1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Breaking down the enviornment of college tennis: February 5th, 11:25 am

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Coach Kobelt gets us into the basics of tennis and describes what a typical tennis atmosphere is for the Huskers.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to one-on-one with DP. Brought you by Canopy Street Market. On 93-7 the ticket and the ticket FM.com. The Huskers Ben's tennis program currently sits at 4 and 2. And there's an opportunity. We're talking to coach. And he threw a number at me that made my head spin a little bit. This Friday at 6 o'clock, Baylor.

The bail-o-bear bears are coming to Lincoln. And if you tell me that the Dillon Tennis Center holds, how many people, what's the capacity? Let's find out. I think, I don't know the exact number, but I think it's in, just in the seedings, you're probably looking at between 400 and 600 people.

And what's the biggest crowd that's ever been there, to your knowledge? I think it's around 250 people maybe, 200, 250 people? Which, let me be clear. We have to do better. We have to do better. So what I'd like to offer is for a family, if you've got a young athlete,

male or female, in your family, and you're looking for something to do, and I want to give them kind of a VIP experience, right, to come down and meet you, come meet the tennis players, take some pictures, do that sort of thing. Can we work, can we do that? Can I? Absolutely.

So here's what we're going to do. And we've been real simple. All you have to do is name on the text line. Just text it that, you know what? I'm a VIP. Because we're going to let you come down, meet the athletes, meet coach, talk, take pictures. If you've got little ones that would love that sort of thing. And I don't care how big your family is.

And here's what I also know. There are a lot of youth clubs, youth athletic clubs, who are looking for this type of event to bring a team of young people, young athletes to it. I think that would be another opportunity. So if you're a coach and you have a team that you would like to bring to an event and have them get some sort of VIP exposure, just text to the text line and we'll see what we can work out for you.

Peter Crowbell, Husker, Tennis. And to give people a reason why they should come and see, support Nebraska tennis in person. One, the tickets are free. Tickets are free. No matter how big your family, Tickets are free. Break down what a home tennis match looks and sounds like for the listener who's never been.

Yep. So I would say you turn on, you turn on tennis on TV and you watch and the fans are sitting there and they clap after the point and it's very, you know, I don't know what the right word is. Like the light or like proper. Yeah, the tennis etiquette is its own thing. Sure. So you come to a tennis match and it's. a 360 or a 180. It's loud. And the guy, you know, everyone in the teams are screaming. There's tension going back and forth between the teams. Sometimes the coaching staffs, you know,

there's, there's, you got to call your own lines in college tennis. So sometimes there's questionable calls in the umpires and it's just a whole, it can turn into a whole different type of environment that can be very hostile. So you're coming into potentially, uh, in a different environment than you would normally see in tennis. But, uh, you're, you start with doubles. So there's three doubles matches that go on at first, and that's probably the most high energy part of the match, which is fun because it's the very beginning. And the team that wins two out of three out of those doubles matches gets one point. After that, there's a five, six minute break in between, and then you have six singles matches that go out. And each singles match counts as one point. And it's the first team to four that wins the match. So you got a, you know, you get to see doubles. And you, you know, you get to see doubles. And you, you also get to see singles and the matches can be absolutely insane. So it doubles. There's three matches going on at the same time.

Yep. And then the singles, six matches go on the same time or three and three. Six at the same time. Six at the same time. So you can, if there's one guy you like to watch, you can go watch him or then you can say, hey, that guy looks pretty good down there too. Or they're screaming down that. Let's go walk down there or whatever it might be.

So your eyes are constantly moving back and forth. that you can feel the energy. What's great about college tennis is it's an individual sport, but the energy that the guy in court three brings, you know, the guy on court six all the way down to the other side of the facility can feel his energy and the energy that goes in between the players and the team. And that's what truly makes college tennis special is that you can,

you know, you can be on a totally different court, but you can play an impact on a court all the way down at the other side of facility just by bringing good energy. So my first high school, tennis match was in it was in Houston, Texas. And it was at a private school,

and my goodness, it was on fire, and I was caught off guard. You mentioned that coaches sometimes can get vocal, and there's a little vibe going on. Stunned at how much the coaches give it to each other. Yeah. Come on. What's that about? Talk to me. Sure, it's just competitive, you know.

The margins are so small. just like every other sport. You know, it's about, you know, having a good process and then executing that process. You know, that's coach talk, but that's just the truth. But, you know, when there's a bad line call and the head coach sees it or the coach sees it, and they say, hey, I saw it out to you.

Like, come on, man, you know, and it's a big point. And, you know, the tensions get high. Luckily, the head coach at Baylor is a great guy. I have a great relationship with him. You know, that's not how he coaches his team. So I expected to be a clean match on, Friday night, but you know, you never know. You never know. And, and, you know, my job is to put our team in the best position to win. If that comes at me having to step up and, you know,

yelling scream, you know, I might be, I might have a baby face, but I can get, I can get angry. And six, seven, I can't imagine that all the college coaches are six seven. Uh, I think you're looking down on most of them, right? Well, yeah, you know, sure, um, tennis is a game dominated by a bunch of guys that are six foot. Right. I might have shows the wrong sport. I should have maybe stuck with basketball, but, but, uh, but no, look, it's, it's just hot, top, top of the end college athletics, you know, lots of stuff at stake, you know, people say it's

just tennis or whatever, but people, you know, this very competitive niche of college athletics. And coaches want to win, you know, there's the pressure of winning. And that's sometimes that comes out in the match. but, you know, like I said, I have a lot of respect for the coach at Baylor and how he runs his program. And I know that, you know, while we're putting focus on this matches, I know they're going to come in with their guys and it's going to be a very high end match. And there's going to be respect from both teams on both sides. At a staple at most Husker athletic events. And maybe you need to get, we need to get our guy out there with the red with the red wig.

