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Emily Waters

Susan Lester

Advanced Grammar and Composition

5 March 2012

Speech Outline

How would you feel about not even knowing how to grip a racquet but yet going on to

pursuing and receiving a college tennis scholarship? On my fifth birthday, I received a tennis

dress from my parents and the first thing my dad said was, “You can wear that when you go to

Wimbledon.” I never really took that into consideration when I was five. I said I would but

without even really understanding what it was. Three years later, after a basketball game for

Macedonia elementary school, my teammates asked me if I would like to start an ALTA tennis

team for Woodmont. I did not have any idea what ALTA was, but my dad always talked about

tennis around the house. Our coach was Todd Miller and he would always have a saying we

would do about hitting the ball correctly: Stop, Step, Hit, Flashlight. This phrase stayed with me

through middle school all the way up to my senior year. He was a huge impact in my life because

he started me on my path to a tennis scholarship. He was my beginner coach who gave me all the

techniques and knowledge I needed to know to go to the next level: junior tournaments. When I

reached high school, I moved to a new tennis academy in Forsyth County. My coach is Jim Harp

and he helped me develop more into the player I am today. He got me on the path to reach above

100 in the south and top 40 in the state of Georgia. He is like a second father to me because not

only did he help me improve tremendously with my tennis skills, but he was always there for me

to talk to him when I needed something or to give me life lessons. Working with Jim Harp has

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made me enjoy teaching people about tennis and giving them the knowledge to perform at high

levels. Since I enjoy teaching others about tennis I wanted to inform people about the risks of not

keeping their bodies healthy while playing tennis and working out.

Furthermore, my research paper was over the effects of injuries to the body while playing

tennis and ways to improve eating habits. The topic of my senior project is linked to my career

by me teaching a boy how to play tennis and giving him information about eating habits and

working out. I chose this topic because I love tennis and I have a passion to spread my

knowledge about it. In the research for my senior project I learned about eating correctly and if

players did not work out in the ways they should injuries would be knocking at their doors.

My facilitator was Jim Harp from Harp Performance Tennis Academy. My facilitator is my

tennis coach and he is familiar with being around beginners in tennis and knows what to expect.

He played in college at Perimeter. Then he circled the pro tour and decided that was not for him.

So he went on to coaching junior tennis. He coached the top juniors in the world after trying to

go pro. He has been my coach for two years and he knew what a facilitator was and was more

than happy to be mine for my senior project. He tried to go pro and he knows what it takes to get

to that level and will push anyone who is willing to get to that level as well. He is determined to

make as many opportunities for kids as he needs to. Knowing all about my facilitator, we had

some ups and downs with the process in getting to the end.

There were not as many steps taken to complete this project, but in some steps there were

some problems we faced but the first step was to figure out what my product would be. First, I

wanted to put the boy I was going to teach into a USTA tournament but I thought about that

more and it would cost me around one hundred dollars to do so. My coach thought that hosting

my own tournament would be much more fun and I would learn more because I would be

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managing the tournament from start to finish. Next, I had to find someone who would be

interested in learning tennis and playing in a competitive tournament. I asked around and finally

found Bennett Gibbs, a freshman at Creekview High School. He was so excited to get started

with me. Then, my coach and I had to establish a meeting time that could fit into both of our

schedules. There was a problem with meeting on the weekends so we met on Mondays during

my private lessons. We worked on the basics during the first five hours because Bennett needed

to get the hang of things before actually competing. The second set of five hours, we worked on

match play. He could not keep score very well. I took him step by step on how to keep score and

the numbers you use in the scoring process. I let some of my academy players play him to see

what the competition really is in the tennis world. He could not keep up with the higher players

so I told the academy players to slow the ball down and to not go for winners but to let him

actually hit the ball with no problems. The last five hours I was impressed with him because he

would come to me outside of when we practiced to go hit some. He would always ask me if he

was doing something right or wrong and always wanted me to be watching him during practice.

High school tryouts were coming up so Bennett told me he wanted to get ready for them. We

worked on tweaking his game and improving little parts of his serve. He went on to make the

high school team playing line two doubles. After high school tryouts were over I needed to

figure out what day to host my tennis tournament. I decided that it would have to be on a

weekend so March 10, 2012 was the only open weekend I had available. I made flyers and

emailed them to all the girls and boys tennis players on the high school team. Many were very

interested in the tournament and signed up. I had a little trouble with finding the courts to host

the tennis tournament because I was going to use the high school courts but I had to get

permission from the administration before I could do anything. I did not know that I had to do

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that so I changed the location to the Woodmont courts. Since I do not live in Woodmont, I

personally could not save the courts so I had one of the girls on the tennis team, Alexis Pache,

reserve the courts for me. For the snacks and refreshments, I had peanut butter crackers, granola

bars, bananas, goldfish and bottled water. I printed out official USTA medical release forms for

them to all fill out before the tournament. In the end, everything went smoothly and I had a good

amount of people show up to my tournament. For the winners I purchased ten dollar gift cards to

Brain Freeze. Those went to Eric Daniel and Erik Gammon. Eric Daniel is on the Creekview

tennis team and Erik Gammon being a friend from academy is on the West Forsyth tennis team.

With the few problems I had I still have learned a little about myself about planning and

contacting others.

The saying my coach tells me if I am not playing my best is just find a way to win. I am

a procrastinator but I pulled through with learning to contact people through different ways. I

used email, Facebook, and text messages through the year to communicate with my facilitator

and people that were in my project. This field is definitely not for me because I do not enjoy

watching sports all the time and dealing with people to plan different events that are associated

with sports. I am going to Tusculum College which is in Greeneville, Tennessee on a scholarship

to play tennis and I will pursue Graphic Design as my major and soon go to Graduate school and

major in Interior Design and one day work for Montgomery Roth. It is a total opposite swing

from the Recreational field but I enjoy this field much better. Thank you for letting me inform

you all about my senior project and the steps I took in pursuing it.

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