In the Trenches: You Cannot Be Serious—The Quiet Hijack of the American Tennis Coach

As a coach grinding it out on the hard courts of Southern California, you work all year
for one thing most people outside the profession don’t understand: survival. You
manage heat, injuries, long days, inconsistent schedules, rising costs, and rogue
coaches squatting on your court. When the calendar finally flips toward the end of the
year, you earn a brief window to rest your body, reset your mind, and prepare for the
next season.

That preparation includes the one big thing—that everyone must do: paying
professional dues and keeping certifications current.

Cities require it.
Parks require it.
Schools require it.

If you want to teach legally, you must be certified. And if you want to stay certified, you
must be Safe Play approved, a requirement tied to the U.S. Olympic movement since
tennis is an Olympic sport. No Safe Play approval, no coaching—period.
So like any responsible professional, I logged on to check my renewal timeline for 2026.
I like to schedule these things early. What can I say? When your livelihood depends on
compliance, you plan ahead.

And then—BOOM.

One click took me straight to the USTA Coaching platform, proudly informing me that I
was “approved” and I can proceed to purchase a USTA Coach Coaching Package.

Cue my best John McEnroe impersonation:

“You cannot be serious.”

What Just Happened?

Let’s be clear: I did not sign up to join USTA Coaching. I did not ask to be funneled into
another paid membership. I simply went online to confirm my Safe Play status—a
mandatory compliance requirement.
What became immediately obvious is something many coaches are only now starting to
notice:

Safe Play has quietly become a funnel.

A funnel that directs independent professionals—RSPA members, PTR members, park
Pros, school-based coaches—straight into the USTA ecosystem whether they want to
be there or not.

This is not convenience.
This is not alignment.
This is leverage.

From Compliance to Control

Safe Play approval is not optional. It is federally tied to Olympic participation and athlete
protection standards. Coaches must comply to work. By positioning Safe Play inside the
USTA Coaching framework, the organization has effectively created a gatekeeper
system—one that nudges, pressures, and in some cases outright forces coaches
toward USTA affiliation.

If you’re an RSPA or PTR member, ask yourself this:
Why does fulfilling a universal safety requirement now feel like a sales pitch?

The implication is subtle but powerful:
If you’re Safe Play approved, you might as well be USTA Coaching.
If you’re not USTA Coaching, are you really “in the system”?

And if cities, parks, and facilities start defaulting to USTA databases, where does that
leave independent professionals?

This isn’t collaboration.
It’s consolidation.

Twisting Arms Without Saying a Word

No memo went out saying, “USTA is taking over coaching.” No announcement declared open war on other certifying bodies. Instead, the arms are being twisted quietly—through process, positioning, and platform control.

RSPA and PTR professionals now find themselves in a precarious spot:

• Maintain their long-standing professional affiliations

• OR get absorbed into a USTA-branded identity simply to remain compliant

That’s not choice. That’s coercion by design.

Why This Matters on the Ground

For coaches in the trenches—especially those working in parks, schools, and community programs—this feels like yet another layer of cost, confusion, and loss of autonomy. We already pay:

• Certification dues

• Continuing education fees

• Background checks

• Insurance

• Facility permits

Now we’re being nudged toward another system, another brand, another identity—
without a clear explanation of how it benefits the people actually doing the work. And let’s not pretend this is harmless.

Once one organization controls:

the compliance pipeline
the coach database
the branding narrative
…it controls the profession.

The Bigger Picture

This is happening at a time when tennis is already facing:

• a coaching labor shortage

• burnout at the entry and mid levels

• declining retention of young professionals

Instead of stabilizing the workforce, we’re adding friction. Instead of empowering
independent coaches, we’re centralizing authority. That’s not how you grow a sport. That’s how you narrow it.

A Question the Industry Must Answer

Is the goal to protect athletes and ensure safety? Or is it to monopolize coaching infrastructure under one banner? Those are not the same thing.

Tennis thrives when multiple professional organizations coexist, innovate, and advocate for coaches. It weakens when one entity quietly absorbs the system and dictates the terms.

Final Thought from the Trenches

I’m all for Safe Play.
I’m all for athlete protection.
I’m all for professionalism.

What I’m not for is waking up one day and realizing that being a tennis coach in America means belonging—whether you agreed to it or not—to a single governing structure. Because when compliance turns into control, and protection turns into leverage, it’s time to ask the question McEnroe asked decades ago:

You cannot be serious… can you?

That’s not disruption.
That’s a hijack.
And coaches everywhere deserve better.