{"id":9,"date":"2007-03-25T19:52:38","date_gmt":"2007-03-26T02:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.IreneEng.com\/?p=9"},"modified":"2014-01-19T21:38:15","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T21:38:15","slug":"martin-the-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=9","title":{"rendered":"Martin the coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin hustles.
\nIt\u2019s last year this time when I met him as kids took the week long spring break lessons at the sport center in town. He taught Kinglazy\u2019s group. On the last day, he came out during one of the water breaks, and said to me,
\n\u201cOh, your son can play.\u201d
\nPardon me? I almost felt off the chair, or thought having hearing problem, for Kinglazy is kind of guy who looks for shades on the softball field, and runs from base to base like taking a victory lap, slow and unhurried.
\n\u201cOh, yes, he can<\/em> play. .. come on in and see for yourself..\u201d
\nI was thrilled. Getting my kids to play tennis or like tennis, is my life’s mission.
\nI went in. He fed Kinglazy few balls and were all nicely and powerfully returned. Hearing the deafening sound of the ball bouncing off my son’s racket, I was really, you know, happy. Happy beyond believe. After the lesson, he came to chat me up. He was an unemployed prosecutor from Florida; waiting to pass the New York State bar. I was thinking, I thought only the actors or artists are starving. By the end of our brief conversation, he offered me his phone number, and yes<\/em> he\u2019ll be glad to teach them.
\nThe etiquette or common sense goes, he\u2019s not supposed to poach us from the center. But I didn\u2019t care as long as my kids learn to play tennis and enjoy the game. It turned out they like him. And his salesmanship was somewhat subtle (I’m being sarcastic here). <\/p>\n

To make thing easy and help him out I paid 10 lessons in advance. The ensuing summer, between our vacations and his schedules, we only finished 9 lessons by September. Then suddenly, he just vanished, along with his cell phone. Then two months later, late November one night as I walked in at Alley Pond for my Friday night game, I heard the familiar voice,
\n\u201cHello Mrs. Eng ..\u201d Martin would never address me as Irene, even I told him early on. He claimed that he lost his phone. Hmmmm. Few days after that he called me (please note, I did not give him my phone number again at Alley Pond.) to say he\u2019s putting 3 girls together for intensive training, and Slowpoke would be a great candidate for the group,
\n\u2018They\u2019re going to play tourneys starting this spring .. \u2018
\nSlowpoke\u2019s swimming had just ended and said she\u2019ll continue the tennis with him. So here we are, with him again. Met April and Martha\u2026 His price has gone up 12.5% from last year, which is ok with me. But what\u2019s not ok with me is he begins charging the same fee when he coaches two or three girls; and more often than not, he\u2019ll fold his arms around his chest and chatting with others, instead, coaching. Excuse me, I\u2019m neither mean, frugal or dumb. An hour paid is an hour of decent work. If you want to split that hour or two with some other kids, you\u2019ve got to adjust your fee accordingly.<\/p>\n

Update:
\n2013: Martin is still around, teaching tennis in my neighborhood. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martin hustles. It\u2019s last year this time when I met him as kids took the week long spring break lessons at the sport center in town. He taught Kinglazy\u2019s group. On the last day, he came out during one of the water breaks, and said to me, \u201cOh, your son can play.\u201d Pardon me? I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kronicle","category-saga","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}