Sheer and Savage: Wrap Up

“There is a point in tennis, when I thrust aside as irrelevant all thoughts of point and games and sets, and am absorbed instead in the sheer and savage delight of swinging at a moving target.”

- Mark Rowlands, Tennis with Plato

Sheer and Savage Series

Joel King and Michael Steury

Daniel Buschert and Mikey Kelly

Seth Krabill and Kyle Miller

Hans Miller and Joel Gerig

Obviously, there's a lot of people I left out of this series. So many of our great players through the years at Bethany Christian have displayed their joy in sheer and savage ways. I simply tried to give good examples that work toward the point I am trying to make. And that point is two-fold (hint... look for the capital letters).

First of all, if you want to be a successful player and have a successful team, a team that is truly full of joy then . . .

YOU MUST HAVE A BALANCE OF SHEER AND SAVAGE JOY.

It's not an option to have a team that falls dramatically on one side of the scale or the other. If you have a collection of players that are all unbridled and untamed and ferocious, the team will most likely be mean and angry. If you collect a bunch of pure and goofy guys, you'll laugh a lot and win a little. When unbalanced, players find themselves having explosions or completely lost their ability to focus.

So, it becomes obvious then that the full joy is when we are "absorbed. . . in the sheer AND savage delight of swinging at a moving target." They can't be separated. And yet . . . we each naturally gravitate to one extreme or the other. That's how it is in most of life right? We tend to slide toward the extremes all the while we need balance. Sol recognized this in my eating habits this summer during camp, noting that I tend to be obsessed with being healthy or I am completely unhealthy. All salads or all ice cream, depending on the summer. And so it is with these tendencies of joy and emotion. How can we get them balanced?

Well, we'll just make ourselves do it, right? If we tend to be savage and untamed, well, then when we hit the ball out during matches we'll just stop and think and smile! We'll simply convince ourselves right now that we just have to feel differently. We'll make ourselves do it, because we have to. Or not. Because you can't "find" balance, or "make" it, or "convince yourself to just do it."

Instead, YOU HAVE TO GIVE IT.

The key thing here is that we are a team. The group of guys around us is what will help us create sheer and savage joy. They are God's gift to us for the season. Read back through the sheer and savage series. Each of those stories were stories of balance that happened when teammates GAVE their natural tendencies to each other.

Joel King's competitiveness drew the work ethic out of Michael. Michael's goofiness made tennis fun. Daniel's carefree attitude gave confidence to Mikey's intensity. Kyle's untamed challenge of Seth brought accountability to the team. Joel and Hans both played as themselves and brought balance to their doubles matches.

God has given you the gift of your personality, your unique type of joy. Give that gift to our team. In that communal giving, everyone will be changed.

So, I can't wait to hear it all across our newly painted courts next week. Savage joy of ripping through forehands and overheads, the competitiveness of the new season, the challenge of staying focused... all in the direction of helping our teammates. "C'mon guys, let's go, let's pick it up, let's do this!"

And the encouraging words of sheer joy, the shots well-placed, the strategies well chosen, the inevitable mistakes... all in the direction of helping our teammates. "That's all right, we've got this! Oh, yes! That's it!"

I still have the memory of my brother's undefeated team, how they used to respond to one another on the courts. Even during matches, if one person would call out "C'mon!" there would come a cascade of calls from the other courts, each person sending back their own message of encouragement and joy. In the community of echoes, in everybody giving to each other, their was the beautiful balance.

I can't wait to hear our community get started.

Sheer and Savage Players: Edition 4

“There is a point in tennis, when I thrust aside as irrelevant all thoughts of point and games and sets, and am absorbed instead in the sheer and savage delight of swinging at a moving target.”

- Mark Rowlands, Tennis with Plato

Sheer
adjective
1. unmixed with anything else
2. unqualified, utter
Synonyms: mere, simple, pure, unadulterated

Savage
adjective
1. fierce, ferocious, untamed
2. unpolished
3. wild and rugged
Synonyms: wild

Joy
noun
1. a state of happiness
2. a foretaste of all things made right
Synonyms: rapture, bliss, delight

SHEER JOY: Hans Miller

SAVAGE JOY: Joel Gerig

RESULT: Led team in victories last season, setting a record for most #1D victories.

