DOUBLE VISION

Amy Bryant  0:09  

Oh, great. So you have had some success up there. Gustavus Adolphus last year, you coached national championship doubles team. And tennis is a unique sport because it’s an individual sport, but you’re playing on a team, as a team, you’re playing a team championship, and then, and then C, double A, there’s also in Division One and Division three. There’s also this individual championship at the end of the team championship. So how do you how did you get your players to continue to play when really their focus and because of the culture that you’ve shaped, there is really on the team and playing for each other, not necessarily playing for for themselves, talk us through that.

Tommy Valentini  0:52  

Well, I’ve had a few great mentors who I got to watch go through that process with their team and our team. So thank you. And, and this was, and this was a, this was a sliver of of the amount of individual championships that that you all were able to to win at Amy, I should say, we, I was a part of that for a little bit. Very great, gratefully. So, you know, this, this was a really interesting one. I mean, I think we try to frame all the individual stuff, like I said, under the umbrella of our culture. I think that’s the first and foremost. I mean, I think any of those guys we had some years ago, I the TED talk I did was about our team, Amy Dunkina and Maya Dennis, who made the NCAA championship and played a perfect match up through match point and then, and then lost in the championship match after having a match point. And we were so proud of him. I mean, I think that the big takeaway from them was they were incredibly successful because they lived out our team’s values on the toughest stage and in the midst of heartbreak in terms of getting as close as you can get to the final goal and not getting it. And so, you know, they continue to be inspiring 10 years after, and we wound up in the same situation again this year, which was really so cool, because I was equally grateful and proud of the two guys, Gage goal and Tyler had over one this year, because they did the same thing. They just happened to make one more ball. You know, that’s it. And so, in fact, they were much, much closer to losing many times over. I mean, they won. I think you and I talked about this, but they won seven, six in the third in the first and second round. I mean, they were, they were inches away from going home a few times, but I think you know that they would, any of those four would trade those individual championships for a team championship in the blink of an eye. And so I think we know that they know that, and hopefully we just frame what they did and how they did it, and what they learned along the way as a really important and helpful tool to help our our whole team grow. So I think that’s number one. But these guys were in a really unique situation this year. I think we learned a lot, and our team learned a lot, and we’ll continue to learn a lot from what they went through on mid April. Gage suffered an ankle injury, and the doctors told him eight weeks, Oh, yeah. And so we thought, not only, I mean, we thought we were in real trouble, he’s, he’s just, you know, a huge part of the heartbeat of our team in every way, you know, just in terms of what he produces, but how he leads and how he competes. And so we thought, you know, he was done, you know, later on, after the tournament, was that, you know, their dads are good friends, and showed a text, we’re like, hey, sorry about the ankle, you know, bummer. Will have to wait until, you know, spring of 25 to see if they can, they can get one. And so we had incredible trainers. He worked so hard. He got himself back to a spot where he could, he could play, you know. So, you know, we’re barely able to be in the tournament to begin with, which I think put us in a position to be extremely grateful to be there. And I think that changes everything. I think, when you have gratitude for the moment, no matter what it is, rather than the need to prove or the need to win or validate, or, you know, have your ego be, you know, satisfied, or your self worth be fulfilled by winning. Like we went to St Louis. They, you know, they had another teammate who was playing in the singles, and so there was three of them there, and they were just having a blast. And really, honestly, more than any other situation I’ve been in as a coach, just grateful to be there, because gage really was supposed to still be in a in a boot, you know, he had a grade three. I am not that kind of doctor, but he had the worst kind of ankle problem you could have, you know. And so that was the first part. And then the second part, I think, where we learned a lot, which I think some wider than tennis, wider than doubles, universal ideas here is they knew that everybody there was good like, I think, especially as you when you you know this, when you talk about the doubles in the NCAA, what are the 3000 doubles teams in the country, right? You’re talking about the 16 best. They’re all nasty. They’re all can play. They all any one of them can win, right? And they knew that we could play our best and live out our values at the highest level and still lose, right? And so now you’re thankful to be there. Now you know that it’s going to be difficult. You’re not expecting to beat anybody. Oh no, when you go to the NCAA, right? So you know it’s all they’re all going to be tough. And then I think another thing that they did incredibly well, is they, they saw the big picture. So a classmate of theirs, Gustavus a few years ago, and I’m I’m gonna get there. I’m gonna get back around as long, long story, longer as one of my colleagues likes to say, but, but the few when they were first years, so they were sophomores, when they won, when they were first years, a classmate of theirs played on the NCAA championship team in women’s hockey for Gustavus. They beat amys on triple overtime to win the national championship, and they just had this incredible run. And it was incredible for whole community. Four of them, the summer after, were in a car accident together, and one of the young ladies was was killed, and it’s been just so tragic for obviously, her family and Gustavus and their program and everybody. It just, you just never in the world the same way. And she was a friend of these guys and a classmate of them, and a fellow student athlete, and about 20 minutes before we were going to go out and play the national championship match, it was us. Championship match, it was us and Swanee. And you know how it gets at the end of the tournament, nobody else was there, right? And it’s the doubles and it’s the last match, so everything’s kind of quiet, and you play the semis in the morning, so you have this kind of limited window of time before you play the final. It’s not that long. And so you come back and you’re getting ready again, but it feels kind of like a ghost town, you know, especially if someone’s playing that’s not from the host place. And so, you know, we got three uniforms, we got blacks, golds and whites, and they had played three rounds and worn them all. And about 15 minutes before the match started, Tyler came up to me, and he said, Hey, can I ask you a question? And I was thinking he was going to ask something about the match or tactics, or who should serve first, or whatever. And he said, Hey, are you cool if we wear our our shirts with jory’s number on the back in the finals? And I said, you know, I got goose bumps all over. And I said, Absolutely, you know, because they had saved them in, you know, in case they made the final. It was the fourth match, and you know, just that 15 minutes before they go play the biggest, most pressure packed match of their young lives, right? They also had the sense that it wasn’t that big of a deal, right? It was just, it was another tennis match, and here was this, this thing that was going on, you know, in their lives, but more so in the lives of their friends and their friends families. That was way, way bigger than that. And so to take the opportunity to honor her and have that visibility, you know, for her friends and family and program, and that moment was like where most kids would be nervous and ready to vomit in the bathroom of the little, tiny, old locker room there in St Louis before they went out. That’s, that’s what was on their minds. And so I was like, minds. And so I was like, they get it. They understand the big picture. We’re going to be okay either way. And so that was such a special moment to, kind of, for me as a coach, to realize, like, Hey, I also have to keep the big picture in mind here as well. Win, win, win, lose or draw. They taught me so much there. And then the last thing is, I remember we got out of there so quickly afterwards that they forgot to, they didn’t do the interview with them. And so they wrote the next day, and they wrote our sports info, and they said, Hey, can we do a zoom call with them? And I’m going, oh boy, you know, here we go zoom call with these 2 20 year olds. You know, I’m not around to supervise the interview. There’s no, you know, who knows, but I say that jokingly. I mean, I have so much trust in them, and so I did this interview, and I watched when I was done, and I was just so moved because they asked, you know, engage, especially put words to this right, like, how were you guys able to get to this level and handle all these big moments so well? And he said, Well, it’s something that we talk about a lot, but we really felt in this week, like not only were we grateful to be there, but we were having so much fun, and we knew that whether we won or we lost in any of those moments, whether it was, you know, in the first round, in the round of 16, in a tie break, or in the third set of The championship match with the whole thing on the line, right? Like our coaches and our families and our teammates and our friends loved us the same, right? Like, like there was nothing that we had to prove that winning would give us, that losing wouldn’t right. Their best friends, their roommates, you know, they have incredible support from their team. They’re incredibly supportive to their team. He said, really that understanding gave us the type of freedom that we needed to really let go and let it fly. And what you kind of realize is the only way you have a chance in those moments is to have that freedom. But the only way to have that freedom is to really let go of being defined by whether you get over the line or you don’t, and you talk about all the time, but to really genuinely have that feeling. I think there’s so much work that goes into that culturally, for themselves, individually, from your team, from your coaches, from your families, from everybody, that everybody has to be on board to create that, that freedom. And then you, then you have a chance, and they and then, and then they, they capitalize on the chance. But that, I think those are kind of the lessons right, like whether they won or they lost, and the first thing I told them when I hugged them was that I was so proud of them for for how they went about doing this, not, not because that they won right? Because that’s genuinely how I felt. And it’s the same thing I told Amy and Maya 10 years ago when they when they didn’t win by by an inch, by a literal one inch. And but I think that’s also so important in those moments to reinforce that right, so that they know that, yeah, we got the result. But really, I just love being a part of this with you, whether you got the result or you didn’t go.

