Coming from the world of tennis player development in my previous career, I was exposed to the best leaders and sports scientists in the world. I was lucky that I had access to them. I learned and grew as a coach, studying their ways of modern teaching and coaching methodologies.
As I transitioned over to Pickleball, I noticed that a comprehensive junior program did not exist in this sport. Not trying to insult any other business or entities so outright here, but just made an observation.
One of my passions is player and athletic development. Thus, it made sense, now that pickleball is a viable professional sport where players can make a living off of it, to have a program that can develop a player from tot to youth to teen to professional player, just like there is in tennis.
This is where the idea for Slate’s junior STAGE program came to be. My previous knowledge combined with the Long Term Athlete Development model were the first roots.
I am hopeful to see the pickleball world start to embrace sports science. The athleticism required to be a successful professional pickleball player has skyrocketed in the last few years. I know that developing a child from the ground up to be a pickleball player the right way (remember racquet sports are late specialization sports so they shouldn’t exclusively be doing pickleball their whole childhood) will result in incredible levels of play that simply do not exist yet.
The Level 2 certification for the PPR (Professional Pickleball Registry) looks to be a great start in the right direction. It is a more robust certification than Level 1, which, in my opinion, is quite needed.
And that is where junior STAGE will step in, the first fully realized junior development program of its kinds for pickleball. It will help grow the sport.
Curious to know more? Check out our junior programs page HERE.
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I can’t wait to present our programming to you all when we open! It’s gonna rock the pickleball world!
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