For the past two years I have personally gone out to the "Slams" junior championships in Plano, Texas to enjoy some junior tennis--and also to observe some of our Texas chair officials in action--but I certainly wasn't prepared for what I found... Both years I witnessed more cheating by players and parents than I ever could have imagined. On nearly every court, I would see players consistently call close balls out and then get indignant when they were questioned. On matches without a chair official the problem was even worse...
To further deepen the crisis was the behavior of parents. I would watch parents (both Moms and Dads alike) consistently make verbal calls for their children, have "secret" hand signals, and just outright coach their child with no inibitions whatsoever. One year I even talked to one of the head officials and he told me they had 20 "sportsmanship awards" to give out and they couldn't even find one player they thought was deserving...
Even more disturbing than the cheating and coaching was the tendency of players to openly accuse their opponents of cheating and to create a confrontational scene on courts all over the tennis center. The players were quick to run and get an official to come to their court "because they were being cheated" and then verbally attack their opponents without inhibitions. I watched an official overseeing 4 courts finally just give up in frustration because players were complaining on every court...
In today's blog post I won't even begin to share thoughts about how we can fix this problem. I think everyone involved in tennis can recognize the issue and now we'd love to hear your thoughts on how to remedy the issue. Let us hear from you in the comments...
