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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    london-Milan
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    92

    Thumbs up Managing & Raising Players

    "For the first time ever in the UK we will be the only Academy offering residential summer tennis camps with the opportunity to learn English at no extra charge. Due to the vast and constant demand from abroad the David Lloyd Tennis Academy will use these six weeks to indentify talent with the vision of them signing up as performance players. Each student will receive an Oxford certificate confirming the level of English they have ascertained.Every athelete on a full time High Performance Program with one of our academies has a 100% academic scholarship in Reed's or Redbridge. To find out more information on this please visit: http://www.davidlloydsport.com/websitepage.php?id=3



    "We aim to give students the chance to be coached by high professionals, improve their technique, and be challenged by some of the best players in their peer group. We divide the groups from the complete beginner to professional. Beginners, tournament players and top ranked juniors from all over the world come to our "Harry Potter" school and beautiful 15 court facility to participate in our intense program and possibility to win themselves our prestigious "young player" management contract and full- time place in our Academy. Our camps combine technical instruction and drilling from our highly professional full-time coaching staff, fitness training, supervised match play, and a variety of evening social activities. Work hard- Succeed- Enjoy, is the way of DavidLloydSport. Improve and challenge your game with coaches of ex- top ten players in the world!
    Be discovered and win a scholarship in one of our academies worth £50,000 per year!
    If you never played before start with us, have fun you never know you can be the next big thing!

    Why pay £££ for english language course when we give you a recongnised english language course and certificate for free!
    "David Lloyd played a big part in my development as a professional tennis player having experienced one of his academies for six years. I have no doubt that the new Academy being launched will be a great success. I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone involved all the best!"

    Tim Henman
    Last edited by Coach; 12-28-2008 at 03:13 PM. Reason: html correction - excellent post

  2. #2
    Why do none of the david lloyds do this where i live?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    london-Milan
    Posts
    92
    To organise a summer camp/ talent weeks is a complex job. We need boarding houses with 24 hrs security and guardian/ house parents' on site 24hrs 7 days per week. Also coaches and talent identification personnel need to be accomadated to. Our nutritionist and our chef needs an equiped kitchen to satisfy the requirements set by our Head Pro Team. Our strength and conditioning Head Pro needs: Gym, Swimming Pool, Track and Field Grounds etc. Our pyscologists need to observe young talents and their behaviour towards other players', coaches, the rest of staff etc , before we are able to make difficult decisions and accept players' into one of our academies on a full time basis. We need to be sure that we are investing money not just in talented tennis players' but within a person that has a good character, because at the end of the day we are going to "live" with the young player for god knows how many years so we must be sure. All of these elements we can achieve in our current boarding school (took us more then 2 years to organise it there). So to start it somewhere else is very difficult and would take a long time.

    P.S. Because this is a residential camp nobody is stopping you to come and join. It would be good for you to mix with various quality players' from all around the world.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    New England
    Posts
    703
    Very interesting philosophy but what I want to know is, how do you recognize that young talent who's hitting balls at some public park facility where the court conditions are less than favorable, nobody is hanging around watching and certainly not offering professional advice but yet this kid has unique skills that will surely go unnoticed because he lives in a neighborhood that looks forward to the 1st & 15th of each month, father's are generally not a part of the family structure and mother's who's immediate interest is hoping their child's not the next drive-by statistic?

    Many members of our Forum have expressed concern about the cost of professional training and I'd like to know what Academies do to take in consideration the many incredible talents lurking throughout the World that can't afford the cost of these wonderful places to learn & train?

