Team Challenge Series With Springfield Boys & Girls Club

Community outreach is an important part of what USTA Missouri and Springfield’s Cooper Tennis Complex do. Michael Marotta, Kyle Wartick, Jeff Putnam and crew took that to a higher level this winter.

That team put on a Team Challenge Series with the Boys & Girls Clubs in Springfield. They visited four of the five units and worked with more than 100 children in January and February. Marotta is the Tennis Service Representative for USTA Missouri Valley serving in the USTA Missouri district. Wartick and Putnam work at Cooper, as the Head Professional and Community Recreation Supervisor respectively.

“We did an hour’s worth of Team Challenges, which is the next step past the introduction to tennis level,” Marotta said. “It was a great way to introduce the kids to competition in a team environment.”

Cooper Tennis Complex has completed programs with Boys & Girls Clubs in the past and Marotta estimated half of this year’s participants had some sort of exposure to tennis. The rest of them were playing for the first time.

“In the past those programs used to be just basic instructional drills, but now we’re trying to turn it into a USTA product,” Marotta said. “I proposed the idea to give the kids a team environment and mix it up a little bit. We don’t want them to see the same thing over and over again and get bored.”

The Team Challenge sessions had three segments. First was free play, with little to no instruction. That was followed by athletic development and character building sessions.

“We wanted this to be something where they could have fun, so we used modified equipment, like smaller rackets and special balls. That gave them success early on,” Marotta said.

Though the program at the Boys & Girls Clubs has wrapped up, Marotta said they are looking to do more Team Challenges this summer at Cooper Tennis Complex.

Want to take part in a Team Challenge? Contact Marotta at 913-967-9833, or email mmarotta@movalley.usta.com. For information on youth programs at Cooper Tennis Complex, call 417-837-5800.

“Cooper Tennis Complex has lots of programs for kids and outreach is very important to them,” Marotta said. “They do a great job getting kids connected to tennis.”