President's Tip #1

Every once and a while, I would like to share some tips for students running a tennis club using my experience with starting the WCU Tennis Club!

I think the most exhausting role in starting and running a club for me has to be understanding members. Asking members what their interests are, and what they want to get out of of club, is one of the most important and often forgotten step by club presidents. It helps define the goals of your club, so you know what direction everyone wants to be going toward. Think of it like being the captain of a boat; you are going to have a lot of people jumping ship if your sending them somewhere they don't care to be.

One great way to get some input from your members is a brief survey. Email or hand out all your members a survey. Find out what their interests are: do they want to play in a National Championship? Or would they rather just stay on campus and play a ladder. Also give them a chance to speak their opinions! A Google Docs form is a great way to do this. In a later post I will go in-depth on how our club uses a lot of Google's online (and very free) software!

After you find out what your members want to do, use that input to figure out how to structure your club. For example, we started a competitive Traveling Team with organized drilling because 14 members said they would be interested in doing it.

Starting the WCU Tennis Club Part 1

First I would like to congratulate the WCU Tennis Club  Traveling Team for hosting the first match ever against UNC-Charlotte's Club two weekends ago! I think both teams played great and had lots of fun. Thanks guys for making it happen!

For my first blog entry, I would like to talk a little about my experience starting the WCU Tennis Club, and how it has so positively impacted my life.

My story begins with my last few months of highschool. To the surprise of many people, I didn't spark an interest in tennis until well into my senior year. During one spring break, I played tennis with three great friends of mine at the beach, and needless to say...game set match, I was hooked. No sport I had ever played had the class and the mental and physical intensity presented by the sport of tennis. 

Fast forwarding to my freshman year at Western Carolina University. Here I was, all the way on the other side of the state knowing absolutely no-one, and worst of all, the sport I had fell in love with was not anywhere to be found. There were in-fact tennis courts, and I wasn't the only tennis player in my school (which I found out for sure later), but it was starting to feel like it would be tough to find others like me. 

 So after a couple intense matches against a backboard, I decided to do something. I came to the conclusion the best way to fix this problem was to start a club to trick the other tennis players on campus out of their rooms (ideally at the same time). I had a enough experience in how to organize a club (you see my father started the first boys' volleyball club in North Carolina, CYBVC, that I played on for most of my life) so I went for it. The next day I emailed the Director of Intramurals and Sport Clubs at our school, Debby Schwartz, and expressed an interest in organizing a tennis club. 

Within the hour, Debby sent back an email expressing a great deal of enthusiasm toward the idea. She instructed me to meet with her immediately to talk about the possibility of starting the club. At this point, I wasn't even sure I could legitamately start a tennis club. I didn't have a whole lot of knowledge in tennis (actually not really any) and I kept thinking, would people really buy into the idea?...

TO BE CONTINUED!

-Jon

Introduction

Hi, my name is Jon Magee! I'll start off this blog site by first telling a little bit about myself. 

I am currently a third year student attending Western Carolina University, a public university hidden deep in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina. I study Sport Management, a major that actually encourages watching ESPN every night. I am a Resident Assistant for an all freshman hall, I have coached both tennis and volleyball at one point, I've also spent a summer working for Cary Tennis Park, one of the largest public tennis facilities on the east coast; but most significantly, I organized the first tennis sport club at Western, the WCU Tennis Club in 2007!


All of these experiences combined have given me a unique perspective on the value of sports, starting and organizing sport clubs, and the incredible impact a tennis club can have on a university and its' participants. I would really like to use this blog, as an opportunity to share advice and experiences with starting and running a tennis club, to review products, feature players in our club, give updates on what's going on in our club, and discuss different perspectives on the impact of tennis clubs on campus. I encourage you to check back as often as you like! And please feel free to write me at magee.wcutennisclub@gmail.com, or comment on anything written on this site, or anything you would like to see. I look forward to hearing from you!

Check back again soon! More entries to come.

-Jon Magee
WCU Tennis Club President

Email me at: magee.wcutennisclub@gmail.com