    Good Job Jtas,

    Coach
    The only acceptable loss is when your opponent was better than you on that given day.
    It is never acceptable to lose when your opponent was not.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    london-Milan
    Posts
    92
    Well Coach,

    You know I will tell you how it is. How things are standing now in the world of Tennis Academies and in Tennis overall it is more then likely that, that child from the park will never have a chance.
    Only in the movies Charlie can buy one chocolate and gain his golden ticket into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
    Tennis is not a school sport (some schools have Tennis classes but they are in single digits) especially it is non existent in schools in deprived areas. I have read a study done on 15 different sports and the possibility of them being implemented into schools. Tennis is by far down the list of financial feasibilty of being suggested to be implemented into schools on a full time basis.
    They say that if you have 1 Handball, or Soccer, Basketball, etc Coach and one ordinary sized sports pitch you can fit around 40 children per class. With one Tennis Coach and an ordinary size pitch you can fit 1 Tennis court and 6 potential Tennis players.
    That is exactly how people from sport politics and education think, numbers, costs and that is it. So if Tennis is not implemented into deprived area schools or even middle class areas for that matter, we are going to lose vital years for the development of the Tennis player, between 5 and 12 years old.

    If Tennis is implemented into schools with the possibilties for further education through Tennis scholarships becoming a reality we will have such a positive phenomena similar to the one achieved in Basketball in the USA and Soccer in Europe.
    I have done some research of the possibilty to organise "flying in Coaches" who will visit certain schools in certain areas and make 1 program to fit 3 or 4 schools at once. It is possible to make it work but one needs the complete support of local Tennis Federations and local educational structures.

    Tennis "politicians" are not ready for what the people of America were ready for in the last Presidential elections. Every sport has bettered themselves towards their grassroots, once that a hero of that sport who came from a poor background, retired from the sport, then became a "politician" of their sport and then fought from within, for people who would come from the same background that they had come from.

    Except for Billy Jean King who rightly for years, even now is fighting for equality between Mens and Womens Tennis we almost don't have anybody else trying to address how to help "that child from the park".
    Can Academies do anything to help?
    All big Academies allocate certain budgets for investing into potential young talents. But that talent and their parents or guardians must knock on the Academies door (we organise these summer camps to make it easier and much cheaper for parents and players to knock on our door).
    Is anyone from big Academies going to go to "that child from the park" and knock on their single mothers door?

    Very, very unlikely.
    Last edited by jtas; 01-30-2009 at 07:59 PM.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    New England
    Posts
    703
    Yes - unlikely but not for the reasons you've mentioned. In 1992 Former President William Jefferson Clinton placed the Endowment for the Arts into his Fiscal Budget higher than it had ever enjoyed. For the first time, an American President was a friend of the Arts. He, cut a check for nearly $200,000,000.00 a year for 4 years. It was the President's hope that America would produce the next generation of great minds. He was convinced that throwing money at the Cow would bring forth the lost & forgotten talents of our Country. Problem is JT, that dog didn't hunt. Oh schools made good use of the cash for sure. But that didn't do one damn thing to get that kid into class so as to recognize his/her talent and then once acknowledged then what?

    I want to ask you a question JT, you're walking your dog one day and pass a Tennis Court where you see a couple of teenagers hitting the ball back & forth. So being interested in the Sport, you stop for a moment and stick your fingers through the fence. All of a sudden, you can't help from noticing these kids are banging the ball as good as you've ever seen from anyone you've ever seen. Like their hitting shots that Federer would be proud of. And then you discover that not only can these kids hit every shot in the book but they're doing it with an impressive amount of consistency. I mean the whole package, a buck 25 1st serve followed up with an impressive kick to the backhand on their 2nd if needed while coming in to stick the volley. Their footwork is spot on and both of these kids have nothing between them, they are both on the same page as if they learned to play from the same Instructor.

    Ok JT, you're so taken by these kids that you can't stop yourself from calling out to them and announcing your observation. Well you happen to be sensitive to talent in this area so your wheels start to turn and you begin to wonder how they would fair in a serious Tourney.
    By all accounts, you can easily imagine them kicking serious butt in the Juniors but you have to get them signed in. But wait just how would you do that?

    Oh it's easy if there was simply a signup sheet with a $20 Entry Fee but we both know that's not how it's done. And why is that JT?

    I went to see a friend the other day who owns a Body Shop, asking him to show me how to use this new Spray Gun I have. After a few demos, I said, "Damn Mel, this is not as easy as I first thought" and I followed that statement with, "But I guess if it were .." and he interrupted me by saying, "Then everybody could do it".

