Greg Patton A State of Heightened Living

0:00:01.3 Jack Broudy: Well, let's just get we'll get it rocking. So anyway, my show and welcome everyone. This is Jack Brody, and we're living at the 45. And I really couldn't be happier than I am today talking to an old friend. You know, super blast from the past, Greg Patton, an extraordinary coach, well loved by his players, and we actually bumped into one another at a gala event for Colorado tennis last week. And, and I'm just please, please say hi to everyone Greg, I just couldn't be happier.

0:00:35.2 Greg Patton: All my people that's my family.

0:00:39.0 Jack Broudy: Don't worry, Luke Clancy, they'll all see this. I and that was a hell of a night. By the way, seeing you again was really great. And those guys are great. You know, I gave them a couple lessons when they came to San Diego when they were like, 14 and 16 or something when they're playing Steve Foreman and, and Eric Riley and some of the guys I worked with. But they got a nice honor at that at that Colorado tennis thing. And, and, but I thought your honor was just as great. You must have been just, you know, so happy and so tickled that night because they really, they really honored you quite a bit.

0:01:17.1 Greg Patton: No, I was I was pretty stunned because they were so gracious. They're pretty special. They're there, they light it up. And I was so fortunate to be able to coach them on the national team. And I was I took a four year hiatus from college coaching, I work with USDA as a full time national coach. And, you know, the the Shields brothers were an anomaly. They were from Grand Junction, Colorado, their dad was driving around in a van, all over the country to take them to tournaments. They were great athletes, they were self made. You know, they read, they've learned how to play tennis out of like tennis magazines. And you know, they were just salt of the earth. They were kind of like, you know, one of those Westerns, the guy comes off the ranch, you know, and gets to the big city and how they survive and they have hearts of gold. And so I was thrilled. It was so great the week before we inducted Luke into our Boise State Hall of Fame. Then I flew about to, you know, to Denver, to see the monitor in the Colorado Tennis Association. So well deserved, they're incredible, they're incredible players.

0:02:31.9: They took Boise State tennis to the top 10 in the country. I agree, we're number two in the nation at one time with when Luke and Clancy are on the team. And really, you know, to see them now they're both coaching, you know, Clancy's head coach at Arizona and he's taking them into the top 10. For the first time in the history of the Pac 10 that, you know, they've had Arizona at that level and winning the Pac 10. And Luke has just gotten rehired to take over mild position at Boise State. I retired four years ago, but Luke got hired just around six months ago and it's been joyous. It's been joyous to see. They're like my son. So I was thinking of changing my name to Shields but when I was recruited, but once they came, I didn't have to do that. Then when they played for me, I said, you know, I think your middle name should be, you know, Clancy Patton Shields. No, no, no, their dad didn't like that anyway. I remember their dad, their dad was a pretty tough guy. He is definitely unique and he's got a heart of gold and, but he's tough.

0:03:41.1 Jack Broudy: I mean, there's no, he is tough. He was at the lesson. He came to the Foreman's house where I gave him a few hours of lessons and he was, you know, he looked at me with the swivels and everything and, you know, he had to assess me pretty much. I think I still had long hair when I was teaching Steven. So, you know, he had to go, what the hell is going on? But at least I had a couple of good players in my stable. So he, you know, that's why he actually sought me out because I think it was because of either Foreman or Eric Riley or both. Maybe it was both. But yeah, no, he, I think he thought I was nuts at first, but and I don't remember the boys that well, because, you know, I was coaching, so I was trying to give them information, but then I got to meet him at the dinner. Really nice guys, sweet guys. In fact, I'm going to probably do a chat with Clancy and Luke as well. They're going to be the future of tennis in a sense, you know, college tennis.

0:04:33.6 Greg Patton: They really bought into and this is one thing I was so fortunate to be able to recruit them. They really bought into this team concept, this idea of playing for each other and using that synergy, the synergy that is created with the team to develop such a positive energy. You know, I mean, synergy creates energy and passion, and that ultimately creates winnergy success. So I call it synergy creates winners. I dig it, which results in winnergy. Is that in your Bible?

0:05:09.1 : One of one of the one of the books of Greg, St. Greg. That's one of the things I like coming up with sayings and stuff because it resonates in the players that you know that I coach is, you know, if you say things and you have a make up sayings and stuff that it's. You know, and I don't know where they come from, and if you ask me to repeat some, I go, you know, I just have to be in the moment. Also, they come. That's one of the that's one of them. I believe, you know, I believe passionately and passion, but people think passion is something that you just create and, you know, you get excited and this and that. And it's not right. That's not true. Tennis Passion comes ultimately the foundation of passion is purpose. It's the goal. It's the plan. It's the purpose. We all have to have purpose in our life. You and I both left tennis and it, you know, as we were talking earlier for our whole life since we were in our early 20s. Our purpose of who we are and how we can make a change in life was tennis.

