Acquainting schools with the USTA’s new  innovative youth tennis brand, Net Generation,  has been a major priority of Neil Thakur, Eastern’s Tennis Service Representative on Long Island, who has been delighted by how fast many Long Island schools are considering and embracing tennis as tool for early childhood physical literacy.
 
For the past nine months, USTA Eastern’s Community Tennis and Marketing staff have been concentrating on helping teachers introduce tennis in physical education classes and after-school programs.  
 
“Tennis is a whole body sport and is an excellent tool for teaching hand/eye and foot/ eye coordination, which is an important skill we aim to develop through our physical education classwork,” said Chris MacDonald, a phys ed teacher at Deasy Elementary School in Glen Cove “Coupled with the agility and short bursts of speed that are fundamental parts of tennis play, tennis offers a fun way for us to teach these important skills that kids will need as they get older and want to play competitive sports.”
 
The Net Generation curriculum is a great tool for bringing tennis into school settings. ADVERTISEMENT With shorter racquets and lower-bouncing balls, tennis can easily be taught in smaller open spaces.  A full court and a net are no longer needed to effectively teach the sport’s fundamentals.  In fact, school gyms are a perfect and safe venue for teaching tennis to beginners.
 
Neil and several LI tennis programs have collaborated to offer PE teacher trainings and in- and after-school programs in towns across the Island, including Freeport, Franklin Square, Baldwin,  Glen Cove, Hauppauge, Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Rocky Point and, most recently, Port Washington.  As part of the Net Generation school program, Neil and local Net Generation providers facilitate free training to all districts’ elementary PE teachers, and partner them with a local provider or club who can assist them with their class and offer after-school programming as well.  Currently USTA Eastern provides this service to elementary schools but will soon be expanding to middle and high school later this year and in 2019.
 
USTA offers a big incentive to schools that want to incorporate tennis into their PE curriculum: through Net Generation, schools can receive FREE equipment and easy-tofollow lesson plans that make offering school tennis seamlessly easy for teachers and volunteers. The equipment starter kits include:
 
The kits include: 1 tennis rolling bag, 30 youth racquets, 45 tennis balls, net tape and chalk.
 
 If you think the elementary school in your district is a good candidate for Net Generation’s tennis equipment grant or would like learn more about how easy it is to bring tennis into your community’s school(s), please contact please contact Neil Thakur and be sure to visit NetGeneration.com.