Summer afternoon silence hung over the vast athletic complex at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School last Friday, broken only by the uptempo exhortations of Eric Pease to his six charges on the MVRHS tennis courts.
Mr. Pease, 32, was working with students at the Nike Tennis Camp sponsored by the MV Airport Fitness Center. These campers, from eastern U.S. cities and suburbs, comprised the fifth of six 2016 weekly camper groups to participate in the program devised by Connie McHugh, MV Airport Fitness director.
The five young women and one young man, ranging from 10 to 15 years of age, were taking their tennis immersion seriously. Only a few raised their heads minutes later to watch a massive government jet’s final low approach en route to Martha’s Vineyard Regional Airport in advance of the First Family’s annual vacation, which began on Saturday.
Not that the POTUS trip was uninteresting, more that Mr. Pease’s footwork drills required their full attention. “Look. Watch. Sometimes I have to take 15, 20 tiny steps to move only one foot to be in position to return a shot,” he told them, lobbing shots across the net that required the kids to emulate his example.
Mr. Pease had said earlier that learning tennis footwork is the major first step for new players. “You have to be in position to hit the ball. From a technical standpoint, working on hand-eye coordination and racket grip are critical skills to practice, but I’d rather kids miss the shot using the right form than to make [the shot] with poor form.
“Serving is the most important and the most difficult skill for a junior player to master. You can’t win a point or a match unless you can serve,” he said.
Mr. Pease, a Falmouth resident and distant relative of the ancient line of Island Pease’s, knows what he’s doing. “I bring high energy to the instruction because I can influence [tennis mastery] with that approach. I want to instill self-confidence in addition to teaching tennis skills,” he said during a break.
Mr. Pease has been coaching tennis for 20 years by his reckoning, first as a camp counselor. He is a product of a tennis family. His dad, a U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) professional,operates the Kevin Pease School of Tennis in Falmouth. Eric Pease and two siblings are high-achieving players and tennis teachers around New England and beyond.
He knows when to have fun — lunch break involved some water bottle squirting — but when it’s go-time, he and his students take it seriously. And it is serious for the kids,
“I like the game, it’s interesting and it is a scholarship sport. If you are good enough, you can get a college scholarship,” said 12-year-old South Chicago resident Noah Jackson. A mature seventh-grader, Noah reminded this aged reporter of a time when 12-year-olds weren’t thinking about college scholarships, if they were thinking at all.
“I’ve really improved since I first got here on Monday. No question I was awful, but I’m a lot better today. Serving and volleying, sharpening game skills. Yeah, I definitely want to play in high school,” Noah said.
Coach Pease agreed that a week of intense tennis work creates marked improvement: “The 30 hours of tennis they’re getting this week is almost equal to a year’s worth of tennis for a once-a-week player. I teach the kind of crossfit things on the court — footwork, lunges, pushups — they can do off the court.
“Those skills are more helpful at a young age. Being willing to do the work is the challenge with the distractions at the high school level. The mindset is: You work out to play tennis. You don’t play tennis to work out.”
Not a problem for this group, who signed on to improve their skills to compete in programs back home. Molly Boltin, 15, plays on her high school tennis team at Little Red, a highly competitive school in SoHo in Manhattan’s West Village. “This has been really great, a fun atmosphere. I’m improving at rallying and at doubles play, which is a goal since I’m primarily a singles player,” she said.
Hope Donovan, 14, signed up to relearn rusty skills. “I stopped playing tennis a couple years ago when I got competitive with travel softball,” she said. Hope is an incoming freshman at The Potomac School in Virginia, and wants to play tennis there. “Mr. Pease helped a lot with my game generally. It takes a while to relearn and I’m getting better,” she said.
Nyla Liburd is a tall, dynamic 10-year-old who is thrilled to be from Brooklyn, and is excited to learn the game in order to compete at her school tennis program. “I like tennis and exercises that help in everything you do, especially in track, another sport I have strong interest in,” she said.
Madeline Steigman, 14, is another high-energy camper. “I’m into tennis. I did this camp last year,” the Worcester resident said. “We don’t have tennis at my high school, but I want to show my club tennis coach that I’ve improved so I can play in club tournaments.” Ms. Steigman is hoping that improvements made this week in her serve and backhand game will accomplish that.
Back at Airport Fitness, Ms. McHugh is smiling now that a pilot program launched with Nike’s endorsement last summer had doubled its enrollment in its first full season. “We have a partnership with Nike, which vetts every program before committing. They help with joint advertising and provide an online registration system,” Ms. McHugh said. Tuition for each one-week session is $450.
“We had a four-week program with seven to nine kids participating last year. This year we have six weeks with double the enrollment,” she said last week. “We occasionally get an all-star, but most kids are moderate to beginning level players. After a week, they are little tennis players,” she said.
Good news for these kids who want to learn tennis to help shape their futures.