0:06:18.1 : So our purpose was to get as educated, to get as gifted as we could as a talented. And I think, you know, I was just an average tennis player with blind in one eye. And so I never but I had dreams that were never going to be stifled by the fact I didn't have a, you know, I didn't have the vision. I didn't have great talent, but I had love to be as great as I could be in tennis. And so that kind of that ultimately went into coaching and I started coaching as I was telling you, I used to teach tennis at UC Santa Barbara when I was on the team. I used to teach in the PE tennis classes. I taught for the city of Santa Barbara and, you know, I was on the team and I was more, I wasn't not a top player by any means, but the coach loved me and he took care of me in terms of getting me a job. And I just picked up, you know, the team's dynamic. So my purpose that I basically gave my life to tennis, you know, that's what I love. I love the rhythm of the beat and the music of the game.

0:07:21.7 : And I love the camaraderie of the game tennis. And I love the fact that I was always moving and I was, it was like a dance and that created, that created my passion, the excitement and the beautiful sacrifice that you give to the game. And then what happens is this. So this is just at the end of the story. It's just the beginning that creates magical behavior. Okay. And the magical behavior, for example, in coaching, this is what the Shields Brothers has. The magical behavior is, you know, you become empowered, you know, you become confident and you, you're able to go out there and take risks. And that ultimately becomes miraculous events. Okay. So magical behavior. So I was empowered, you know, I started coaching the guys around my team at UC Santa Barbara. I mean, and how do you do that? And it was tough, but you get put in that situation and you just become, it gives you a foundation and it gives you the power and it gives you the confidence to impact other people's lives through the tool of tennis. And the miraculous events turns out to be some of the wins. And all of a sudden, you know, they, they buy into this whole formula, this whole lifestyle, this whole belief, this whole being, and all of a sudden they buy into it and that they're playing tennis for each other and they buy and they get more purpose.

0:08:54.2 Greg Patton: They get more passionate. That's what happened at Irvine with me. I had guys that bought into this crazy young guy. I was 25 by the time I went to UC Irvine, 25, 26. And I was just, just a few years older than them. And they bought into this, this ultimate abandonment, beautiful abandonment to the game to live a lifestyle that was conducive to a team energy and to a commitment to getting better and then came up to be kind to each other and to build each other up. A lot of love.

0:09:29.9 Jack Broudy: What? Lot of love. Lot of love. Oh yeah. I mean, cause a lot of love. I mean, I would do more things to win a match with Billy, my doubles partner than I would have done on my own. I mean, I love Billy and I wanted to, I wanted to win, you know, he would look at me and he would literally say things like, I think it was actually at All-Cal. We met, you know, I think I saw you there two years, one year you were with Santa Barbara. The next year I think you were with Irvine, but we're always at that All-Cal tournament, which was frigging blast. That was the most fun tournament. But yeah, I would say love is what comes up for me because it was like, I remember Billy turning around. It was, maybe it was NCAA tennis. I can't remember, but he says to me, you know, it's like our ad and it's, it's big point. He goes, dude, you fucking make this return to serve. I will love you forever. I mean, he would say stuff like that to me. And then when I would play with Alex Levy down in San Diego, he would just look at me, come on, man.

0:10:24.2 Jack Broudy: We've got this, we got to, you know, and doubles was, was really, that was the biggest team aspect for me because until then I had always been, you know, a junior player playing singles. It was all about singles and it was all about, you know, winning. And if you weren't one of the best players, you just did the best you could, but in doubles, there was more love. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you know, the funny thing about tennis and I do know what you mean.

0:10:51.0 Jack Broudy: You're absolutely right on is it's an individual sport, right? But we create a community to lift each other up because you need your tennisopponents, the guys, you know, you need them to train with. Right. And so the, the, the great thing about college tennis is all of a sudden you're playing, you truly are playing for each other. You're serving each other. And, and that is a great, a great, great feeling. And this leads me into the sense of service is really important, you know, and a good coach gets players to get that, to serve the coach and as a coach is serving them each other. So it's, it's, it's a giving from both sides. I used to always ask the players why they play. And I wanted to get them to say, you know, on my teams, I go, guys, why do you play? And each guy had to give me an answer. Some guys say, well, it's a great way to meet girls. It's a good way, you know, my parents want me to do it. It's a great way to get a scholarship. Obviously I was looking for them to say they love it.

0:12:00.3 Greg Patton: But one time when I was working for the national tennis team, the junior Davis cup team back in the eighties, someone in a meeting and I, there's a disagreement with several of the former coaches like Brad Stein and, and Hugh Brayman, Mike Edlis were my coaching staff, like who that guy was, but it doesn't really matter who it was. But it's one of the guys in this team that just said, I play for the feeling. I love the feeling. And I went, Oh my God, that's the reason I love the coach. I love the feeling. So we asked the coaches, what's the greatest feeling. And, and so Jack, what do you think one of the greatest feelings is?

0:12:41.6 Jack Broudy: For me personally, you're asking, I would say, and my mind's going a mile an hour now. For me, the greatest feeling is a feeling of hitting a good ball of playing tennis, like a bird flies or a fish swims, you know, that's, and that, and that's sort of what I want to dispute with you on in a minute, because I was always, you knew me from very young, you knew me when I played and kind of like Dick Gould knew me when I was very young. And we talked about this. Some guys just had more talent period. You know that. And Billy and I were not those guys. We would grind and we would pull off big wins or miraculous wins. But then when we played Luke Jensen and his tennis partner, they crushed us like bugs. When we played Sampras and his partner crushed us like bugs. And you know, my dad used to say something, he used to say, there's no substitute for talent. And I had all the, you know me, I had a lot of heart. Billy and I together, we had a monstrous heart, like the Grinch, you know, it's grew four times that day.

