ATB Interview Part 2: Coach Dave Woods

ATB Note: This is part two of my interview with Coach Dave Woods, part one was posted on December 19, 2007.

ATB: Coach, when did you start teaching for AISD ?

Coach Woods: It was 1982 when I first started teaching for AISD. In 1984 I moved to Highland Park Elementary School and I’ve been here for almost 24 years now.

ATB: Have you been teaching tennis in your PE classes since you started ?

Coach Woods: Yes, in 1982 when I started teaching I asked myself “Why aren’t we teaching tennis to these kids ?” and the answer, of course, was that there were no courts to teach on. That got me thinking…how can I teach a lot of kids tennis in a small area like a gymnasium ? That’s when I came up with my “Tennis Fun Factory” which is a concept I’ve used to teach hundreds of kids to play over the years.

ATB: Exposing the kids to the game at a young age ?

Coach Woods: Yes, I think it works pretty well. One thing I’ve noticed is that most years, one half of the kids on the McCallum High School tennis team and one half of the kids on the Lamar Middle School team are kids who went to Highland Park Elementary School.

ATB: Do you have an opinion on why we don’t see more kids playing tennis ?

Coach Woods: Well, right now Tennis is losing out because it isn’t a team sport. The Kids who are playing tennis are influenced by their peers, who are playing team sports. We need to promote tennis as a team sport, and promote tennis as a sport for a lifetime. We also need an organized system to get the elementary schools to expose kids to tennis, even if they aren’t on a court, get the kids thinking about playing. Once that happens then the parents get involved, either by playing with their kids or getting them into lessons. That way we’ll get more kids into tennis, including the really good athletes. Kids like Trey Phillips and Chad Clark, who played for UT, and could have excelled at any sport.

ATB: I heard a story that Andy Roddick, Drew Brees and Chris Mihm were once in the same tennis class.

Coach Woods: Yeah, I think that might have been in one of the classes at Westwood, you can ask Gary Scanlon about that.

ATB: How can we make Tennis better in Austin ?

Coach Woods: I think Austin really needs one big tennis center, cities like Waco, Midland and San Antonio all have big tennis centers, Austin needs one also. Of course, if UT could work something out with Austin Parks and Rec. to rent some of the intramural courts to the public that would help also. It would be great if the tennis professionals in Austin could work more with each other, as opposed to competing against each other. That’s one thing I noticed when I was in Corpus Christi, the pros down there really worked together.

ATB: Coach, thanks so much for your time.

Coach Woods: Thank you.

ATL Fall Season Wrap Up

The fall ATL season came to a close early this month and it looks like any make up matches that were going to be played should be done by now. In Division 1 Barton Creek dominated as predicted, winning an impressive 72 sets and only losing 13, that's 84% for those of you keeping score at home. More impressive to me was the fact that they forfeited zero sets, Nada. Kudos to Jeff Fifield and the rest of his guys. There was a big drop off to second place, but Mark Monreal's Ad In team proved they belong in D1, winning 53% of their sets. Old School rebounded from a disastrous summer season to finish in 3rd place with a 51% winning percentage. Fourth place went to at Leon Kincy's Ball Busters with 42%, followed by Lakeway at 35% and Austin Wild at 28%.


Division 2 was a little close and I'm still not sure who won. According to the ATL website, First Texas Honda came in first place, winning 72.73 % of their sets, edging out James Humphrey's Howitzers who finished with a 72.38 winning percentage. However, it looks like First Texas Honda only played 88 sets, compared to the Howitzers who played 105 sets, which is confusing. At any rate, third place went to ATC Family Affair (60%) they were followed by WTFC (43%), Circle C (37.84 %), Kick Serve (37.50%) and Team Travis Country (26%).


Topspin, captained by Roger Vallejo and Augie Pabon finished atop of Division 3, winning 57 sets and losing 35 sets for a 61% winning percentage. Second place went to The Polo Club at 58%, followed by Sharp Shooters (56%), Ball Busters II (47%), Hall of Framers (45%) and Main Strings at 28 percent.