In my career coaching at Bethany, Joel Gerig leads the list in one category. Being able to let his emotions show. Or as we're defining it in this series, being unpolished, untamed and savage when it comes to showing his emotion.

Oh, he's top of the list in a lot of other things as well. Working hard at his tennis game, staying after practice to work on serves, and doubles winning percentage would all be categories he'd lead the team in too. But his heart on sleeve emotion was definitely something that has set him apart. And it is not a bad thing. In fact, I love it as a coach. Because it's honest.

A story. Joel's sophomore year he was in and out of competing for a varsity spot. Suddenly in the middle of a drill, Joel has thrown his racket onto the court and is screaming that he quits, he can't do it, and is kicking his racket from one side of the court to the other. I was livid. I walked right up to him and told him to get off the courts because we don't act like that. Savage emotion is one thing, but there's also a need to mature. But when I got up to Joel, Joel had tears in his eyes. I took a gentler tone, but still told him to go sit on the bleachers. After getting the team going into the next part of practice, Joel and I sat and talked about what was making this eruption happen. And unsurprisingly, it wasn't really about tennis. A little talking, a little prayer, and a lot of healing went on. Joel's honesty had allowed it to happen.

There were so many more times of Joel's raw and unpolished honesty. At team camp when discussing faith with his fellow seniors. When he and Parth came to me during junior year and basically said no offense to each other but they didn't like playing doubles together. But I'd like to recall one other specific time where Joel couldn't stop his emotion.

Last year, in the Individual Sectional, Joel and Hans drew NorthWood in the first round of the event. They had lost to NorthWood in the season, their worst and most lopsided loss. Now, playing in the Sectional I had asked them to play with confidence. After dropping their first set, Joel and Hans had turned it around in the second and were playing brilliant tennis. And at the break between the second and third set, Joel again stood before me with tears in his eyes. I was so pumped, because they were playing their best tennis of the season at exactly the right time. I looked at Joel and said, "Are those tears? What's up, why are you crying?"

He said, "Because I know we're going to win."

Emotion is powerful. And Joel was always able to be honest and raw about it. It's powerful for healing and it's powerful as a motivator. For it to be useful on the tennis court however, it has to be transformed into positive emotion. It was to pump us up and convince us we're going to win. How had Joel's raw emotional responses been crystallized into a force like this that would allow him to know with clarity and confidence that they were going to win?

Well, that positively delightful influence was Hans Miller.

Hans has been the epitome of sheer joy throughout his years in tennis. Freshman year he tried for one day to do soccer and tennis in the same season. It was hard (ask Jesse Amstutz about it), and Hans decided that he enjoyed tennis more, so he was just going to go for that. Because it brought him more joy.

And since, he's brought that joy to our team. His freshman year he quietly collected the most wins on the JV, all with a smile on his face. His sophomore year, we tried him all over the place. Wherever he played, he didn't complain. In his first four matches that year, he played #1DJV, #3S, #1D, and finally settled into #2D. It was that #2D position where his sheer joy got matched up with Joel's savage joy.

You see, when Joel would double fault or drop a volley in the net, he would get tense and tight. But Hans, when he would clip the tape with a volley, would turn around, smile and laugh. And watching these two play tennis soon got to be very fun. Joel's competitiveness seeped into Hans, and Hans carefree joy began to take hold in Joel.

Going into this year, it remains the picture to me of the balance the team needs. Joel's honest emotion and Hans' enjoyment. Joel's tears and Hans' laugh. Joel shouting "C'mon!" and Hans happy "Yes!"

Joel spinning around with a fist pump and Hans meeting it with a smile.

Everyone needs to find that balance. Everyone needs to have that unpolished honesty and unbridled joy. Maybe Hans will continue to lead us that way. But we can't count on just him. We need every one of you to bring your God-given talents and encouragements to this season. Bring them with all your joy. I can't wait to remember your stories of sheer and savage joy as well.