0:13:45.4 Jack Broudy: But I always had a problem with the fact that some people were just clearly better. They were whippier, they were looser. They looked like they played with no fear. I always played with a little fear. You know, I would chip when I should have just hit out on the back end, but I wanted to make sure that ball went in. And I always admired the people that would hit out on shots when they had the opportunity and make a blazing shot because they had the form. So for me now, it's changed a lot. I guess if you asked me that a long time ago, I would have said I just love the game. I love playing it. I love hitting the ball. Now as an older person, I like the form. I'm really into form now. So I play tennis for a whole different reason than I did when I was young. I play because it feels good. And I play because I feel like I finally look like I'm born to play. So that's one thing I've always had issues with. And I think a lot of people do, Greg, and I don't know how you deal with that because you coached Santa Barbara and Irvine, but then you coached Boise where you had even better players.

0:14:56.3 Jack Broudy: And I mean, what do you do when you have a guy like Billy or myself who love the game and want to win so bad it hurts, but just don't have the heavy ball that a Sam Querrey hits or the feel that a John Paley or Tony Graham has. You know, there's just no comparing. It's apples and oranges. What do you say about that? Because that's something that's really as a tennis lover and spent, I've devoted my life to it as well. And so now when I coach, I coach pure form. I let guys like Foreman or Riley or Bigeon or whoever I'm coaching, Sam, Stevie, you know, they have their natural, everyone wants to win. So I'm just like, okay, if we can make your form better and better and better, that gives you the availability of being able to do bigger things.

0:15:50.9 Greg Patton: What do you say to that? Because that's an issue for me. And I think about this a lot and it comes right back to the question I asked you, why do you, you know, when most people answer is the greatest feeling is when, and what you're saying, you're going to the same place where I went. As I said, the greatest feeling isn't the win. The greatest feeling, first of all, most importantly is to play. Because what you do and I do, and when we get tennis players out there is they find the joy in playing by being a participant and not a spectator. Most people in the world are spectators. Most people watch other things. They're fearful. And what they do is like, you're a player and the greatest feeling is to play. All right. That's the reason we keep going back to it. The second greatest feeling, and this is it, is to serve others. So when you're playing and you're playing with Billy or, you know, you're playing with your teammates at UC San Diego or, you know, it's a great feeling to look to the sidelines and go, yes, you know, the feeling and that's a great feeling.

0:16:58.5 Jack Broudy: The third great, the third, I feel the third greatest feeling is to do it well. And this is what you're talking about. It was like when you hit the ball. And I've shifted the order. I've shifted the order because now the third is the first for me because God knows I won so many. I mean, I could win, I could have written the book Win Ugly, Winning Ugly, because I won a lot of ugly matches and I'm not proud of those matches, but you know, because the score isn't everything. So yeah, I've taken your third one and I think I've brought that up to number one.

0:17:30.7 Jack Broudy: But you know, and also sometimes the feeling is, is solving the problem. Like you're playing tennis and you're not playing well, but you are emotionally, spiritually and, you know, mentally invested in. So what happens is you kind of somehow, some way that miraculous, your spirit, you know, is able to get you through when your body's starting to get tight or whatever, you know what I mean? But it's like you're starting or you're, you're fighting fatigue or whatever that may be. So those are the things that I think that, that we have to tap into as coaches is to let people understand that why do you play? You know, now this, the thing that most people, most people say, and even coaches, this is one thing, once I got away from it, I think I empowered my team is a lot of people would say, why, you know, what's the greatest feeling when you play tennis and then people say to win. And you, you alluded to it for a split second earlier when you were talking is winning, but winning isn't the best feeling. Okay. Because if you basically base your, your opinion and your, your, your actions on just an outcome that really in lots of ways we have control over, we don't have control over it.

0:18:51.4 Jack Broudy: I mean, the guy hits off the frame and the tennis ball goes on the court on a break point and all of a sudden you start lamenting it. Things happen but the whole, the beauty, the beauty of the game is to play. And the, in the feeling, the greatest feeling is to play. Like I said, to serve others, to, to do it well when you do it well, even if you lose, but you played well and you played as best as you could, you've got to take that. And I think Fed does this. I think you got to take that like I've played well and you don't lament and you don't suffer. You just go, okay, you know, I'm just going to, what it may be as I I've learned something from it, learn how to be relaxed or whatever it may be. And I go on and I go back out on the court. You know what I mean? I go back on the court. And then the last feeling is, and this is, so I don't want it. I don't want you to get or anybody to get the idea that winning isn't important because you need to have that goal and that radiance, that illumination.

0:19:51.8 Jack Broudy: Like I'm doing this to be the best I can possibly be. And winning a lot of times affirms that whole journey, right? It's like when you win, it's like, ah, finally. And that really is a motivator to keep you going back, but it's not the main, it's just part of the engine and the fuel and the ignition and the starter that makes this vehicle move on in the game. So, you know, and you and I are older and we we've been around in this game since our youth. And it's been a fabric of our, you know, and that's, you need to keep learning and learning. When I was a young coach, you know, the reason we played was to win, to win championships. I wanted to win championships. But I also had, I also had, you know, I went through, you know, my life. I had, I lost my father when I was 18. I was shot in the head with a BB gun when I was 13. My mom taught me to play tennis. She taught me to play tennis just so I could not feel like I was a geek because I couldn't see, I couldn't catch a ball, couldn't hit a baseball.