According to the ATL website here are the other division winners:
D4 The Grapevines, captained by Cherie Hall and Revis Kanak.
D5 One Bounce, captained by John Fulton.
D6 Renegades, captained by Rich Jones and Patrick Drew.
D7 Over The Net, captained by Tracy Wood and Charles Lewis.
D8 Nose on Ball, captained by John Fulton.
D9 Slice N Dice, captained by Jamy Conrad and Brenda Kolas.

All We Want For Christmas.....

Are Some New Courts For Austin Tennis Players....

Austinites at the Cotton Bowl Classic

I've always been a fan of the Cotton Bowl tournament. Back in the mid-90's when I first moved to Texas I would spend Christmas in Dallas visiting the in-laws, and when I needed a break I'd drive over to Brookhaven to watch the matches. The men's open draw usually has a good mix of college players who are home for the holidays and open level players. This year, it looks like there are a good number of Austin area players who are making the trek north for the tournament. In the men's open singles draw Zack Nichols (TCU) is seeded #7, and Brent Werbeck (Boise State) is Seeded #8. They are joined by: Jack Seider (TCU); Cory Kowal (Trinity); Ethan Horn (Texas Tech); and Jeffrey Offerdahl (ATA). All of these guys are also playing in the open doubles draw.

Other Austin players in the tournament include Hiep Chung (men's open doubles); Phillip Allen (men's open doubles); Scott Sevin (men's 4.5 singles); David Erlich (men's 4.0 singles); Leon Kincy (men's 4.0 singles); Amy Friesenhahn (women's open doubles); and Anne Hopson/Meredith Hopson (mother-daughter doubles). There are also several Austin Juniors in the tournament. For all the draws, check this link.

New Andy Roddick Tennis Center Planned in Marble Falls Area

Wow, this is pretty big news, 17 courts, a retractable roof, designed to be the most sustainable and environmentally conscious facility in the United States....

Link to article.

ATB Interview Part 1: Coach Dave Woods

ATB Note: I recently had to pleasure to sit down and talk with Coach Dave Woods, who has been observing tennis in Austin for the past 35 years. Coach Woods is widely known as the PE teacher at Highland Park Elementary School and he is recognized one of the best teachers in AISD, but he was also a coach at UT for many years and he has a wealth of knowledge about the history of Austin tennis. He can also still play some serious doubles, as I found out.

ATB: Coach, can you tell us a little about your background in Tennis ?

Coach Woods: Sure, I grew up in Midland, Texas and played all sports up through middle school. I kind of taught myself to play tennis and then started taking lessons from a guy named Bob Mapes, who was the coach at Midland High School. I started playing all the time and turned into a fairly good player. In 1960 I was offered a half scholarship to play tennis at the University of Corpus Christi (now Texas A&M Corpus Christi). After one year I went to Texas Tech and I decided to major in Physical Education. I served in the Army for two years, then graduated from Texas Tech. It was at that point that I had decided I wanted to be a tennis coach.

ATB: Where did you first start teaching tennis ?

Coach Woods: Well, Bob Mapes, who was by that time a teaching pro at the HEB tennis center, got me a job at Ray High School in Corpus Christi, where I taught for two years. After that, I decided to get a masters degree at Colorado State in Fort Collins. Then I got a job teaching at Cal-Berkeley from 1970-1972. It was during that time that met a guy named Chet Murphy who was a teaching pro at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado, and I learned a lot from him. This was during the tennis boom of the 1970's and you could literally not get a court in Berkeley for more than an hour, it was amazing.

ATB: When did you come to Austin ?

Coach Woods: I got a job teaching tennis at UT in 1972, which was about the same time that Coach Dave Snyder took over as head coach of the UT men’s team. I had the opportunity to learn from Coach Snyder and I was his assistant coach from 1972-1979. I was also the UT women’s head coach from 1979-1982.

ATB: What was the Austin tennis scene like in the 1970's ?

Coach Woods: It was booming here also, the intramural courts were packed. I was teaching class after class, Coach Snyder and I were in the middle of this tennis boom. Westwood Country Club was just built and they had a pro there named Tex Bowry, and later Larry Eichenbaum started teaching there. Lakeway World of Tennis was being built around that time and Cliff Drysdale was the pro out there. He helped us recruit Kevin Curren to come to UT, along with a guy named Paul Avis, who was co-ranked #1 in South Africa with Curren.