Sheer and Savage Series
1. Joel King and Michael Steury
2. Daniel Buschert and Mikey Kelly
3. Seth Krabill and Kyle Miller
4. Hans Miller and Joel Gerig

Sheer and Savage Players: Edition 3

“There is a point in tennis, when I thrust aside as irrelevant all thoughts of point and games and sets, and am absorbed instead in the sheer and savage delight of swinging at a moving target.”

- Mark Rowlands, Tennis with Plato

Sheer
adjective
1. unmixed with anything else
2. unqualified, utter
Synonyms: mere, simple, pure, unadulterated

Savage
adjective
1. fierce, ferocious, untamed
2. unpolished
3. wild and rugged
Synonyms: wild

Joy
noun
1. a state of happiness
2. a foretaste of all things made right
Synonyms: rapture, bliss, delight

SHEER JOY: Seth Krabill

SAVAGE JOY: Kyle Miller

RESULT: Helped lead their team to a school record 18 wins in their senior season.

Let me start this post by saying that two people alone can't help a team set a school record for wins and winning percentage. But everyone's attitude helps. A good balance is particularly important. When it comes to the 2010, there was a great balance of sheer and savage joy on the team. Ben Mast and Russell Klassen, the two seniors I'm not featuring were probably the best at balancing it and showing sheer and savage joy at the right times. But Seth and Kyle were the ones who exemplified each characteristic. So the stories about them are great ones to show what sheer and savage joy means. Except of course, for the one story about Russell seeing how many times he could nail an opponent in the chest because my brother said he couldn't get more than 10. And Russell hit the opponents 11 times in the match. That's some savage tennis, but I don't know how joyful (at least for the opponents).

But as for sheer joy, that was Seth. It was what made him so difficult to rattle. If you can play with sheer joy, you will have the strongest mental game on the planet. The reason being is that fear of losing can only happen when your goal is to win. If your goal is to become "absorbed instead in the sheer and savage delight of swinging at a moving target," well then very little can rattle you except for a bad opponent who can't get the ball back to you. This was Seth. I remember in 2009 we played Churubusco and they had a team of complete beginners, except for their two seniors who they had placed together to form an All-District #1D team. They were great, and only lost twice all season. I asked Seth whether he'd like to just take a probable win at #2 singles or team up with our #3 player and try to take down the good doubles team. In less than a blink of an eye he said he'd rather play the better people because that would be more fun. 

Or if you ask Seth what his favorite high school match was, he'll site his senior year at the Merrillville tournament when he took on one of the top players in the state, Benjamin Kalisch of Valparaiso. Seth was undefeated going into the match and so was Kalisch. The match was 0-6, 0-3 when it got rained out (Seth losing) and Seth was upset. He was having so much fun hitting back and forth with a great opponent. It carried Seth to a 20-0 record that season.

The only thing that can be wrong with the sheer joy approach is how you get better. If you are enjoying just hitting the ball, there's not much incentive sometimes to go hard in practice or drills. Seth suffered from some of that, but that's also where the balance that I talked about with Daniel and Mikey is important. A team must have sheer delight, pure joy. But it also needs the unpolished passion, wild joy of someone who will be vocal. That was Kyle Miller.

Kyle would do anything he could to win as a team. Three years in a row he played with different doubles partners. Each year, he and his partner got better and better throughout the season. Why? Because he had the unpolished, rugged, and savage ability to talk to people. He challenged his doubles partners, he encouraged his doubles partner, he got pumped up over their good shots. And he challenged his teammates as well. I'll never forget the time Seth showed up late to practice and Kyle got all over him. Chasing him out into the parking lot to talk to him. It may have been a little misplaced passion, but it was passion. A passion to and a delight in the idea of all things made right.

There's the thing that made this team so successful, people who did the things with joy (like Seth) and people who passionately held everyone accountable to doing the right things (like Kyle). Each team needs players who will fill those roles:

1. A leader who silently leads with actions of joy.
2. A leader who vocally challenges and encourages with passion.

So who is that this year? We have a ton of players who may be able to play with sheer joy, who may be able to lead with their focus, action and energy. But who will lead us, encourage us, challenge us, be passionate with their words?