0:20:56.8 Jack Broudy: My dad was a baseball player in college and was a sports writer. So if you look, you know, but it was in greater, it turned out my mom turned out to be, she taught me and then she got so good. She got into it. She played, you know, events was one of the best players and she, in Santa Barbara, which was a great tennis town. That's great tennis place. Yeah. She went on to be, she went and taught tennis for the city of Santa Barbara. She got a job that she taught tennis at UC Santa Barbara. And then she was a tennis coach at Santa Barbara city college. So it changed. And she got into it because here's her oldest son out of seven. Now, as it turns out through life, and I lost my father. He was when I was 18 and my mother, my youngest sister, I taught tennis to was three months when my father passed because I'm the oldest of seven. And so I taught my sister's play. You know, one sister is still played at UC Irvine and she is now teaching pro and Virginia and has been a coach ever since my other brothers went on different things that a sister has mentally handicapped, but it was, it was, it was kind of, it was a funny thing is that tennis gave me joy.

0:22:08.3 Jack Broudy: Okay. You see I'm saying, and it was, I was able, it gave me an affirm, you know, a joy in me, a childlike sense of play, which I think a childlike sense of play is like a fountain of youth. Okay. And it keeps us young, you know, I'm, I'm 70 and I lift every day. I run every day and I'm trying to, especially since I retired from college coaching, I teach tennis a lot still. And I coach a high school because I kind of, you know, I saw that. Yeah. I coach a high school team and I'm having a blast and I play every day, you know, so you can't get it out of your system. I think that the day I'll probably die, I'll be on a tennis court and that's the way to go to heaven. Just like Arthur Ashe. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I think it's a little different. I talked to Dick a couple of weeks ago, Dick Gould, who I know I'm sure you have a ton of respect for as well.

0:23:04.2 Greg Patton: He did a great job.

0:23:04.9 Jack Broudy: He did a great job up there, but I don't know if he ever played after tennis college. Like we are still trying to keep the game up. I'm not sure, but he was, he had a lot of similarities to you as far as he wasn't one of those, what do you call it? Nazi coaches. You know, he was more of a let's try and bring out the passion. Let's bring out the best in everybody and not scare the shit out of them. You know, there's two, there's really two types of coaches, right? And then, you know, there's the ones that punish you and then the ones that try to use psychology, I guess, to try and, Dick was more like, I guess we were in a bit.

0:23:39.9 Greg Patton: Oh yeah. He treated his tennis players so well and they played for him and that's, I love my players. I love the guys. I love the guys. They were brothers to me when I first started coach because I was only a few years older. And then as I grew older, I became kind of like, you know, like not like their parent, but more like an uncle, you know, uncle.

0:24:00.1 Jack Broudy: Yeah. Yeah. I feel the same way. Even now today, I feel the same way. That's funny.

0:24:05.4 Greg Patton: And I got a couple of tennis guys out there playing and they're on the tour getting their six ATP point or their seventh ATP point. It's tough out there, man. I don't know. You have guys out there. I'm sure you, you know how tough it is. They got to travel to Africa, South Africa.

0:24:19.5 Jack Broudy: They got to go all over the world to get a point.

0:24:23.2 Jack Broudy: I know it's amazing. It's a joyous, joyous thing. I mean, I remember when I was coaching for the national team, Bijan and, and, oh, now I'm drawing a blank and I was just remembering him. He grew up with Bijan, playing with Bijan on the national team. And we could put him in when they were young 14. Was it Foreman, Steve Foreman? That's it. Steve Foreman. Yeah. I coached both those boys, I think at that time.

0:24:52.1 Jack Broudy: I know. When I, I'm talking to you a lot when we put them in, we were sending them to training camps and, you know, I remember they were really, you did a great, great job. And I remember you used to talk to me about the swivel and I thought it was great. You know, that's really rhythmic. I mean, that's got a good reggae beat to it. It has one beat. It does. I really liked, you know, I really liked that. And we talked about that a lot and yeah. And you can't get out of your system. And I think life as a coach or as a tennis, as a brother in the game of tennis is a beautiful thing that will resonate in our lives forever. And if you truly are, I found that because I passionately love the game and I still love it. You know what I mean? It's, and I love it even more now because I have to hit every day now, because when you're a college coach and a teaching pro and you're on the court all day, you don't go out and play. I mean, there was a big chunk of my life when I was.

0:25:53.4 Greg Patton: And then at Boise State tennis when I was here, then we, you know, we were, we were so good. Like when I was at Irvine, I could play with the guys, you know, Boise State. So I was at Irvine with, I had guys like Snyder and then I had, you know, Eric Quay and Bruce Manson Hing. And had these guys, you know, but at least I could go out and hit with them. And then when I got to, after, you know, a few years at Boise State, I was getting these guys and, you know, we were in the top 10 and beating pack 10 schools. And all of a sudden it was like, it was hard. I found all I did was feed, you know, and I couldn't hit with them. If we did, if I did, it was two on ones and I'd be in the corner hitting. And then after a while it was two guys hitting against one guy and I was hoping that they would miss hit a ball so I could hit it.

