San Diego JTT Spring Season Kicks Off with Coaches Meeting at La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club

The Spring Junior Team Tennis season started with a gathering of about two dozen coaches who share a meal, learned new rules and offered feedback to JTT San Diego Area Coordinator Conan Lorenzo recently at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. Lorenzo, also the Director of Tennis at La Jolla Beach and Tennis, ran the meeting with his usual generosity and good-natured leadership style. He was joined by Ken Grassel, the Manager of JTT for Southern California. The two offered the following information.

NCSI Background Screening is mandatory for all coaches and captains. Please see the website if you need to renew your SafePlay: https://www.sandiegoteamtennis.com/safe-play.
The San Diego JTT 2018 Calendar is below:

Jan 24: Registration Begins
Feb 18: Deadline to Create Teams
Feb 25: Last day to register players; season begins
May: Season Ends

Blackout dates are the following Sundays: USPTA Day, Mother’s Day and Easter. It will be up to the coaches to determine if they can have the match or not on those 3 days noted above. If both coaches can reschedule the match for another day, that would be fine. BNP Paribas Open weekends are NOT blackout dates.
T-Shirts: New Balance and San Diego Aviators will be helping with shirts this season. Please Contact Borja with NB at nbtennisrep@gmail.com. If you would like to get the San Diego Aviators Logo on the shirt, Jim Ault is willing to help with partial payment. Please email Jim at: jim@sandiegoaviators.com.
10U Orange Ball Division will be using correct sidelines for singles this season and moving forward. Therefore we need lines for each baseline and also each sideline. We are doing this to keep in line with USTA rules and regulations for 10U orange ball.
Time Changes: We will be allowing time changes for clubs who have a lot of teams. Therefore look at the schedule closely to make sure you see the correct start time as not all clubs will be at the same “11:30am, 1:00pm, 2:30pm, 4:30pm and 5:00pm” start time possibly. We are growing with teams and therefore small time adjustments may need to be made.
Same scoring: We will keep the same scoring format as what the sandiegoteamtennis.com website indicates. However, if both coaches agree to a deviation of incorporating “ads” or “no ads” that is just fine, however the format of 8 game, best 2 of 3 and so forth needs to stay the same due to “score entry” into the USTA site.
USTA Points for Play and UTR: The 18U will start to get their results inputted for UTR results, which is a plus.
Net Generation Equipment: SCTA Tennis Service Representative Karen Ronney spoke on Net Generation updates, 10U programs equipment purchases and SCTA Net Generation school’s tennis programs. For information, email ronney@scta.usta.com.
14U same scoring: We may see the 14U 3.5 have best 2 of 3 sets with a tiebreaker for the 3^rd played at Sectionals. Ken G. will look over the concept and see if it can be applied based on # of courts, hours and # of players.

Divisions: 10U to 14U: 10U cannot play in the 14U unless they have gone through the youth progression. A 10U can play on a 12U team though if they have a rating applicable to the level.
Setting the Tone: Make sure Assistant Coaches set the tone right when talking to parents and players at the beginning of the matches. See this site for what is expected of all coaches when doing a line-up, speaking to players/parents and more: https://www.sandiegoteamtennis.com/coaches-match-speaking-points.