Sheer and Savage Series
1. Joel King and Michael Steury
2. Daniel Buschert and Mikey Kelly
3. Seth Krabill and Kyle Miller

Sheer and Savage Players: Edition 2

“There is a point in tennis, when I thrust aside as irrelevant all thoughts of point and games and sets, and am absorbed instead in the sheer and savage delight of swinging at a moving target.”

- Mark Rowlands, Tennis with Plato

Sheer
adjective
1. unmixed with anything else
2. unqualified, utter
Synonyms: mere, simple, pure, unadulterated

Savage
adjective
1. fierce, ferocious, untamed
2. unpolished
3. wild and rugged
Synonyms: wild

Joy
noun
1. a state of happiness
2. a foretaste of all things made right
Synonyms: rapture, bliss, delight

SHEER JOY: Daniel Buschert

SAVAGE JOY: Mikey Kelly

RESULT: 20-2 at #2D on Sectional Champion team.

Daniel looked like a long haired hippie when when bounced onto the tennis court. I used to nickname him "Angel" here on the blog because of the light-hearted nature he had on the court and his "gorgeous" hair. He was always smiling when he come up to me and ask a question, usually about how he could get better. He played no other sport but he had kind of a natural way on the tennis court. By his senior year he may have been the best pure doubles player on our team.

Mikey was intense. His freshman season he had hurt his hand and instead of not playing, his switched and used his left hand to play the match. He was still upset that he lost when the match was over. He was a competitor in every sense of the word, obsessed with playing his best in every match. Obsessed with playing his best in every sport he played, as he had all three seasons covered: tennis, basketball, and baseball.

Apart, these guys had problems. Daniel couldn't quite get the competitive edge he needed with other partners or when he played singles. He would play with sheer delight, sure, but maybe a little unfocused or undirected. Mikey, on the other hand, would boil over on his own. Controlling his anger was something he worked on throughout the seasons.

But when they came together to play as partners, they found the balance. The balance that we're looking for as a team this season. It didn't come without a fight. In 2007, when Daniel was a junior and Mikey a sophomore, we paired them at #2D to see how they could compete. They put up a pretty good record but struggled in close and important matches. In fact, at the end of September they lost 3 matches in a row heading toward Sectional, and after a disappointing loss to Bremen I wrote this in the match report: "Again frustration and fear drove this doubles team instead of enjoyment and opportunity."

The thing about Daniel and Mikey was that they had problems to conquer before they could really live and play with sheer and savage joy. Daniel had to overcome fear. Mikey needed to overcome anger. They were wounds that were on them, that came out in times of pressure. In fact, if I'm guessing, these wounds will plague them throughout their life. We all have these types of wounds. 

But the beauty of Daniel and Mikey was that they decided to deal with them, together. The turning point was probably the first round of Sectional, where I decided to go ahead and let them see if they could turn it around. With nothing to lose, the played loose and aggressive tennis. They had lost to the Fairfield team they were playing in two quick sets during their losing streak. But with their confidence and control, they defeated them in two sets. It set the stage for a dramatic win for the team as well.

Then it carried over into the next season. In a similar situation the next season, with our backs pressed against the wall in Sectional, down 1-5 in the third set of the decisive match, they again found confidence and control to make a huge comeback and save the Sectional for the team.

What we learn with Mikey and Daniel is that to have sheer and savage joy may mean that we have to confront some weaknesses in ourselves. We may be given toward anger, fear, sadness, deceit or any number of other things that steal our joy. Mikey, Daniel and I had so many prayerful conversations about these things and their causes. I'm a firm believer that in Christ these wounds can be turned into moments of pure, sheer, and savage joy. Pure and ferocious. Pure and powerful. Mikey and Daniel show how this has worked out.

Sheer and Savage Players: Edition 1

New series again for the month of July, highlighting players who played with sheer and savage joy. For these posts, I'll be choosing players who were teammates that gave the team the balance of sheer and savage joy. Each post begins with a definition, then proceeds to tell the stories of joy!

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“There is a point in tennis, when I thrust aside as irrelevant all thoughts of point and games and sets, 

and am absorbed instead in the sheer and savage delight of swinging at a moving target.”