0:26:42.4 Jack Broudy: Yeah, I had the same issue. You know, I could play with Steve and Beige and Eric and all those guys till they were about 15, 14, 15. And then Sam Querrey, I worked with him quite a bit. But then after a while, you're right. I mean, I felt like I was getting out of shape because my players were so good. I didn't want to hold them back. So I just had them play each other mostly. And two on one drills where I would just be the feeder. And it's amazing, you know, you can, I used to think I'm getting out of shape. But most people would look at me go your tennis bro. How is that possible? And I'm like, well, it's possible.

0:27:17.3 Jack Broudy: I can tell you a funny story. I was coach of World Team tennis and you know, Andy Roddick was involved with the junior national tennis team. I was a national coach. So there was a relationship there. But I got the one in Newport Beach. Is that team in Newport Beach the breakers or whatever that was called? Yeah, I went to I had a team in Newport Beach and then a team in Idaho. Then I went to St. Louis for seven years. And I got I got Andy involved with the team and in Boise. And it was the Idaho sneakers. And or what was it? Yeah, we're the sneakers. I can't remember because we were in Newport Beach. We were the not the breakers. We were the Oh my gosh, I can't remember I did I did how many years 14 18 19 years of World Team tennis. But I got Andy was on the junior national team. I got him to play for us for Idaho. And and then he played for me in St. Louis. But I remember one time in St. Louis, he hit one of his teammates with a serve after it bounced and it hit the player.

0:28:22.3 Greg Patton: And I started laughing. And there was like, Oh my god, I've never seen a guy hit a serve in and it hit the other player because he just whipped it and hit him. So I started cracking up and the guy goes and it was I can't remember his name. But he gave me the racket and goes, you return it. And all or you just touch the ball just touch it. So Andy so competitive. He's not gonna he's gonna hit it. He's gonna hit it 100 billion miles an hour. And he's gonna get it in. And he's gonna ace me or better yet, he's gonna try and hit me. Yeah, Ryan hit me. And I'm here. I thought he's getting because he gave it to me. His name was Andy Ram. Oh, yeah.

0:29:08.2 Jack Broudy: Yeah. doubles player.

0:29:09.3 Jack Broudy: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was playing team and Andy played singles. And he ran was whatever. So Andy gave us right. I'm here. And also, I mean, I can touch his serve. Boom, cuz it just misses me. Oh, crap. I can't even see this ball. He goes up. And that's the thing about any serve when you understand his service so low, and his arm was here, that he hit it. You didn't get a chance to track the ball. Right? Kind of like kind of like Roscoe. Yeah, you kind of contract the ball. Yeah, it's so big.

0:29:43.4 Greg Patton: And I swear to God, I was so frightened. He was gonna hit me with the ball. I was scared to death. Like he's gonna hit me. And it's gonna kill me. So I'm just trying to get out of the way and maybe touch it. You know, and he's acing me. You know, I hit a touch. I got off the strings a few times. But most of the time he was just, you know, and I tried to move back. So I tried to move back. Well, that just gave him more more angle. Yeah. Instead of trying to hit me, he was trying to hit me for a while. And then and so then afterwards, we had a great laugh. And I looked at Andy and said, I'll never laugh again. Andy, I promise. Forgive me. That's funny.

0:30:26.2 Jack Broudy: Yeah, I'm such a wise ass. I know what I would have done and I would have gotten hit. I would have probably tried to savor it. I figured that'd be my only shot. Yeah, yeah. You know, just take it on the short hop and pray. Well, you know, we had you're talking about Sam Querrey, you know, Sam Querrey played and did.

0:30:47.0 Jack Broudy: It was great. Sam and Andy used to play with my son and daughter. And, you know, my son was they played one for us and went played some futures and for a year and was really good. He just had, you know, struggle like most sometimes kids just got to be perfectly healthy. But he and he, you know, he played for it was a joy. But I remember when he was a little kid, he used to play with Andy and Sam. And when I was really and my daughter played at Eastern Washington and played, you know, junior tennis and stuff. So when you're talking about like, for example, how funny a life our family never would have gotten. And my niece, my sister's daughter played here at Boise State and was a top one of top players and whites. My sister, Todd and wife for like 10 years. And so it's amazing how the things in life work. And by that, I mean, this accident I had when I was 11 years old, or I got shot and I had to be begun propelled my mother into learning the game so she could teach me because and this is one thing that I've learned a lot as a coach.

0:32:02.8 Jack Broudy: I don't see the tennis ball that well. But what I do because I see I have double vision because of my vision. I have two pupils or I have I understand you know, it was a lot worse back in the 80s. So when I met you, it seemed like it was worse back then.

0:32:17.8 Jack Broudy: In fact, I think you were wearing a patch. Am I right?

