Are You Ready to Pay Attention?

Consulting fees work differently than coaching fees. Understanding that difference might change how you think about your child's tennis development.

I've charged two different ways in my career, and each taught me something about commitment.

When I ran Midcourt Tennis Academy, I gave financial assistance to nearly every parent who said they couldn't afford full price. The results were remarkable. Players developed faster than the industry average. Families got more than they paid for. By every technical measure, I was delivering.

But parents questioned my methods constantly. Why this drill instead of that one? Why aren't we doing what the other academy does? Why focus on decision-making when everyone else focuses on stroke production?

Years later, when I became the highest-paid coach at Austin Tennis Academy at $175 per hour, something shifted. The families who came to me at that rate arrived differently. Not because they had more money. Some of the Midcourt families could have afforded $175. They arrived differently because they'd already committed.

They didn't question methods. They implemented them. They didn't compare approaches. They trusted the process. The price hadn't made me a better coach. But it had filtered for families who were ready to focus.

I kept thinking about that pattern. The paradox stuck with me.

Price doesn't make you better. But it filters for who's ready to listen.

The Realization That Changed Everything

Earlier this year, somewhere on the drive between South Austin and Georgetown, I was thinking about my next chapter. I'd been studying how to transition from on-court coaching to something else. Something I couldn't quite name yet.

It clicked somewhere around Round Rock.

I wasn't offering traditional coaching anymore. I hadn't been for years. I was offering a solution to a problem that most families don't realize they have.

The problem isn't that their kid needs better technique or more tournament experience. The problem is that nobody's managing the architecture of their development. They're buying all the right pieces: lessons, clinics, tournaments, strength training. But nobody's been paid to make sure those pieces work together.

I'd been trying to deliver systematic thinking inside an hourly model. And hourly models don't reward systematic thinking. They reward more hours.

That's when I realized: I'm not a coach anymore. I'm a consultant. And consultants price for architecture, not time.

The question wasn't what to charge. It was what to solve.

What Families Actually Spend On

Families track money carefully in junior tennis. They know what they spend on lessons, clinics, tournament fees. But they almost never track where their attention goes.

More importantly, they don't track what they're actually buying with all that spending.

Watch families at tournaments. Most don't know what a good outcome looks like. They're fixated on results. Win or lose, ranking up or down. But results don't inform training. Insights do.

Did your kid execute the tactical plan under pressure? Did they make good decisions in the critical moments? Did they learn something that changes how they'll train next week?

Those questions almost never get asked. Because families are paying for activity, not development.

Results tell you who won. Insights tell you what to do next.

I see families spend thousands on tournament travel. Entry fees, hotels, gas, meals. All without any sense of whether that tournament serves their player's growth stage. They go because "everyone goes" or because they need points or because their kid wants to play.

Meanwhile, the insights that would actually accelerate development sit unexamined. The pattern in their match play that keeps repeating. The technical adjustment that hasn't transferred from practice to competition. The recovery gap that's limiting progress.

Nobody's paid to notice those things. The hourly coach teaches the lesson. The club runs the clinic. The family books the tournament. And the system keeps producing activity without anyone checking whether it's producing development.

The Model That Creates the Leak

The entire tennis industry runs on hours. You pay for time on court, time with coach, time in clinic. It made sense when tennis was a hobby and information was scarce. You bought expertise by the hour the same way you bought anything else.

But development doesn't happen in hours. It happens in systems.

When you pay by the hour, you're incentivized to buy more hours. When I'm paid by the hour, I'm incentivized to sell more hours. Nobody's incentivized to ask whether the hours are working together.

That's not a coaching problem. That's a structural problem. The hourly model creates the very inefficiency it profits from.

For years, I kept trying to fix that from inside the model. I'd give strategic guidance during lessons. I'd try to coordinate with other coaches. I'd explain to parents why this tournament would help but that one wouldn't.

But I was working against the structure. And structure always wins.

You can't solve a structural problem with individual effort.