ATB: What was college tennis like at that time ?

Coach Woods: At that time, college tennis was big in Texas. Trinity had won the NCAA’s and SMU and Rice also had great programs. The old Southwest Conference was very tough. The 1977 UT team that included Kevin Curren, Paul Avis, Steve Denton, Stuart Keller, Danny Byfield and Gary Plock won the Southwest Conference and probably should have won the NCAA’s, but we ended up losing 5-4 to UCLA in the tournament. It was close, Avis got homesick and decided to go back to South Africa, before the NCAA’s, so we were a little short handed.

Just to give you an idea of what a big deal tennis was at that time, in 1978 UT hosted Stanford for a dual match when John McEnroe was playing at Stanford, and they actually played the #1 and #2 singles matches at the Erwin Center in the evening. The following year, in 1979, Curren won the NCAA singles title for UT. (ATB Note: Curren played in two grand slam finals, the 1984 Australian Open singles final and the 1985 Wimbledon singles final).

Look for part 2 of this interview next week

Latest Regional ITA Rankings Place Three Longhorns in Top Ten

Last Week the Intercollegiate Tennis Association released regional rankings and three University of Texas players were ranked in the top ten for the South Central Region. Kellen Damico was ranked #3, Ed Corrie #9 and Dimitar Kutrovsky was #10. Other ranked Longhorns include: Jon Wiegand #16, Luis Diaz Barriga #22, and Miguel Reyes Varela #24. In doubles, Damico and Diaz Barriga were ranked #1 in the region.

Other Players with Austin area ties include Zach Nichols (TCU) #15 and Matt Bain (Texas A&M) #27.

In November the ITA released National and Regional Rankings for Division II schools and Saint Edwards University was ranked #16 in the Nation and #3 for the Central Region. St. Ed's players who were ranked for the region include: Boris Barrrios #10 and Justin Raiti #13. In the doubles rankings, Barrios/Raiti were ranked #5 in the region.

USTA Texas T-Shirt Sale on Saturday (Weather Permitting)

The USTA Texas Section will be selling T-Shirts for $5.00, or five shirts for $20 on Saturday, December 15, from 9am to 2pm. The USTA Texas Offices are located at 8105 Exchange Drive in Austin. (ATB Note: T Shirt picture is representative only, not sure which shirts they have.)

Directions: From I-35 take 290 East. Turn left on Cross Park (no streetlight), look for the blue sign on 290 indicating the U.S. post office, you will be entering the Walnut Creek business Park. Then turn left on Exchange (first intersection) The USTA office is the 2nd building on the right side of the road.

CATA Award Winners

At the CATA annual meeting, the following awards were presented:

Male Player of the Year: Leonard Smith

Female Player of the Year: Elizabeth Davis

Senior Male Player of the Year: Marvin Henderson

Senior Female Player of the Year: Carol Cofer

Captain of the Year: Mike Davis

Sportsmanship Award: Mary Larsh

Pro of the Year: Brian Notis

Contribution to Tennis Award: Tommie Pernell III

Partner of the Year: Courtyard Tennis Club

Reminder: CATA Meeting Tuesday Night...Ultimate Tennis Season One Wraps Up

Just a quick reminder that the CATA Annual Meeting will be held Tuesday Night at the Courtyard Tennis Club rain or shine, starting at 5:30pm.
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The first season of The Ultimate Tennis League wrapped up last weekend, with the finals and semi-finals being played at the Polo Club. Here is a list of the winners for each division:

Women's 2.5: Alicia Gobert
Women's 3.0 minus: Renae Friedrichsen
Women's 3.0: Karen VanGetson
Women's 3.5 minus: Michele Salter
Womens 3.5: Frances Johnson
Women's 4.0: Carol Bagaline
Women's 4.5: Laura Sherman