0:32:21.1 Jack Broudy: I had at times I did. Yeah, because that Yeah, that's right. You did. I had surgery that crazy trend. But what happened? And there's a good thing. There's a there's a beautiful thing about it is my mother realized which was and then I realized what how brilliant she was. She realized that the court was constant, right? So it was always constant. So I couldn't see the bottle. But if I could really relax and notice where the ball bounced, that a lot of times people track it all the way to the racket. I would see unnecessary. Yeah. And I would guess where it's well, obviously, the problem that I've always had is with my volley. Because there's no tennis balance. It's just right. And I'm just trying and so my body when I was playing was just block it, block, just keep it still block. But the ball with the ground stroke and I would get caught up into the rhythm of the game and really focus on where the ball bounced. And then what happened was when I became a coach, a lot of times, I would say, you know, where the ball bounces, and you don't do this and people are watching us do this sometimes it'll help you.

0:33:31.0 Jack Broudy: Is that right before you hit the tennis ball? Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Yeah, I do the see, I agree with you. And it focuses you to watch the balance of where the ball is going to come. And then what you do is you get in tune with a person that slice, you know, the ball's gonna stay lower. Right now. And so you do is you, you know, it's almost idea like, because I'm basically blind when I make contact with the ball.

0:33:53.1 Jack Broudy: And that's what I started doing with my athletes. And it goes, wow, helps me watch the ball better. Because if you close right at the time, and all of a sudden you're finding you're hitting the ball, because what you've done is you calculate it in the beauty of our brain and the God has done made us is that we calculate where the ball is and where it's going to come. It's the same thing like, you know, basketball player, how can Stephen Curry shoot a 45 foot jump shot? I mean, that we have this sense of space, and how in terms of how we calculate, which is management. Remember, I was talking about magical behavior, and miraculous events. That was my life. More magical behaviors, learning where the ball bounce, and I'm hitting it. And also the miraculous event is it goes over and it feels good. And I played for the feeling I played like, and you were talking about it, is we play for this feeling that we have. And like I go out and I hit and I can hit for an hour. And if I'm especially hitting the ball well, it's like a dance.

0:34:54.5 Greg Patton: You don't want the song to end. You just I love to hit, you know, it's like it's almost sad. I have a thing, which I do with the players, called the blissful hit. And when they come out, it's a blissful hit. We're not competing, we're getting in tone with this cadence, the rhythm, the music of the ball, right? And at the end of practice, no matter what happens in practice, or in a match, or in a tournament, at the end of it, at the end of it, you go back and you end with a blissful hit. Now, we would do this with my team. And it wasn't mandatory, but lots of times my guys would go blissful hit coach. One time we played at UCLA, and we got beat by UCLA. But the guys played pretty well, but we still got probably smoked. I think we got smoked like seven to two. They were pretty tough. They were pretty tough. Yeah, so they were good. I mean, even though we did beat them at UCLA tennis several times.

0:35:51.9 Jack Broudy: Who was there at the time? I'm curious, was it Tony Graham, Paley, those guys? Or was it Van Hoff?

0:35:58.6 Jack Broudy: No, no, no, no. Van Hoff was at SC. We beat them. Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay, so in my career, we probably played the packs, you know, UCLA, SC, Stanford, and Cal, you know, hundreds of times. And I've got to admit that we've probably had two or three wins over UCLA, three. Two over SC, beat Stanford, and we beat Cal several times. Yeah. Probably count them on two hands, more than one, which is great. But their wins, and believe me, I did a clinic with Dick Gould at Stanford, not at Stanford, but down in Palm Springs. And I went to the crowd and I go, I've got a win over this guy, the greatest coach in the history of the game. I've had two wins. And Dick laughed and he goes, and I probably had 30 wins over Greg's team. And I love it. I said, hey, no. But this is what we attained to. You attain, you always want to go to the pearly gates tennis club at St. Peter's. You want to play with the best. Yeah. You want to play with the best and even for small victories. But to go back to this one story after we played UCLA, we lost and the guys go, we want to do a blissful hit because a lot of them played, felt they were playing pretty well.

0:37:18.0 Jack Broudy: And they just wanted to get it to go leave the court. Now it's like playing catch and like feel the dreams. You're just playing catch with your dad. And that's the blissful hit. You're just hitting the ball and you're cleansing the body, the tension of it. And you're cleansing. We're just hitting right. Hit and it feels good. So then we pack our bags and we feel good about ourselves. And that we do the skill great. And it's the music. So, but several people would come up to see us play because this was close to the time when I was at, you had that at Irvine. So a lot of my people and friends from Irvine, cause I lived down in Irvine for 13 years, you know, as I was a coach there for 13 years. So a lot of my former players and friends and I came and they said, Greg, that's unlike you to punish your team for hitting after a match. And I go, that's not punishment, man. This is a gift. It was fun. We do it. So we leave the tennis court, not as a place of slaughter. It's like, it's not a grave.

0:38:20.7 Greg Patton: It is not a battlefield. It is a dance. It's a disco. It's a disco. It's a place that resonates joy, fun and music and that. And we leave it, we leave it and we leave it with our blessing and with our grace. You know what I mean? We've left it with grace. And so what it does is it makes us want to come back and do it again. And so that is like, that is like kind of where I came from. And what I've always believed is, you know, the joy of the dance of tennis, the joy of the competition, the joy, and most people don't get it. And if you can find it, hang on to it. You know, like I said, most people in the world are spectators. The blessed, the blessed are the ones that play.