- Mark Rowlands, Tennis with Plato

Sheer
adjective
1. unmixed with anything else
2. unqualified, utter
Synonyms: mere, simple, pure, unadulterated

Savage
adjective
1. fierce, ferocious, untamed
2. unpolished
3. wild and rugged
Synonyms: wild

Joy
noun
1. a state of happiness
2. a foretaste of all things made right
Synonyms: rapture, bliss, delight

SHEER JOY: Michael Steury

SAVAGE JOY: Joel King

RESULT: Turned the program around.

Michael and Joel were the perfect, if unlikely, pair to turn a struggling program into a thriving one. First of all, they enjoyed one another's company. They were the beginning of bringing brotherhood to the Bethany program. But their backgrounds were very different in tennis, and were important in bringing balance to the program as well.

Joel was a competitor. A basketball player, a baseball pitcher, he played a sport every season and captained all of the teams. He often said that practice was his favorite part of any season, because it was the only part where he didn't get any break at all. Which he enjoyed.

On the tennis court, he was a screamer. He had played varsity his freshman year, competing at #1 doubles. I don't know how well he did, I don't have records from that season. But when I took over as coach beginning his sophomore season, it was obvious that he was going to compete for the #1 singles spot. He had athleticism and talent.

I have several favorite match memories of Joel. The first was at Triton during his sophomore season. He was playing #2 singles and the team match was tied 2-2 as he went into a third set. With that pressure, Joel fell behind 2-5 in the third set. His opponent needed only 4 more points to seal a team win for the Trojans. I told him to build some positive emotion, and in the next game the trademark "C'mon!" was born. After every point he won, he clenched his fist and yelled toward his teammates gathered by the fence. With this untamed emotion, Joel's game picked up and he overwhelmed his opponent, winning the next 5 games straight to seal a remarkable team victory.

Just as intense was his anger at me that first year when we played Fort Wayne Canterbury. Our #1 player, Colin Yoder, also played soccer and had a game that night. I told him to go to the soccer game because we'd probably lose to Canterbury anyways. Canterbury, by the way, is usually state ranked. Joel was so upset that I was accepting loss, that as he moved up a position to #1 singles, he still pushed his Canterbury opponent in a 5-7, 4-6 loss.

Or when in his senior season, he played his home school district of Concord and had an opportunity to win his match at #1 singles. Cramping in the third set, I told him that one more cramp and I had to call the match. So he made it through the rest of the match and won! Afterwards, I told him that I was glad he hadn't cramped again. He told me, "Matt, I was cramping every two points but I told myself to turn away from you and not scream, not fall down, so that you would let me finish." That is a savage, competitive player!

In contrast to Michael Steury, who didn't start his journey on the team as a supreme competitor. Instead, he had become friends during his freshman year with guys on the team and decided to try it sophomore year. On our team of 13, he was #12 his freshman year. But he loved the game. That Spring Break I remember that we both went to Sarasota to visit our grandparents, and he invited me over to play tennis just because it was fun.

As he played, he got better. A lot better. By junior year, he was playing varsity. From beginner to varsity in one season isn't bad. In a down season, he was one of only two lineup spots to end the year with a winning record. And then senior season, he nailed down the #1 doubles spot. And he became a joyful leader of the team as well.

He led team cheers, screamed encouragements during team games like Defenders and Two Ball, and lived for the glorious times when he could use his strengths. His face would light up when it was his turn to serve, or if someone popped up a lob and he was under it for the smash.

In his last match of his career, we had drawn Jimtown at Sectional. Jimtown had a doubles team, twin brothers, who would qualify for the doubles state finals. And we played them first round. Michael smiled and said, let's do it. With fist pumps and pumped up serves, Michael and partner Jordan Kauffman shocked the twins in the first set, taking a 7-5 set win. And although they couldn't hold it, it was that sheer joy that led them through the attempt.

These guys were the first of many models of sheer and savage tennis for Bethany Christian. Their teammates could look at them for competitive models and I've been pointing to their attitudes for years since. I often say that their leadership helped lay the foundation for our Sectional title three years after they graduated. They played loose, they played hard, they played sheer and savage tennis.