Amy Bryant  11:27  

Wow, that’s powerful. I mean, listen, being able to teach your athletes to have that freedom is not an easy task that is years and years of work for for these student athletes, and it’s just being part of that culture. You can’t, you can’t just say, go out there and be free, or go out there and play for something bigger than yourselves. I mean, like, it’s so easy to say these, but to actually live it and do it, it, it’s it’s just continual practice. And honestly, I mean when I say years and years, I don’t mean years and years when they’re in college for there’s four years. I mean years and years starting in the youth sports space. If they have the right culture, if they’re being taught the right lessons, if they have the right support system in place from home, then that’s something that they can really find later on. But if in those big pressure moments, if they’re constantly struggling to find that freedom from an early age, because parents have put that pressure on them like this is all about winning. This is all about being invited to play at the higher League. This is all about getting recruited. This is all about getting the attention of somebody or this is all about me being able to say to my friends at the dinner table that you’re better than their kid. Whatever that pressure is that your child feels. Trust me, they’re feeling it. Can sense it. You can’t keep it from them. So you’ve got to live and breathe these values in order to give your child the freedom that they need when that big, huge moment really does come in their life. One other thing I did want to mention here too, because you know you’re, you’re, you’re so kind to bring me up as a mentor to you, but I’ve always felt like you were a mentor to me, but I feel like we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the late great Steve Wilkerson here, who I know was an incredible mentor to you as well. Can you share maybe something that you learned from him? I mean, he created that tennis and life camp, which is all about spreading positive values through sport, anything you want to share about Steve or what he’s taught you, because I know, I know he’s he taught you way more than I did.