Kevin, he comes out all the time. He comes out all the time. So how many go big red chance are there at tennis match? There's, you know, go big red, there's Husker Power. You know, the guys in our team will, you just, all you do is just come and listen to the guys in our team. The guys that aren't playing kind of lead the way, and then you just kind of have to jump in with them. That's one of the things that where I'm starting to figure out is, like, sometimes the fans aren't sure quite what to do when they come. But you're allowed to be loud.

You're allowed to yell and scream. You're allowed to cheer. You know, you can, you know, we go down to the SEC. We're just down there at Arkansas, and there's, they got. the frat boys back there chirping at our guys. They know their girlfriend's names. They know their mom's names. Unlike these other sports, you can sit right behind them and they can hear you.

How's Tiffany doing? I'm sorry, social media. Hey, all I'm saying is that it happens to us when we go on the road. This is what I know the fans here are great fans. And that's one of the things that makes Nebraska special. I know that Husker fans can trash talk with the best fan bases in the country. So if they're not showing up, you're not showing up at tennis matches, and giving some heat. Shame on you.

We got to fix that as well from the text line. You said, where, dumb question, where is Nebraska tennis facility at? The listener has no idea. Yeah. So it's 2,400 north Antelope Valley Parkway. It's, we share the facility with women's soccer. So if you've been to a soccer game, you've literally been to our facility. Okay. The entrance is a little wonky there.

That's one of the things that we're working on with the athletic department, but it's a quick turn in to the right. and then you park the same right where you do for soccer, it's all the same. You walk in the same entrance, and you just walk into the indoor tennis center, which is just to the right. You play your matches based on seeds and rankings.

Is that a weekly competition for the one spot, two spot, three, spot, four, spot, five, you know, etc. Or do you kind of, is that established now, you're at the point of the season where you kind of know who's who? No. I would say, for us at the top of the lineup we pretty much know who our number one and our number two players are

but after after that you know i think we have guys that can play at three and we have guys you know three through about eight right now we have all of them can contribute and play in singles and what's unique about this team and i've never had this experience ever on a team before is we have nine guys in our team and all nine guys have already contributed to our team and if i need guy number nine to come in and play doubles i you know I trust them to do that. So usually you have six or seven, maybe eight guys on your team that you feel like that.

And this year for the first time as a coach, as any volunteer assistant or head coach, I feel like we have nine guys that I trust that we can come in and contribute to our team. What's your philosophy on that? That do you want your six best doubles players playing? Or do you want your six best players? Yeah.

Yeah. So I think each person is different. You know, at the end of the day, tennis is still tennis and you need your best players out there. But there's also opportunities for a guy that's very good at doubles to find his little niche there to come in and play doubles too. So I think there's a balance. And I think over the course of year, you kind of you start to learn more about your team and figure it out. And you're like, hey, like, I think we need to look at this guy. maybe this guy needs to work on this or it's an evolving thing but some coaches say put your six best players out there and play it's doubles points worth one point you know you can't win or lose

the match with one point and I'm like hey doubles point sets the momentum for the whole match either you it doesn't even matter if you win it but how you win it or how you lose it you know that sets the tone for the rest of the match isn't that part of the deal is that you get to see players how they're playing which shots they're good at handling even in short form even half a court yeah It's still, you can see big service day for number two, four likes to slice the serve. So we, I mean, there's time. There's eyes on the doubles. Oh, yeah.

And it plays out. For sure. You pick up, you know, as a coach, you're all constantly looking for, for little things to nitpick at, you know, you look at your guys as well as the other team. You're like, hey, like, you know, you got a guy that's a little bit nervous or tight. Hey, you got to relax, man, just focus on what we do every day at practice. And then you look across the net and you start, you try and pick up on. I mean, we do a bunch of, you know, we try and watch as much film as we can.

We exchange notes with other teams that have played other programs. So we don't go into the match naive at all. We know pretty well, you know, how these other guys are going to play. And other teams do the same thing with us because they all want to win. But, yeah, sometimes you get the notes and you see the film and you have your player and you're doing everything they're saying, it's not working. So you've got to be able to adapt and adjust, you know, on the fly. And, you know, those are things that we practice all.

a time. We practice adjusting, doing different things that practice. They have to get used to doing that because if we asked them to do it in the match and they haven't done that, you know, that's a big ask. There's so much, like I said, I led with the disclaimer that there's no way I can get to all the stuff I want to get to. Because the game, I mean, the college game as it was five years ago is not college tennis, what it is right now. And with the transfer portal and NIL, there are spaces that we need to get into to kind of figure out, one, how it affects Nebraska tennis, two, how fans can be involved, booster support, social media engagement, and all those things. Coach, there's lots to talk about.

So much. We'll throw it to break when we'll come back. We'll talk about the roster. I want to hear about players one and two and some of these players from around the world. And then we'll set it up there against Baylor Friday night at the Dillon Tennis Center. We will talk about that DP. be a coach cobel here on the ticket. Watch live on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch.

You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 937 the ticket and the ticketfm.com.