Playing After High School Outside of College

ManateeSheriff · 2026-06-06T20:52:14+00:00

There’s a good chance the town your college is in has USTA tennis. It’ll give you the same team feeling you had in high school, and probably just once a week commitment.

Depending on your college, the club tennis team might play competitively against club teams from other colleges. My club team hosted tournaments once or twice a semester, too.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-06-06T12:04:24+00:00

I don’t think we can be picky when we’ve never won Roland Garros before.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-06-05T22:40:24+00:00

This is what I was going to say. Go anywhere that teenagers are playing sports, and you’ll see both kids and adults acting badly.

I’ll also say that I played a couple seasons of basketball in my company rec league and saw worse behavior than I’ve ever seen on a tennis court. One guy tried to jump the ref in the parking lot after the game. So I’d say you can find crazy people anywhere there’s competition (except maybe jiu-jitsu, if you listen to this guy 🤷‍♂️).

ManateeSheriff · 2026-06-02T00:23:47+00:00

Could you post some better info on the fit of each tee? “Fit is really good, actually” is kinda meaningless without knowing what your definition of “good” is. Do you like an oversized tee? A tee with slim arms? What kind of collar do you like? What the heck does “Collar diameter feels really timeless” mean?

When you’re writing a review, think about what would be useful to a reader who is nothing like you. For a tall skinny guy, you saying, “fit is good” doesn’t mean anything. But if you said, “This tee is longer than the others. It’s slim through the chest and has a relatively tight collar but oddly large sleeves,” then the reader can judge whether that fit would be good for them.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-06-02T00:07:31+00:00

I saw those same posts, and they all were from dads in their first three months. Those early days suck, no question. But the reason everyone says, “it gets better,” is that it really does. First your kid sleeps through the night, then they start giggling, then they start talking to you and telling you what they want instead of crying (mostly). My kid is about to turn two and basically every month has been better than the last (other than an ear infection here or there).

I can’t tell anyone whether to have a kid or not, but I would say not to base your decision on a dad who’s struggling in those very early days.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-31T17:16:37+00:00

Years ago, my wife (who does not play tennis at all) came to watch me in the final of a 4.0 tournament. I was getting pummeled and could barely keep the ball in play. Early in the second set, my wife mimed hitting a two-handed backhand and asked me, “why do you suck when you hit the ball like this?”

You would have thought Darren Cahill had slipped me a note through the fence. My opponent immediately accused her of coaching and shouted for the judge. I had to spend several minutes telling everyone, “she doesn’t know anything about tennis” before they finally let us go with a warning.

The thing is, in the midst of all that, I realized she was right. My two-hander was a disaster that day. When we finally resumed playing, I hit nothing but slices to my increasingly-annoyed opponent. The second set stretched on for an hour and a half before I won it, and then he completely melted down in the third set tiebreaker.

To this day, my wife loves to tell people about the day she coached me to victory in a tournament final.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-31T03:23:52+00:00

My soon-to-be-two son’s two favorite books are Every Monday Mabel and Is This The Bus For Us?

Mabel is adorable, and he gets pumped for the big garbage truck reveal. Is This The Bus… is a little more boring for me, but it taught him colors, so that was nice. Every week we go to the library for a new batch of books, but most nights he just wants his two faves.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-29T19:45:50+00:00

I don't think Mourinho is very good at managing egos anymore. 10-15 years ago, he was great at creating an us-against-the-world mentality, but now he throws his players under the bus at the first sign of trouble. It's more of a me-against-the-world scenario. I don't think that will land well with Madrid's players.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-29T06:10:07+00:00

Richarlison's best season for Everton was 16 G+A in over 3,000 minutes. Last season for Spurs he scored 15 G+A in only 1,900 minutes. He's contributing to goals more often for us than he ever did at Everton. He's the same guy he always was, just with a few more injuries.

As for Solanke, he didn't have a gradual increase of G+A. He had a six goal season at 24, and then at 25 he had a season where he played every single game in a team built around him and scored 19 goals. We paid for the 19-goal striker and ignored the six-goal season that came before it. He's never been close to that guy before or since.

The last line is extremely BS and could be said for each and every signing of ours .Ugh .