0:39:12.5 Jack Broudy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's funny you say that because tennis is very much like that. I can hardly get my kids, you know, Bijan and those guys, I can hardly get them to watch a match. I'm like, you guys should see Agassi Sampras during the finals. It's going to be amazing. Yeah, well, maybe we'll watch some. They never did. And I just, they would rather play. And I guess that's the way I was too when I was a kid. So I do remember one classic Rosewall Laver five-setter. I do remember watching that and that kind of spurred me on. So when the kids did watch a match, when they did spectate, it just seemed to help. But you're right. They hardly ever wanted to spectate. They want to play. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, and that's what it's all about. And if, you know, think about this, I'm more in this more than ever now because, you know, I'm getting older and I finally realized, you know, it's an S3s. I kind of went to coach and call a high school test. Kids asked me to coach at their high school. I said, for sure. Cause it's, it's a family unit that keeps me moving.

0:40:14.2 Jack Broudy: But you know, tennis, as you know, this Mark Kovac just came out with like the 10th study on it. And there's been nine studies around and there's a genealogist that boy, I've been seeing those. Yeah. You live longer.

0:40:24.6 Jack Broudy: They live longer. And I had this guy tell me 15 years ago, he says, what athletes live the longest. And I said, well, runners. And he said, no, Greg, I go to tennis and he goes, absolutely. And for so many reasons, it's the first of all, it's talking about the rhythm, the cadence. We're rhythmic creatures. Our heartbeat, the circulatory system going through it's rhythmic. It's also, it's very social, incredibly social, which means people are more social, live longer. They got a reason to live because they got friends. We have a community of people that are youth minded like ourselves. It's also the stress, no stress runners run with a lot of stress. Those people don't live that long because they're always pressure on the heart. And that there's so much. And the week tennis is you play, you stop, you play, you stop, you play, you stop, you rest, you go back. And there's that. And it's also how the mind, you keep the mind alive because the mind is immediate. All the, think about the computer that's going on when you're running to a foreign, you see the ball, the, I see it, you move to it.

0:41:32.9 Jack Broudy: The body's got to be just perfectly right to distance the ball from you, you know, so that you can hit with this apparatus. That's become an extension of your body and your limbs. It's an incredible thing. So if there's any reason for anybody's listening, you know, watching this is keep on playing. You're going to live longer and act younger and going to feel younger. And that's the way I feel. I can't, can't stop. Yeah. I hear, you know, I always go back to the same thing. You know, you know, pickleball is getting big and platform tennis. I played platform for the first time yesterday. It's fun. Especially against off the fences. That's interesting. But tennis is truly, and I say this all the time, it's truly the king of sports because unlike golf, you're not stationary. You're moving while you hit. As you say, it's not just four hands unless you're Carlos Moya, you know, or Jim Courrier, then it's just more, or Steve Forman, but for most of us, it's both sides. So, you know, it's this equal movement. Then of course there's serving and there's touch, right? Like, like shooting a three footer or, or, or putting a three footer, you know, there's touch and finesse and there's spin.

0:42:52.9 Greg Patton: So it truly is. I've always said it's the king of sports and I believe it, you know, deep down in my heart, you know, and that's why I always try to share the stuff I've learned, you know, through, through my studies. I think, you know, it's interesting to, I went in a different direction. I went individual coaching, right? I worked with all those SoCal kids and kids from all over the world, actually. And, and some adults as well.

0:43:21.9 Jack Broudy: But you went team route and, and sometimes I kind of jealous about that and wished I had done that, except for, I have to admit sometimes when we're at the winter super nationals and Foreman was in the finals or Riley was in the finals or where Sam was playing Donald Young in the finals, you know, it was kind of exciting to be there. And I thought, well, that can't be any better than this. I don't care if you're at Wimbledon finals, there's nothing better than Kalamazoo. There's nothing better than the winter supernationals tennis. But I will say now that I'm getting older, you know, I'm just three years behind you. And I wished I had done some team stuff because that seems like a whole different thing. Mine was more technique, one-on-one and yours was, was more of a, in fact, that's one of the questions I do want to ask. How did you deal with all these personalities at once? At least I got to hang with them. You know, Bichon's a very different guy than Foreman, right? I mean, very different guy. And then Sam's got the dry sense of humor, super quiet.

0:44:22.1 Jack Broudy: He's different than both. But one-on-one, it's easy because I'm like you, I'm a bro. I can hang with whatever and adjust my personality a little. But what do you do when you have a team, when you have guys like Barry Buss, you know, who are so talented, ridiculously talented, but then you have other guys, maybe like a John Austin, who work their asses off, you know, and really work hard and they're straight down the line. I mean, how do you, how do you deal with that? I mean, have you ever thought about that?

0:44:52.9 Jack Broudy: Because I think about that all the time, how you guys do it. Well, you know, my whole thing, I worked for the USDA for, I did a Junior Davis Cup tennis for four years. And then I coached on the national. I was full-time employee for the USDA for four years. I took a break from college. That's how I was at Boise State. I worked four years and then after four years, I went back to Boise State. So, but there's the power of community that I loved. And I, you know, it's funny because I have several friends. One of the guys that was a Junior Davis Cup coach with me was Brad Stein. And Brad and I are close friends. And he's one of my best friends and I was in his wedding and he was in mine. And, and he, you know, here's a guy that was good with great routines, but man, when he was one-on-one, he's magic. I mean, he coached Courier, where Courier won a slam. He coached Grosjean, he coached Kevin Anderson, who's been in the finals of slams. That's when he was coaching. I was coaching Tommy Paul. Tommy Paul is top 20 in the world.

