NCHSTCA Meeting Minutes, January, 2022
NCHSTCA Winter Board Meeting
January 22, 2022
The meeting was held via Zoom due to the cancelation of NCTA Tennis Weekend in Pinehurst.
President Andrew Tuttle called the meeting to order with the following individuals in attendance:
Donald Clark – Vice President
Ken Hazen – Vice-President Emeritus
Lee Matthews – Secretary
Vic Ramsey – Treasurer
Jon Huffman – Technologist
Steve Rochkind – 4A Representative
Tim Medlin – 2A Representative
Heather Brooks - 1A Representative
Robert Hogewood – NCTA
Ted Reese – NCTA
The minutes of the summer board meeting were revised and approved.
Tim Medlin expanded on the topic of cheering during high school matches, noting that the UNC coach informed him that he absolutely agreed with allowing cheering during high school matches. The coaches agreed cheering would increase spectators at matches and create a more exciting atmosphere at team matches that gets extra players involved in the match. Coaches noted that unlike other sports it is up to coaches to police when cheering crosses the line, and this can be a problem for inexperienced coaches. Robert Hogewood suggested that this might be a topic for the summer clinic, and Heather Brooks suggested expanding the topic to basic tennis etiquette.
A coach submitted a recommendation to use two balls per court in matches instead of three to reduce costs. The board agreed that ideas such as this could be utilized on the conference level when agreed to. They also suggested that coaches could contact their community tennis associations for assistance with match expenses.
The board discussed Vic Ramsey’s proposal for an “Everybody Plays” Dual Team Tournament. This would be an open tournament; every school that wanted to play could. Coaches agreed that this would solve the problems of poor seeding and good teams being omitted from the championship. An open tournament would also spur interest in tennis. Vic Ramsey moved to formally petition the NCHSAA open dual team tournament in the 2022-23 school year as a one-year pilot program in all classes without affecting the individual tournament. The motion was seconded by Tim Medlin and passed unanimously.
Vic Ramsey related a story about one of his former players, Sarah Dover. Sarah was a regional champion and state semi-finalist. She attempted to enter a USTA L4 event but was told she needed to play an L5 event before she could enter an L4. Vic suggested that since junior memberships were free every high school player should be a USTA member. High school conference tournaments, regionals, and state championships could become sanctioned USTA events. WTN would be useful for seeding purposes at the regionals. Vic and Donald mentioned that presently UTR was more accurate for seeding than players’ records. It would be simple enough to include a line for UTR on the regional entry form.
President Tuttle deferred discussion of the selection of teams and seeding for the dual team until June because of the “Everyone Plays” proposal. Ken Hazen suggested that we might meet at the NCHSAA headquarters. He said that in the past the board used to alternate between Greensboro and Chapel Hill for the summer meeting.
The members reminded Robert Hogewood about including etiquette as a topic for the coaches’ clinic. More discussion on that to come at the June meeting. Steve Rochkind said the clinic needs to be more exciting or interesting.
The meeting was adjourned.