What I'm Actually Solving For

When families hire me now as a consultant, we don't talk about sessions. We talk about architecture.

I map where resources are going: time, money, attention. Then I hold that against what they say they're trying to accomplish. Usually there's a gap. Sometimes a chasm.

I look for conflicts. The tournament schedule that fights against the training cycle. The private coach teaching one tactical approach while the group coach teaches another. The focus on ranking points when the player's game isn't ready for that level of competition.

I look for redundancies. Three coaches working on the same technical issue from three different angles, so the player can't integrate any of them. Clinics that repeat what private lessons already cover. Tournament trips that don't match the development stage.

And I look for what's missing. The recovery that never happens. The tactical intelligence that isn't being trained. The decision-making under pressure that gets assumed but never taught.

Most families have more than they need and less than they think.

Then I build a plan that aligns everything. Not more activity. Better architecture.

That's not a lesson. That's a co-signed commitment to a player's trajectory. When something's not working, I can't point to "their footwork" or "that tournament draw." I designed the structure. If it's not delivering, that's on me.

I charge differently for that because the responsibility is different.

Why Price Matters (And Doesn't)

The families who paid $175 per hour at ATA came in already committed. They weren't necessarily wealthier than the Midcourt families. But they'd made a decision before they walked in. The price was a filter.

The families at Midcourt got better coaching than they paid for. But some of them never fully committed because they hadn't had to. The financial assistance created gratitude, but not always focus.

Price doesn't make the coaching better. But it changes the relationship to the process.

When you pay appropriately for systematic guidance, something shifts. You stop treating it like something you're trying out. You start treating it like an investment you're managing.

Parents who were scattered become focused. Players who were reactive become intentional. Not because I changed. Because they stopped leaking attention.

That calm? That's peace of mind. Peace of mind is exactly what most families are actually trying to buy. They just didn't know it was a structural problem, not a coaching problem.

Anxiety leaks attention. Architecture stops the leak.

The Industry That Doesn't Exist

Junior tennis doesn't have a consulting industry. Families pay coaches for technique, clubs for access, trainers for strength. But nobody's paid to make sure those investments work together.

In every other serious field (finance, medicine, law), consultants exist because complexity has a cost. When you're navigating multiple systems, you need someone whose job is to see across all of them.

That's what I'm building. Not better hourly coaching. Better systematic architecture for families who've figured out that activity and development aren't the same thing.

The future won't belong to the best coaches. It'll belong to the best systems thinkers. The ones who can see what families are actually buying and help them get it.

The Real Choice

Every family pays for expertise eventually. The question is when.

Some pay up front, in the form of strategic guidance. Others pay later, in time lost to working on the wrong things, money spent on tournaments that don't serve development, and the quiet accumulation of what-ifs.

"We just want to see how it goes this year" is the most common sentence I hear. It's also the most expensive. Because "seeing how it goes" means operating without architecture. And without architecture, everything leaks.

Hope isn't a plan. Neither is waiting.

If You Can't Afford The Architect

Not every family can bring me in. I know that.

So I keep writing. The essays, the Tuesday conversations, the observations scattered across feeds. They're breadcrumbs. For families who can't hire me outright, the path is slower but still walkable.

You stitch together fragments. You watch for patterns. You learn to ask better questions. Where is attention leaking? What are we actually buying with this spending? What does a good outcome look like, and how will we know when we see it?

If you're paying attention (really paying attention), those pieces will connect in time. The lesson from one post meets the story from another, the reflection on tournaments aligns with a Tuesday conversation about focus. That's the slow architecture of understanding.

But even that path requires discipline. Because what I'm really teaching isn't tennis strategy or parenting technique.

It's the art of noticing where things leak and choosing to do something about it before the leak becomes the flood.

Most families see the flood. Few notice the drip.

Peace of mind doesn't come from knowing everything. It comes from learning which questions to ask, which patterns to watch for, and which habits to build.

The families who can't yet afford the architect will still benefit from the blueprints. They just have to read slowly enough for the structure to take shape.