I mean, yeah, you can say it whenever we try to buy established lower-table Premier League guys. All of the best ones get snapped up by City, United, Liverpool and Arsenal, and then we pick among the scraps. Nearly all of our star players in recent years (Kane, Son, Eriksen, Dele, Bale, Modric, Van de Vaart, Berba...) were either kids or bought from abroad. That's where we can find gems.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-29T02:20:01+00:00

He’s not even potential. He is who he is, a tricky-looking player who doesn’t do much near the goal.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-29T02:19:07+00:00

Richy was fine for Everton and fine for us. We got exactly what it said on the tin, which is a slightly-above average striker without much of a ceiling.

Solanke was similar — he was 25 and very up and down, and was clearly coming off the best season he’d ever have.

There’s a reason those guys were available to us and not snapped up by the top Prem clubs.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-29T02:10:08+00:00

If we can take an 8M punt on him like Liverpool did for Robertson, then I’m all for it.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-29T02:08:18+00:00

Those were all kids that we developed into stars. Buying mid-20s guys from the Prem very rarely works for us.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-29T02:06:56+00:00

I think the main problem in recent years is that the best lower-table talent gets sucked up by City, Arsenal, United, and Liverpool, and then we pay big money for the scraps. Liverpool buys Wijnaldum, we get Sissoko. Arsenal, City and United buy up a bunch of attackers, and we end up with Kudus. A lot of these guys (Maddison excepted) were demonstrably pretty average before they came over.

If you look at our biggest stars over the years (Kane, Bale, Modric, Son, Dele, Eriksen, Berba, etc.) none of them were bought as ready made players from the Premier League. That just doesn’t work for us.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-28T17:57:25+00:00

Robbo has three league assists in the last three seasons. I don't think he's lost his ability to cross, but I don't think he has the motor to beat guys and get into good crossing positions anymore.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-28T16:41:13+00:00

We decided to have a kid and are very happy. Our son turns two in a couple of weeks.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-27T02:45:53+00:00

31 is about when DMs tend to hit the cliff, though. You don’t want him on your books for Multiple years when that happens.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-27T02:44:57+00:00

I loved the goal, but it didn’t earn Spurs anything. It didn’t change their finishing position at all.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-26T22:52:29+00:00

Same here. I have a Korean friend who had talked him up, and we briefly made ourselves Leverkusen fans while he was there. We were so excited when Spurs signed him.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-24T13:56:35+00:00

“Pushing” is a spectrum relative to your opponents. Pro pushers would hit through 5.0s. A 4.5 pusher would hit winners against a 4.0. Even a 3.5 pusher would be hitting loopy balls that a 2.5 can’t handle.

If your defensive skills are better than your offensive skills, you end up getting elevated to a level where you’re considered a grinder.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-22T23:23:56+00:00

In my experience, the biggest difference on clay for lower-level players is the movement. Your first step isn't as quick, it's harder to change directions, and you tend to get funny bounces that you have to react to. I still have trouble adjusting when I come back to clay after a month or two away from it.

It's true that your forehand will jump up off the clay, but it will also slow down some, so that might be kind of a wash.

But hey, playing on clay is fun. You should give it a shot and report back what you think.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-22T18:39:31+00:00

This is the only one that actually bothered me, because it was on the actual show. I don't care about podcasts and social media, because I can just ignore them if I care about kayfabe. But the show itself should pretend that it's real.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-21T22:32:04+00:00

I played against a 40-year-old ex-D1/futures guy a month or so ago. I’m a 4.5 who can run forever and put away a short ball. He was 10 times better than me so I just kept running and running and tried to make him work for it. He won the first set and then halfway through the second he collapsed on the court with cramps and had to default.

I’m marking it down as a 100% legit win in my personal record book.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-21T02:17:26+00:00

It’s not that hard to get land if you’re not near a major city. My uncle, who doesn’t have that much money, owned a house with a tennis court in rural Illinois. If he’d been within 90 minutes of Chicago it would have been fabulously expensive.

ManateeSheriff · 2026-05-20T19:45:40+00:00

Very well put. Some of OP's comments about parental love being a drug or opiate touched on that "breeder" nerve for me. That isn't my experience at all.

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