Bryan Shelton: It Takes a Team

I'd really never thought about coaching, but as I thought more about it, I said, 'It really is education. It's helping young people in something that I know a lot about.' Next thing I knew, I was working with some young people that were really good tennis players. Andy Roddick, Robby Ginepri and Bobby Reynolds were some of the top juniors at that time, and we had so many great players who I got to be around. I gained a lot of positive experience, especially working with a lot of the other coaches who were involved. I learned so much about coaching from them, and that really helped me. I came full-circle when Kenny Thorne [men's tennis coach at Georgia Tech and Shelton's former teammate] called me and said they had an opening for the women's coach at Georgia Tech. It was pretty special to have gone to school there and then go back. To be able to do it with one of my best friends — we'd grown up together in the same junior development program in Huntsville, we played four years together at Georgia Tech, and now we were back leading the teams together — it was incredible. I knew that God had put me here for a reason, that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. 

I always say that what you accomplish with a team just trumps anything you can do as an individual. Dealing with adversity together, or celebrating great success together — it's much richer to do that with a group, especially with a group that you really care about. A lot of things I was taught at a young age by my parents, Bill Tym and my college coaches, are what I want to impart on the players that I work with, so that when they look back, they don't think of just the tennis. They'll think of the life lessons, the experiences that they've had with others of the same age. At 18 years old, you still need some help and direction in your life. You're becoming a young adult and it's a key transitional phase in your life before you're out there on your own. I'm just trying to continue to instill some of the values that their parents started to instill in them from the time they were born, and help them navigate through things. I want to help them manage themselves and their time, teach them how to cooperate with others... and how to push each other, compete hard against each other every day to sharpen their competitive tools, but still remain in the same family together.

One of the things I've always tried to do is model the behavior that I want my athletes to own and to go through life with. I always want my athletes to feel like I'm going to be present, whether that's with my door open, or on the court with them early or late. I want to teach them a lot of the things that are going to help them be successful in life, and show them that a lot of things that we're working on can be applicable in other areas of their lives. Forehands, backhands and serves are obviously things that we do, but they're not the most important things for us as coaches. This is a great time in their lives: they have all this energy, their minds are sharp, they're still learning at a fast rate and they're developing. To be a part of that is a real privilege for me.

If I could give myself advice as a kid, I would say, 'Continue to value the people that really care about you, and let them know that you value them.' In this world, you can't do it alone. I was fortunate to have so many good people around me to push me to continue to work hard, and taught me valuable lessons. I had great parents and a great family that continually poured into me and taught me how to go about living my life the right way. I would go back and tell myself that it's going to be a journey, it's going to be a process, but to be patient and continue to do things that are going to make you better and make other people better around you. Understand that that's what you're called to do. 

Tennis is, in so many ways, an individual sport, but when you combine the team aspect to it, and you're part of something that's bigger than yourself, that's pretty special.