Playing the Long Game: Coach Spotlight with Sharon Murphy

She got certified through PTR's teaching essentials program in Hilton Head — a week-long course that, at the time, still taught twelve separate steps to teaching a serve. "That's how things have evolved," she says. She means it as a compliment to where the profession is now, not a criticism on where it started.

From managing a club, to independent teaching pro at East Hartford Tennis Club, to PTR clinician, to a master professional certification in junior development — one connection led to the next. Steve Keller, a mentor she credits repeatedly, kept encouraging her toward the next level of education. She's been at East Hartford ever since, and the "master's," as she calls it, opened doors she hadn't seen coming.

The ebb and flow of variety

Ask Murphy what she likes best about her work and she doesn't point to any one thing. She points to the variety. In a given year she directs a Nike Tennis Camp, coaches at the high school level, runs a junior development program at East Hartford, directs roughly 20 sanctioned USTA tournaments, and teaches virtual coach education workshops, and serves as an in-demand Coach Developer for USTA’s Intro to Coaching (ITC) workshops. 

She focuses on beginner and low-intermediate players by choice, kids and adults alike, not by default. "I can hit with high-performance players," she says. "Can I coach them? Not really. I don't see the things a high-performance coach needs to see, just like a high-performance coach doesn't see the things I see in teaching a beginner." It's a distinction she holds without apology. 

A passion for learning

Murphy is now a Coach Developer for USTA Coaching, a role that requires her to keep studying new modules, new content, and new ways of explaining old ideas. She treats that requirement as an opportunity rather than a chore. In a note she sent after our conversation, she put it simply: her biggest takeaway from years of continuing education is reflection. She takes the time to reflect on everything now, and not just tennis. 

That habit shows up in how she describes the arc of her own coaching. Early on, she says, teaching was built around feeding balls and drilling technique. Today, her focus and the USTA’s, has shifted toward getting players to actually rally and play. Technique still matters, she's quick to add, but technique alone isn't the point. “You can have beautiful strokes and still not be able to play a point.”

She brings the same mindset to mentoring the young assistants who work under her, several of them fresh out of ITC workshops. She hands them lesson plans, walks them through the ROGY progression, and lets them find their footing. This includes the difficult lesson of learning to be the adult in a room full of kids they used to play alongside.

**A belief about coaching she's since abandoned:**  That standing kids in a line to feed them balls helps them improve.

**A moment she still thinks about:**  A UNH college match against Dartmouth's number-one player. Sharon won the first set 6–0 and led the second 5–0 — then watched her opponent settle in and take the match. "I was winning off her mistakes," Murphy says. "And then she just settled in, and it was all over."

**The best advice she's ever received:**  Be patient. Learning takes time — whether you're the one learning, or the one teaching.

**Finish the sentence: "The coaches who improve the most are the ones..."**

"...who are willing to continue their education to improve themselves."

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*Sharon Murphy has been a teaching professional for 26 years and currently coaches out of East Hartford Tennis Club in East Hartford, Connecticut.*