August 2, 2017 at 4:51 p.m.
Lessons set stage for Hodag tennis' success
Lessons set stage for Hodag tennis' success
It's all the hard work the team puts in during the offseason with the program's longtime coach.
Bob Heideman is wrapping up another summer of tennis lessons this week at the RHS tennis courts. He's been giving lessons five days a week since the middle of June. The lessons have been open to male and female players in the middle and high school ranks.
Heideman said the initial response to the lessons, which he's held for three decades now, was a little slow at the beginning of the summer, but he had a spate of kids signed up when the lessons began.
"We're up in the high 30s as far a people coming," he said. "It's ended up to be, numbers-wise, kind of an average year after that kind of scary start. We've had more people take vacations, but I've got a larger core that have come almost every day. That's a good sign."
There's only so much work that can be done during competition, tweaking strokes and improving fundamentals. The lessons afford Heideman and RHS assistant tennis coach Mark Jacobson nearly two months with players when there is nothing on the line in hopes of improving their games for the following season.
"What we do is we go through basically every stroke and spend time on it so that they have that great base ready for the season," Heideman explained. "We also do that in terms of doubles. (We make sure) that every player understands some key elements of doubles. Because you get in the season and you just don't know what's going to be required. You may have somebody who thinks they're going to be playing singles and they end up playing doubles. Now, they kind of know what's going on in doubles."
Tennis is one of several sports where coaches are allowed to have unlimited contact with their players during the summer months.
The lessons have a particular benefit for the girls who attend. They'll go straight from lessons into the first high school practice of the fall Aug. 8. They'll be playing matches less than a week later, so the nearly two months of practice in the summer give them a substantial leg up on the competition.
"With the girls, if you want to make a stride, you can do it and then you go right into the season," Heideman said. "I think of our No. 2 doubles (from 2016), Katie (Krueger) and Hannah (Stroede). Second week of the season we have that invite and they play a team from Merrill and just cream them. I'm talking 0-0, 1-1, something. Then they end up meeting that same team in the (WIAA) tournament and that team has now had a season to get better. It was a close match. I think that's an illustration of what the summer did for Katie and Hannah."
While the boys in attendance will have to wait through a long winter to put their refined skills to the test, Heideman said the objective of the camp remains the same as for their female counterparts.
"We're trying to build a base of fundamentals so that, during the season, that's there," he said.
In addition to helping the players get better, the lessons provide Heideman a glimpse into what his teams will look like in the future. That may be especially important this fall as the Hodags girls' revamp a starting lineup that included seven seniors, six of whom played in the Nos. 1 or 2 singles and doubles flights.
"I think the summer has given me reason to be optimistic about some young kids stepping into the opportunity that presents itself when you're losing that many varsity (staters)," he said.
The Hodag girls' tennis team will scrimmage Wausau West Aug. 12 at the RHS tennis courts and then travel to West for a two-day tournament to kick off the season Aug. 14 and 15.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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