Time for a little personal rant, given its lunchtime and someone got me going. It may seem like a bit of a complaint, or sour grapes, but that is not what it is inteded. I just needed to vent after a colleague called to talk to me about a few things... As few of you may know, a few years ago I revived my tennis coaching experience and was asked to relaunch/rebuild/recreate the mens and womens tennis programs at a local community college. The programs had been neglected for almost a decade, even though in the 1980s and 1990s they were nationally ranked in the NJCAA. By the time I arrived, there had not been a mens or womens program for almost 4 years. I had nearly an impossible time recruiting students, and my first teams were loaded with kids who had never played tennis, let alone competitive tennis, in their lives. Yet within 2 years I had built both programs into Region XIX competitive teams, and was runner up in the Reqion (and qualified for the nationals) with my womens team. I had created a program that local high school players who were not going onto 4 year schools would actually seek out and wanted to be part of. I also served as interim athletic director while the college replaced its only and original AD. I held that position for over a year. When the new AD was chosen, as you can imagine, the climate changed. Not to go into details, but the new AD and I did not see many things the same, and I do believe that the new AD was upset that faculty and staff continued to come to me for advice initially as they were still making the transition themselves and didnt have the relationship with the new AD yet. The AD and I mutually agreed that I would move on. Flash forward to now. I am sort of dismayed, that the history of the teams has been rewritten and my tenure does not exist. Not only does the website still use most of the narrative I created when I first arrived and set up the first ever website for athletics for the college, but it also makes it seem like the current coach has been there forever. Now, the current coach is one I respect and admire, and I have known since I played competitive tennis. The coach did, however benefit greatly from my efforts as he follwed me immediately after I rebult the programs from scratch and started an aggressive and successful local recruiting program. And, the current tennis facility was rebuilt after I successfully lobbied the administration to upgrade the old courts, which had fallen into great disrepair. So there you have it. My rant. Maybe someday someone will remember that I was actually there and had a positive contribution. In the mean time, guess I gotta go back to being the best at what I do....
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 16:48:29 +0000
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