Players pick up Gold Club points

By: Nanki Hura

  Our athletes show their devotion to tennis when they walk into the Gregory Fitness Center’s gym on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for morning conditionings.
   These conditionings not only help players get in shape for their upcoming seasons, but also earn them Gold Club points.
   The Gold Club is “a points system designed to encourage Sycamore tennis players to improve in the offseason” according to a handout Coach Michael Teets gave the athletes earlier this year.
   "It gives me a better chance to make the team this year," said Renato Ibarra, 9, when explaining why he participated in Gold Club.
   Teets travels back and forth from the Junior High, where he is a Spanish teacher, to the High School to urge students to get involved with the program.
   “I think Gold Club is a great way to make us a stronger and more athletic team,” said Aamna Dosani, 11.
   Although both JHS and SHS players can participate in the Gold Club, only high school students can attend morning conditionings and earn points for them.
   “The best part about participating in the Gold Club is getting to spend time with friends and work out,” said Ibarra.
   Other ways players can earn Gold Club points are through participation in a USTA, round robin, or club tournament, private or semi-private lessons, and group lessons or clinics.
   The program also encourages students to do well in school, for quarter A’s receive ten points each.
   Points are awarded from a range of two points per hour for group lessons to 30 points for doing a USTA tournament.
   All students wanting to be a part of the Gold Club have to email Coach Teets every Sunday with their previous week’s events. Afterwards, Teets produces a list of everyone’s names and how many points they have accumulated to date.
   He tries to email the lists, separate for girls and boys, once a month to show players how they are doing relative to other athletes on the team.
   At the end of the time period, if players have garnered at least 400 points, they receive a Gold Club t-shirt during the week of tryouts, and are officially in the current year’s Gold Club.