Tommy Valentini  13:47

Yeah, no. I mean, listen, I again, I’m so grateful for our friendship and for you letting me be a part of the program. There it was, you know, incredibly meaningful, and continues to be so for me, in all of my coaching and obviously our friendship, you know I knowing that that you’re in my corner is just an incredible gift. And I know that you know that I’m I’m always in yours, which is a gift as well for me. So Coach was, it’s hard to believe next, next week, it’ll be, it’ll be 10 years since he, he left us and but it’s weird. It feels like he hasn’t really, in some ways it’s hard to put in words. I mean, I came to attend. I was it was really lucky in that the first the two coaches I played high school tennis for in Duluth. Had played for him here, and so I only was ever coached in competitive team tennis by either him or people who played for him. And they sent me to camp when I was about 14 and 15, which was just that such a crucial time in my life. I mean, I think when you meet people is so important too. And so as a kid, you know, my parents split when I was little. I didn’t grow up in the same house as my dad, even though we have a really great relationship, you know, and I was just trying to figure it out. And hockey was so crazy and intense, and I was a goaltender, and I was okay, but I wasn’t the best, and I was trying to navigate that and these teams and so much of who I was was defined by what I was doing when I was playing, and then I got here when I was 15, or whatever age it was, to camp for the first time was only like four days, but just being in that space with him and sort of feeling what felt like in this different approach, which was so different from anything I’d ever experienced, right? Like you’re not defined by what you accomplished, but there’s still this incredibly high standard of living out these values. That was sort of the first moment where I was like, I don’t know what’s going on here. I kind of feel it in my bones, you know, if I’m going to keep playing, I kind of need more of that. And then I was just fortunate to play for him and to work with them and for him, and then, you know, to be the next head coach after him. And he was only supposed to live about nine months after we transitioned him out of being the head coach and me into being the head coach. And he was writing his book at the time called Let love serve. And he was, you know, a number of beautiful things. One of them was beautifully stubborn, and I think he wanted that book done, and he wanted to hang around as long as he could, to for a number of reasons. And so we wound up living about five more years, and was able to be here with me and helping when I was becoming a head coach at far too early and unprepared, of an of an age and stage. So, I mean, I think he taught me. I mean, he’s like a coach and a teacher and a friend and a parent and a grandparent and all those things combined into one in all the best ways. But I think at the heart of it, he did two things that were incredible, that I think can be super useful for parents as well. He was incredibly, like I said, beautifully stubborn in terms of living out our values, even when it was most hard, even when he was facing cancer, and, you know, a cancer that they said they had cured, and they took out his kidney, and he could have been bitter and just said, you know, how’d you miss this or whatever? And then kind of was a pretty, pretty standard Lee, curable cancer, and all of a sudden he had it all over his body six months later, and was uncurable at that point. And, I mean, he could have pouted, and he could have been negative, and he just said, you know, this is another opportunity for me to live out my values in the midst of a result that didn’t go the way I wanted it to go. It’s no different than the things that he was trying to teach us in the context of of the dumb game every day. And so to see him model that so clearly when the chips were really down, I think was the most powerful thing that I experienced, but also being taught by Him. I’ve said this a few times he had, he was the most incredible user of what I call double vision that I’ve ever seen, which is he had an incredible ability to see me and my teammates and any of us that were fortunate enough to work with him and for him, where we were at a given Moment, which from 18 to 22 was not always our most sparkling moments on and off the court. He had the incredible ability to see us and meet us where we were in those moments and be, you know, honest and challenging and difficult with us in those moments, if that’s what we needed, and really help us and guide us through those moments, while at the same time holding intention this vision of us as what we were capable of when we were at our best. And he never let go of either one of those, those things he saw us one of his eyes he saw us with where we were at at the moment, and the other one, the other part of the double vision was to see us as what we and treat us as what we could be capable of when we were at our very best, and that ability to do those things at the same time and hold those intention, I think, helped and inspired a lot of people to be able to live out their values and our values when, when things got tough, and, and, and I think that was a gift that he gave, not only to me, but to 1000s of people. So, yeah, he’s, he was, he was the best, and it’s an honor to be a part of that, that that legacy.

Amy Bryant  19:32  

Well, and that’s a gift that you give to your student athletes now, and that’s a gift that you give to your children now as well. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s the legacy, and we pass it on and and I think by having conversations like this and sharing them with other parents, I think that we can spread that legacy as well. Tommy, thanks for for being here today. It is always a pleasure, and I look forward to doing it again soon, if you have time.

Tommy Valentini  19:59  

Oh, it’s my pleasure. I’m so, like I said, so grateful for you and so grateful that you’re doing, doing this work. It’s, it’s going to make a huge difference in any time, anytime anybody ever bails on here. You got an empty slot, or you need, you need a the audio verbal sleeping pill that I can provide for people you, you let me know, and I’ll be there in a heartbeat.

Amy Bryant  20:21  

Love it. Thanks. All right.