The Season: Part Six

So the summer ends and the season arrives. It was about time for the season to begin. The offseason is the part of the year where we do all of our work, the season is supposed to be the blessing of that work.

I mean, we still continued to work hard. In the first conditioning week of the season we did about 40 minutes of footwork drills to start each session and then ran anywhere between 2 to 5 miles each night. In fact, one evening I gave the team the choice of how far to run, but they had to do at least 2.5 miles. Nobody did the least, most people ran 3.5 - 4.5 miles, and Luke led the team by running almost 8 miles that day. So we were working hard, and we were certainly continuing our dedication.

But the payoffs were so much closer. And the closer they got, the more bad news we started receiving. First of all, Mikey Kelly, number two doubles power server extraordinaire, broke his right hand playing baseball during the month of July. The injury put him out for several months, including our first match of the season against Northridge. Well, Mikey played in the match, left-handed, on the JV level. But obviously, moving into our first match we would not be at full strength without Mikey.

Secondly, we were struggling with confidence issues. Number three singles player Jonny Shenk found himself in a battle for his position. Both Ben Mast and Seth Krabill started the practice season playing great, and Jonny dropped tiebreaks and sets to each of them. Again, this spoke to the deep talent pool that our team had, but it unsettled Jonny. Coming off a 16-6 season, the most wins by any player in a single season that I'd ever coached, Jonny expected to be competing for an undefeated or at least highly successful varsity season. At this juncture he worried about being a JV player instead. And the confidence problems didn't stop with him. Luke Hostetter was also feeling the pressure of improving on his outstanding 2007 season. He had tied with Jonny for best record on the team, and played some incredible matches under pressure. But coming into the season, he seemed to doubt his ability to get it done in the clutch again. And there really was no seeable reason for that doubt.

These worried me. Tennis is such a mental game that belief often dictates results. I really was afraid that two of our singles players self doubts could crumble the team season, or the team unity, or the team belief. I was also worried about put people in the proper positions, rewarding the seniors for their hard work but not overlooking the talent of the underclassmen.

But what was a real blow to my confidence happened three days into the season training. Our captain, Johnny Kauffman told me he was having pain in his hip and needed to sit out. Now Johnny is the outspoken leader of the team, pushing teammates to work their hardest. When he told me he was hurt, I knew something was seriously wrong. It troubled me all that day, then what I found out seemed even more serious than what I had thought. Johnny had a pinched nerve.

Immediately I panicked. It seemed like the type of injury that could keep him out all season. Being honest, I got really mad at God. It seemed that God wasn't rewarding our players for their long work that they had invested in this tennis season. Jonny and Luke were doubting themselves, Mikey was injured, and Johnny was in doubt for much of the season in my mind. Sometimes at the end of a successful road, we forget much of the struggle. But I remember this point well. And sometimes when telling success stories we want to jump to the "but then!"

But for a good two weeks, I was in this position of doubt. Constantly I was thinking of lineups that would cover the weakness of having lost Johnny and Mikey for some time. I tried to arrange challenge matches that would revive the confidence of Luke and Jonny. I worried that other players would feel the burden and not be ready to step up and win matches because of our missing players. I fretted over the sophomores, Ben Mast and Seth Krabill, that might be inserted into the varsity lineup, that they wouldn't be experienced enough to win the tough matches, two of which would be played in the first week. I thought the Angola scrimmage might help calm some of the nerves, but it was so weird and distracting that I left that night feeling that it hurt us more than helped us.

So there we were, ready for our first match and I didn't really feel ready. Competitive but were we going to have enough to meet our goals. It seemed like we had had enough unfortunate incidents to last the season, and in this bad situation, I clung to hope that there would be blessings as well.