the time to drink, party and hang out with his roomies. I told him his teammates that are his friends are his friends until they get on the court, b/c THEY don't want him taking their spot yet he doesn't want to ruffle feathers.
He only has 2 years of eligibility left and I have told him that he doesn't want to have regrets about screwing it up.
I hope Oscar can read this and give me a bit of insight on how to handle him.