    Do you see my point JT?
    The only acceptable loss is when your opponent was better than you on that given day.
    It is never acceptable to lose when your opponent was not.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    london-Milan
    Posts
    92
    Let's agree to disagree.

    First of all I will not brush aside your point of view fast like what you did to me.
    I do not share your "Partizan" view about any Politician or any Administration. Politicians are for me nothing more then high ranking Civil Servants. I can be excited by people from some Nations deciding to vote for something very new and promising, but once the elections finish I personally judge Politicains by their "descisions at the moment".
    Any money being invested into schools is good thinking. Even 200 million being invested in the Arts is nothing more accept for seeds for the future.
    To succeed in anything we need to respect the "evolution" of things. So for sure even that 200 million will evolve and in the next 20 years we will see some produce from it.
    When a famous Russian writer Dostoevski was asked did he want to join the revolution for the better he answered;
    "Yes I will buy a ticket for a better society, but if one single child is going to cry or become an orphan on the road to this better society I will return my ticket."
    So I believe being revolutionary or radical will only bring "chaos to satisfy the few".

    If I pick 2 children from the park (which I have done already) and give them a chance that my management contracts brings I will change their personal circumstances but nothing is going to change for the rest of the children there in the park. And we will still be faced with the same problem.
    I believe here we should address how to bring changes for many, not just the few.
    And my belief is;
    1. Make a proper study of how to bring Tennis to forgotten corners.
    2. Lobby to bring "famous" names from Tennis to endorse to the study (obviously not with money but with their names and media approach).
    3. Approach all Tennis governing bodies.
    4. Approach Administrations of the parts of the world that are interested in the program.
    5. Create an on ground Tennis Technical Team which will work with local schools, local clubs etc. (It's already proven that sporadic sponsorships which are given to certain players' directly from deprived areas is not working. Here we need to invest in Tennis Technical Teams who will then invest knowledge, time and travelling directly to players').
    6. Attract outside sponsorship.
    7. Attract and sell the naming rights' to huge corporations.
    8. Then wait to pick up the first fruit from the Programs.

    Hopefully some other people will not like what we do and they will start their own Programs, so the more spin- off Programs from the main Program will enable more children to play Tennis.

    P.S. Coach we have more then 40 children who pay nothing in our full time Academies. I mean full boarding and Academic education as well. 12 of our children are now over 18 years old so they are leaving the Academy and moving into our Performance centre. With an increase in our budget for 2009 we are hoping that 20 new children will join onto our full scholarship and another 30 on a Tennis scholarship only. They come from all sorts of backgrounds. And that is the maximum that the Academy that I work in will do for 2009. And I firmly believe that we are leaders in the field for offering 100% Tennis scholarships.
    Last edited by jtas; 02-01-2009 at 05:20 AM.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    New England
    Posts
    703
    Jtas my friend ~ please understand that I completely & wholeheartedly understand your input. The Scenario I posted was nothing but a scenario to ask what could we do for these types of kids that can't afford the cost of professional training & academies such as yours?

    My comments did not intend to challenge your position or sentiments. I'm an advocate of young kids who have incredible talent and few avenues to exploit aside from local usta sponsored tournaments, which any usta member can enter.

    Problem as you are aware is not the tourneys under-privileged tennis players can participate in but where do they go from there? If a young kid has dreams of exploring a professional tennis career, he needs sponsoring and the usta's policies on sponsorship leave most at the door.

    Regardless my friend, you are the authority on what academies have to offer and I will always defer to your knowledge when questioning what we can do for the future of our Tennis World.

    I trust you understand ,,

    Coach
    The only acceptable loss is when your opponent was better than you on that given day.
    It is never acceptable to lose when your opponent was not.

  9. #9
    Hi Mr. henman, my son is only 7.10 years old he has good hand in tennis which is evident from this clip www.youtube.com/user/houdazhar it is a very rough video he has improved alot. iam looking for some sponsorship for him. i my self can not afford. regards azharuddin

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