Insights on "Serving Up Winners"

Insights on "Serving Up Winners"

Dennis Emery

The author and storyteller of Serving Up Winners: Ten Steps to Building Your Program is a former collegiate athlete himself and a fabled University of Kentucky tennis coach. After coaching Division I tennis for over 30 years, Dennis decided to share his wisdom, stories, and personal values with the masses. Whether you are a history buff, tennis coach, player, or even an avid UK Wildcat fan, this book has something for you.

Impressions

Growing up in Kentucky and training under local coaches, I knew bits and pieces of the UK program history; Eric Quigley was a household name for tennis families when I was growing up. Serving Up Winners filled in my missing pieces for how UK became the national powerhouse it is today, attracting legendary players such as Eric. In addition to recounting the birth and growth of UK tennis, the book also portrays the popularity tennis once held in the U.S. I'd never heard of stadiums being filled for college tennis matches, and certainly have never seen it myself.

As a former player-turned-coach myself, I found Dennis' book impactful. I believe it will play a role in how I instruct tennis. Without spoiling details, Dennis recounts the experiences that shaped his coaching career with both players and fellow coaches. He explains how he shaped the program - his program - around first strike tennis. Dennis found success in his coaching philosophy and built his historic program around this play style. I'll let him explain it to you himself in chapter one.

For my non-tennis coach audience, Dennis also provides incredible lessons for constructing relationships and instruction on building a program - as hinted in the title. If you're looking for professional insights, program inspiration, or teacher-pupil guidance, Serving Up Winners offers it all. As to be expected from someone with such a long and successful career.

Recommendations

I would almost separate Serving Up Winners into two parts. In the first five chapters, I was enthralled by Dennis' coaching - his mindset, lessons he'd learned, and coaching strategies. The latter half of the book seemed like a history of UK tennis and its players. If you are only looking for coaching tips or advice and are short on reading time, I would suggest the first half of the book. For Wildcat fans who may not care too much about the tennis details, definitely skim the first few chapters, but 6-10 are going to really interest you. Make sure to peruse the chapter contents laid out before the foreword - you may want to read certain "steps" first.

It is in this same realm that I provide my only criticism of the book. If you sit down to read Serving Up Winners front-to-back, you may find yourself exceedingly familiar with certain player achievements and accolades by the end of it. This may have been done to make the book readable from any chapter - all ten read well as standalone thanks to brief player introductions each time they are mentioned. However, this does make the latter chapters feel excessively repetitive at times.

Wrap-Up

For any aspiring tennis coach, Serving Up Winners is a must-read. Be it high school, college, or even academy, all coaches can learn from Dennis' collegiate coaching career. I hope you find the book as interesting as I did, and that it can help shape your future as I believe it will shape mine. Find his book on Amazon at:

Serving Up Winners: Ten Steps to Building Your Program: Emery, Dennis, Huang, Dr. John: 9798376539057: Amazon.com: Books
Serving Up Winners: Ten Steps to Building Your Program [Emery, Dennis, Huang, Dr. John] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Serving Up Winners: Ten Steps to Building Your Program