Leadership and Executive Development for women of all races, cultures and backgrounds
Issue link: https://diversitywoman.epubxp.com/i/510478
d i v e r s i t y w o m a n . c o m S u m m e r 2 0 1 5 D I V E R S I T Y W O M A N 33 T E N N I S E V E R Y O N E ? WE NEED TO TALK W hat does a sports executive do to unwind? If you're Katrina Adams, you go on national TV to talk about sports with some of the most intelligent and funny women in the sports universe. Adams is one of the regulars on CBS Sports' all-female sports talk show, We Need to Talk. Adams, boxer Laila Ali, basketball players Swin Cash and Lisa Leslie, swimmers Summer Sanders and Dara Torres, and well-regarded sports journalists including Lesley Visser and Andrea Kremer debate sports, crack jokes, and entertain the audience—and themselves. "I love that show!" says Adams. "Let me tell you, it's amazing to be able to work with these brilliant women. Everybody comes from so many different backgrounds, so many different sports, and what binds us is a passion for sports. We don't just talk about our own sport—we talk about sports in general. To bring a different perspec- tive and different viewpoint to sports without the testos- terone has been just fascinating." life skills, and nutrition and wellness classes for its student ath- letes. Te HJTEP serves as an after-school program for more than 1,000 youth in the New York City area, up from just 80 kids nine years ago. "Te ultimate goal of the program is using tennis as a vehicle for these kids to earn a college scholarship," says Adams. Ten, it is hoped, they would graduate college and launch into satisfying and productive lives. Te HJTEP's aim is to broaden lives—not narrow them into a tunnel-vision focus on winning (a young Katrina Adams probably would've hated it). In a perfect world, programs like the HJTEP would serve as feeder or model programs for the USTA, which would then work to develop the most promising of these tennis-ob- sessed—yet also well-rounded—youngsters into future colle- giate and professional athletes who will represent the United States internationally. However, there are few programs like the HJTEP in the United States. Terefore, the USTA has introduced a game, called 10 and Under Tennis, that utilizes smaller courts, smaller rackets, and bigger balls. "It's been a huge success across the country and in a lot of our inner-city programs and in city parks," says Adams. "Tink about it: When you look at basketball, kids don't start playing on an NBA-size court. Peewee football players don't start on an NFL-size feld, nor do young Little League players begin on a feld of Major League Baseball dimensions. Tennis should have the same goals as these other sports, which is, especially for play- ers of a young age, to make sure that it's fun." In a way, Adams's mandate is bifurcated—to make tennis fun and to produce future grand-slam champions. Te two don't al- ways go together. (Just ask Andre Agassi, who after he retired wrote a memoir in which he revealed that for most of his career, playing tennis made him miserable, in large part because of the pressure his father placed on him to win.) Like Adams, Andre Benjamin, a former HJTEP student and Division I college tennis player (Georgetown University) and currently a VP at Goldman Sachs, believes that those two mis- sions can coexist and indeed reinforce each other. "Making tennis fun is what allows you to get talented young kids to stay engaged with the sport," he says. "Tat said, once those talented kids have dedicated themselves to training and to being the best in the world, I still think they can't be miser- able, or they will fnd other things they'd rather do with their time. So, if tennis is made fun, they will then put the most en- ergy and efort into being excellent." In recent years, succeeding on the world stage has been a struggle for American tennis, especially on the men's side. As Adams points out, it's not that the talent in the United States has slipped; it's that the rest of the world has caught up. Te last US man to win a grand-slam tournament was Andy Roddick, in the 2003 U.S. Open. In 1984, 24 of the top-ranked men in the world were American. Tis year? Tree men rank in the ATP's top 50, as of press time, and nine American women rank in the top 50 in the WTA, with Serena Williams sitting pretty at No. 1. Adams takes issue with the expectation that Americans should dominate the tennis rankings. She emphasizes that not everyone can be No. 1 in the United States or world tennis rank- ings. Nor even No. 100. And that's OK. "Te unfortunate thing is that if you're not No. 1 in the world, then [people think] you've done nothing," she says. Nevertheless, one of the mandates of the USTA is to create champions. Te path back to American tennis prominence runs through the juniors program. In late 2016, the USTA will open a fagship complex in Orlando, Florida, for its player development program. "We are looking for our next American U.S. Open champion for sure," says Adams. "We have a lot of talented guys out there coming up, so it will happen." For Adams, tennis is more than a sport—it's also a life-changer. It's a means to an end, she feels, and that end is not raking in the trophies. It's developing well-rounded, healthy, engaged global citizens whose experiences and contributions cannot, like a tro- phy, be given away or tossed in a dumpster. DW