justin's Blog
Day-To-Day Job Stuff
I think it’s about time that I stop talking about my path to being hired by the USTA and the specifics of the Tennis On Campus program, and start talking about some more of the day-to-day things that I’ve been up to with my job. I think it’s pretty clear that I feel like I have one of the coolest jobs out there. Seriously. And I'm pretty sure that I do, too.This past week was chock full of meetings with several different groups that either directly or peripherally work with the Tennis On Campus program. Of most interest was the visit from our technology partners at Active.com. Active has been a partner of the USTA’s for a little while now, and primarily works with our League and Tournament departments. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Active, I suggest you check them out on their website. If you’ve ever registered for an athletic event online, I’m guessing that you’ve probably used Active (or something powered by Active). The company is seriously cool, and would be an awesome employer to work for. In fact, I have a friend who recently relocated to San Diego and landed a job with them. She’s just been working there for a short time, but has had nothing but positive things to say so far.
The Tennis On Campus program is fortunate to have taken advantage of this USTA/Active partnership and used Active as the web content management solution for TennisOnCampus.com. I have to say, my scheduled time with the Active team was pretty much me going in and saying, “Fellas, I’m happy with everything. How can we expand how we’re working together?” More interestingly, though, all of the meetings held between the Active team and my colleagues were open. So I had the opportunity to sit in on those, and conversely my colleagues sat in on mine. This was a great way to discover different projects that my co-workers are working on, the challenges that they’re facing, and identify how we can all work better together. These are the kinds of meetings and interactions that I was missing while I was working from home. In any event, the visit from Active was productive and we had some great takeaways to better streamline how we’re currently working together and future ways to expand our partnership.
I had another marathon-length meeting in the middle of the week, too. This time, the players at the table were the Tennis On Campus program, our friends and co-workers that work on the USTA collegiate varsity tennis, two co-workers from the USTA Advocacy Department, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, and the committee chairs for the USTA National Tennis On Campus Committee and the USTA National Collegiate Varsity Committee. To give a short history of the events leading up to this meeting, college varsity tennis is most frequently one of the sports on the “chopping block,” so to speak, when colleges look at cutting their budgets. The USTA Collegiate Committee was initially started to protect American varsity collegiate tennis. It then grew to include the Tennis On Campus program in it’s charge, and has since split into two separate committees. That as the background, this meeting was all of the major players in the university space coming together to revisit strategies to preserve American varsity college tennis, and even expand it. Without saying too much, I felt that it was a great meeting, and that for the first time since I’ve had my job with the USTA that all of the players at the table were on the same page.
Moving on in the week, the USTA National Tennis On Campus Committee held a conference call. This is a new committee this year, and the first face-to-face meeting will be held next week at the USTA Annual Meeting in Palm Springs, California. With a new committee – and by new, I mean that this is the first time that the Tennis On Campus program has had it’s own committee, separate from our varsity friends – I have great hope that the committee members are educated on the program, and are also motivated and excited to do some work to assist me in the efforts of my job. The call – let me say now, conference calls are not my favorite – went very well. It was clear that the volunteer side of the USTA juggernaut is quite excited about the impact that the Tennis On Campus program is having on the sport of tennis. We’ll see with time how active and impactful the committee will really be, but I’m still carrying high hopes.
This is getting long. Let me finish today’s entry by commenting on the required “Sensitivity Training” that I attended this week. Now, again, while I’ve held the same job for over three years, this is the first time that I’ve worked in an office, and, therefore, sat through one of these trainings. I felt like I was sitting through an episode of The Office. Worthwhile and necessary, yes. Do I think that there was a bit more room for laughter while watching 1980s clips, yes.
Until next time, are you playing TheField?
Justin
Posted: Feb 24, 2009