Men's 2.5: Steve Moseley
Men's 3.0: Eliot Walker
Men's 3.5 minus: Pavel Podniesinski
Men's 3.5: Vipin Sachdeva
Men's 4.0 minus: Stephen Donald
Men's 4.0: Michael Kaley
Men's 4.5 minus: Larry Bibb
Men's 4.5: Aaron Smith
Men's 5.0: Juan Dekruyff
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My experience with Ultimate Tennis was pretty good. It works essentially like a round robin tennis ladder, with matches played over a period of several weeks. I was in a division with about six other guys (a couple of them dropped out mid season) and for the most part had competitive matches and only a couple of defaults. In the playoffs I had a close semi final match against Jake Stine, then lost in the finals to Juan Dekruyff (who was playing left handed). All finalists received very nice trophies (in contrast to the last tournament final I played in, I got a pretty bad hat) and Champions also got a gift certificate for K Swiss shoes. I think Ultimate Tennis is great for people who aren't already busy with other leagues, or who are looking for new people to play. It looks like the league had a lot of players signed up in the 3.0-4.0 range.

CATA Annual Meeting Coming Up...UT Men Make National Indoors...Orange Bowl Draws

The Capital Area Tennis Association Annual meeting will take place on December 11 at Courtyard Tennis and Swim Club, starting at 5:30pm. This event is free to all CATA members and is an opportunity for CATA to recognize outstanding members of the tennis community and to update members on the latest CATA news and to have members vote for CATA Board member positions. See the CATA website for more details.

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The UT Men's team was recently named as one of the sixteen teams invited to compete at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Men's Team Indoor Championships, which will take place on February 15-18 in Seattle. Here's a link to the UT Men's Tennis website for more details.

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Browsing through the draws of the 61st Orange Bowl Junior Championships going on right now in Key Biscayne, Florida, I only saw one Austinite in the draws. Ashley Weinhold won her first round match in the Girls 18's draw, but lost to #8 seed Melanie Oudin 6-2, 6-3, in the second round. Click here for all the draws.

ATB Interview: Mark Gonzalez of Alpha Racquet Sports

ATB: Mark, a lot of people may not even know that Austin is home to a nationally known tennis manufacturer, can you tell us a little about the origins of Alpha Racquet Sports ?

Gonzalez: Sure, Alpha Sports was originally started back in 1984 by Dr. Michael Chiang, a local college professor, and Charles Lin, who oversaw the manufacturing in Taiwan. Eventually Dr. Chiang sold his interest in the company. Michael Lin became VP of our operation here in Austin.

ATB: What kind of products does Alpha sell ?

Gonzalez: We sell strings, grips, accessories, tools, and stringing machines.

ATB: What is New Tech Tennis ?

Gonzalez: New Tech Tennis is our in-house mail order division. They focus on sales directly to the consumer where Alpha is responsible for pro shop/specialty tennis stores.

ATB: What are the best selling Alpha products currently ?

Gonzalez: Our strength has always been our stringing machines especially our lockouts. Of course our Excel II grips continue to be a popular item both on a local and national level. Vengeance and Gut 2000 still top our list of strings sold.

ATB: Are there any new products that Alpha is excited about selling ?

Gonzalez: We’ve recently started importing products from Europe such as Stringway stringing machines and Topspin poly strings. A string that I have been personally excited about is Cyber Power 1.20. Cyber Flash is another Topspin product we just can’t seem to keep in stock, a very popular string too.

ATB: Where can people buy Alpha products around town or on-line ?

Gonzalez: Ruben at Pharr carries our strings and our grips can be seen at pro shops (in the grip buckets). In addition, we are located at 7208 McNeil Dr here in Austin and we have a lot of local players come by to visit and pick up product. You can also buy at http://www.newtechtennis.com/.

ATB: Thanks, Mark.

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It looks like a lot of ATL matches got rained out this weekend. A few scores that were reported: In D1, Old School beat Ad in 7-2, and in D3 Topspin beat Hall of Framers also by the score 7-2.

Bryan Brothers Clinch Davis Cup for USA

Bob and Mike Bryan beat Russians Nikolay Davydenko and Igor Andreev 7-6 6-4 6-2 in Saturday's doubles to give the United States an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the Davis Cup final. It's been twelve long years since the USA won the Davis Cup, the last time was in 1995 against Russia in Moscow. Austinite Andy Roddick has been a mainstay of the US team for several years now.