Drilled

He crept onto the tennis court just as any seventy-four year old man would, with the hunched over back and the stomping walk. He had his clipboard in hand and he was ready to tell me exactly what I was doing; both wrong and right. I had never had a coach like him, nor will I ever again. Coach Jim Carter could tell you just about anything you wanted to know about tennis or anything else he had the knack for knowing. He was and is still, by far, the most intelligent and influential man I have had the privilege to have in my life. Coach Carter taught me more about myself than I had learned in my lifetime. Daily, he drilled into me his three most important principles in life: self discipline, responsibility and respect. My whole life, I have always been told to “respect your elders, listen to your elders, they know all”. I did not ever really take either of those to heart until my three years as a varsity tennis player under the reign of Coach Jim Carter. Coach Carter has been a tennis coach since 1973 and has influenced more people’s lives than you can ever imagine. Self discipline is how he survived the first part of his coaching career and now it has become a way of life that he has chosen to pass on to his players. Coach Carter teaches all of his players to “practice like you will play and play like it is you’re last match”. Without that motto, it is possible that I would have become a gigantic slacker. I am, after all, a high school student. Coach Carter did not use our youthful age as an excuse. Every day during practice, we proudly gave it our all; one hundred percent. The reason: because from day one, we knew that it was expected of us. So, from the very first day of tennis, a mere three years ago, I have given my hardest fight in everything I’ve done because he drilled it into us on the tennis court. Without the self discipline learned from Coach Carter, I’m not certain how I would handle situations which require me to give my all to achieve the goals I set for myself. Responsibility. Responsibility is a fourteen letter word that never meant as much to me as it does now since I was a player under Coach Carter. I now know it is my responsibility to get work done on my own, to get to a tennis match on time, and to make sure I had all of the correct uniforms needed for a four day trip to El Paso. Coach Carter always said, “You don’t have the uniform, you’re not a part of this tournament”. He was very unbending about responsibility. For example, if you were not responsible enough to be at the match on time, how could he count on you to be responsible enough to take care of your business on the court' Another corny saying I heard growing up was “respect your elders”. Boy, I sure had no clue what true respect was until the full team sat down at one of those brown faded tables just outside our locker rooms on August 1, 2006, my first day as a varsity tennis player. We were to respond to his comments with “yes sir”, “no sir”, “please” and “thank you”. It almost made me feel like a child to be told to say these things, but I was so terrified of disappointing him that I did exactly what he told me to do and when he told me to do it. Not only was he a supporter of giving respect, but respecting ourselves and teammates followed where equally as important. When we went on tournament trips we often ate an upscale restaurant at least one of the three days we were gone. When we went to eat in these restaurants, we were to follow a Sunday dress protocol, and follow the rules of respectful dining; no exceptions. So, if you were not dressed properly, you ate on the bus. If you were not able to act appropriately, you ate on the bus or didn’t eat at all. For others to respect you, you have to respect yourself first. As far as Coach Carter was concerned, if we were not presentable, then people did not respect us as individuals or as a team representing Monterey High School. As far as respecting teammates goes, we were not to harass or belittle anyone, no matter the circumstance. We were all in this together. Coach Carter firmly believed in the old motto (I know, not another motto) “Treat others as you want to be treated”. In order to be treated right you had to respect yourself first and others as you would respect yourself. After his lessons in respect, I became a more profound individual just from the two simple words “yes” and “sir”. Being able to play for Coach Jim Carter was truly an honor. I will never forget or be able to thank Coach Carter enough for the values he instilled in me by just hitting a yellow ball around those blue Monterey High School courts. Self-discipline, responsibility and respect; three attributes I will carry for the rest of my life because of that seventy-four year old man.