Smith, Singleton level up coaching knowledge at USTA Diverse Coaches Summit

“It all comes down to exposure,” Singleton said. “For the small organizations and CTAs, a lot of us are still learning and feeling our way through as we try to grow what our programs are. Being able to learn these things from all these different backgrounds and then incorporating it for ourselves, it’s great. The Diverse Coaches Summit was definitely one of those avenues where I was able to take a lot of those gems and now bring them back and start applying them to our everyday process.”

Smith and Singleton particularly enjoyed the opportunity to learn about and attempt blind/visually impaired tennis and wheelchair tennis. Former Paralympic standouts Shelby Baron and Kunieda, who won 28 major singles championships, demonstrated wheelchair tennis and fielded questions. Coaches in attendance also learned how to adapt tennis for the blind and visually impaired.

“It was just crazy how they were able to do the same things we were doing,” Smith said. “Because we don’t have disabilities, we don’t think of how hard it is for someone else to be able to play tennis who has a disability or how to even coach that. It was awesome.”

“Seeing wheelchair tennis on TV all the time and seeing it in person are two completely different things, especially at such a high level,” Singleton added. “It was amazing.”

High-performance coaches from the USTA Player Development program showcased drills for attendees to incorporate into their own tennis curriculum. Additional summit highlights included a presentation from WeCOACH—a nonprofit dedicated to developing women coaches that the USTA Missouri Valley recently partnered with—and sessions on LGBTQ+ inclusion as well as sports psychology.

The conference offered ample networking opportunities, too, which Smith and Singleton listed as a favorite component. Singleton was stunned to run into his former Alabama A&M University tennis teammate, who he hadn’t seen in about 17 years. Singleton, a self-described introvert, was likewise surprised by how much he enjoyed mingling with an assortment of fresh faces.

“Once the sessions start happening and the speakers are making us interact with each other, you get warmed up a little bit,” Singleton said. “You start going around and meeting people. You have lunch and start sharing stories. You start talking about tennis—your favorite players, the type of coaching you do, where you’re from—and then you build on that connection with everything else: music, movies, things like that.

“It was really an interesting thing. I wasn’t the only one that felt like that. Once we started interacting, shoot, by Sunday afternoon we were all sad to leave. We’re exchanging numbers, exchanging Instagrams. It was great.”

Singleton gave a shout-out to Andrea Snead, USTA diversity & inclusion director, for her organization, approachability and high energy throughout the festivities in Orlando. Smith was grateful to be hand-selected to attend and for all the knowledge she soaked up during the USTA Diverse Coaches Development Summit.

“It’s important because not all of our cultures are caught onto tennis,” Smith said. “My culture, they know basketball, football and baseball. We don’t have many of my kind in tennis. Just trying to make it more diverse. Having coaches from different backgrounds, I feel like they can bring in their crowd to help bring that diversity, help get more of us out.”

To learn more about the USTA Diverse Coaches Development Summit, click here. To read a USTA National article recapping the summit, click here.