What Do You Do???

Now that the ITA tennis season is drawing to a close we thought this would be a great incident for you to discuss and dissect...

SCENARIO

In a contentious ITA match it came down to the final and deciding match.  Player A wins the match and throws the racket over the net striking the opponent before shaking hands. 

What do you do????

Tweeting Has Now Arrived!

Since all young players try to model their lives after pro tennis players its only natural that high school players would now be tweeting back and forth.  Hopefully they aren't doing it on court but common sense tells me that they probably are...

Thought you might enjoy reading one of the tweets that a local high school player was sending out during his match:

"Officials don't do crap, a ball is like a foot in and they say its an inch out."

I can assure you that the official wasn't me since I would have told him that it was 6 millimeters out and not an inch.  This was also the player that had a line official on all of his matches...

Welcome to the world of high school tweets!

Father/Son Is Real--What About Coach/Player?

There is not a greater moment in a father's life than when the son does something wonderful and someone says, "like father, like son."  It is an undeniable truth that sons learn to mimick their father's behavior at an early age and continue to adopt his values and ethics throughout the rest of their lives.  This is always a admirable trait--unless the father teaches the son to be less than desirable.

As we officials go to and fro throughout the country the inevitable question always arises--do collegiate players take on the personality of their coach?  Does the humble and gentlemanly young man have a coach with the same attributes?  If so, then does the unruly player have a coach who exhibits those same qualities?

The question of the day is this:  Do collegiate players take on the personality of the coach?

I would venture to say a resounding "yes" but would love to hear you thoughts and opinions on this one.

Taunting...

One of the "grayest areas" in ITA officiating is the area of taunting.  Its kind of like pornography--you have a hard time defining it but you know it when you see it...

Giving a code violation for taunting usually depends entirely on the discretion of the official.  Some give a lot of leeway and some give none--and this is what drives collegiate coaches crazy.  There is no doubt that taunting should not be tolerated but where do we draw the line  in codeable taunting and cheering after winning a point.

Here are some of the players' excuses:

*  I'm only pumping my fist to motivate myself.

*  I'm pumping my first toward Heaven to get God to help me.

*  I'm only pumping my fist to get my teammates involved.  (Of course this is no problem at some of our more elite programs...)

*  That player taunted me when he/she gave me the "evil eye."

*  That other player started it.  (Welcome to a junior high playground.)

*  That player's coach teaches them to taunt and see how much they can get away with.

Seems like one of the best ways to alleviate the problem is to tell the player (just once) to stop pumping his/her fist toward the other player and if they do it again--code them.

What are your thoughts???