0:45:57.5 Jack Broudy: So they have that tennis skill, the one-on-one that, that, that constant, you know, I always was drawn to the magnetism and the power and the beauty and the magic of a team playing for each other, using each other to motivate, using each other to soothe the pain of losing, you know, having this type of thing, teaching about resilience. It's easier to do when you have a team. And it's when people get lost in the success of others in terms of, and the joy that they have that their teammates do well and teaching them to rejoice in the game. I think that you, it's, it's magic that you can help players become better. That's the reason I feel adamant. We like back in the days when we had the junior national team and, you know, and, and junior Davis cup team. I mean, look at junior Davis cup team. I was traveling with Sanford's Courier, Chang, you know, the only one that wasn't on it was Agassi, but you had Martin Blackman, you had Jonathan Stark, you had, you had all these guys together traveling. And, and when you put a lot of great ingredients into the soup, you have a gourmet masterpiece.

0:47:05.9 Jack Broudy: And, and it's easy because also, you know, the practice, can you imagine all that talent on the court practicing and they're being pushed, they're being pushed, everybody's pushing each other to get better. And, and, and, and they push, they don't understand. They don't realize that they just, I got it. I'm just good as that guy. And that guy's going, I'm better. I'm just as good as him. So they're trying to be on top of the pilots. It's natural. It's inherent. It's an inherent thing, but to play for each other, remember the greatest feeling is to serve others. Okay. One of the great things to serve is to serve your teammates. Like they're all playing. I'm going to France next Monday. I coach our national team and the masters you and, and it's, it's a awesome, awesome feeling, you know, we go there and I coached at 11 years and COVID took a, and now we're restarting it. And used to be sponsored by the USTA. Now the ITA interglitch tennis association has helped me to keep it alive. And my assistant coaches, Amanda Augustus, who's at Cal and there's times, Rance Brown, who's the assistant at UCF.

0:48:16.8 Jack Broudy: He's great. And Amanda is my sister and we're, you know, and my son's going to help my son's helped me the last few years because he goes out and he's a playing coach with the team. And he's really kind of taking more coaching because he's coached college tennis since he's 30, since he was 25 at Cal Poly, Swiss, but I was at Michigan for three years as an assistant grad assistant. So it's, it's the power of, I really believe in the community is there's this power. We're not meant to be loathsome cowpokes on the prairie. We're meant to be, you know, the Jesse James gang, you know, you know, and, and, and we're, it's a tribe and learn the meaning of the word pal. Yeah. You learn and you learn how to rejoice in the success of others because you've been a part of it. And maybe it's because I worked with so many juniors because now that I'm thinking about it, you get these kids when they're 18. Well, and they're first away from their parents and their family. So I guess it's a little different. I can tell you in the 14th and the 12th, it's hard to get kids wanting success for others.

0:49:30.8 Jack Broudy: I'll tell you as much as I love Bees and Steve, right. And they were doubles partners. Yeah. I don't think Bees got a lot of thrill out of Steven Winnie ever or vice versa because they were 13 and 14. I think it's different at 18.

0:49:44.9 Greg Patton: They were part of a team. First of all, I was coaching tennis those guys on the national team at that age. So when you, that's when you and I really established a relationship. That's right. But in the pro and it's a problem is the fact that their, their rivalry was intense. There's nobody that wanted to be more than each other and their image, humor and young.

0:50:07.2 Jack Broudy: Yes.

0:50:08.0 Jack Broudy: So I almost felt like a guardian angel. I come in there and I'm just going both you guys, you know, it's okay. But your job is you're being paid. I'm being paid by the state, by the USTA to bring these guys together and each other. You were being paid by the families to make their sons great. And there was a little bit of jealousy like this and there was maybe mistrust. And I've seen that several times. Coaches that work with good players, they're going like, well, the parents are going, wait, wait, wait, wait, who's number one on that coach's list. And you, they both were. I mean, all your players you had loved in that. It's the same way with being a college coach. But the results of my guys as compared to yours, their results is all individual. Right. My results were always based on team score that my guys, and that's the beauty of the team is that when we played college tennis and I mean, I spent four years as a college coach and in college, the results I spent more than 40 years. Holy crap. How many years, but needless to say is our results.

0:51:24.3 Greg Patton: I always found that the guys that if they lost a dual match or something, if the team won, all there was is joy. The team won. Right. We never, never. And I said the greatest joy and gift is to be able to play for the match. Win or lose because you, every guy on the team is passionately invested in you. Here's the word passion again, passions created by purpose. And what's the purpose to win the match. And then there's the passion and there's guys that are living on the sidelines and doing this and they can't. And then when they, have you ever seen how there's those mobs that they bury the guy after he's won. That's the joy. That's the reason people play tennis. That's the reason so many, that's the reason I feel like Agassi and Sampras and Chang. So those guys missed out. They really missed out.

0:52:18.9 Jack Broudy: Yeah, I guess. And that's interesting. And I think sometimes like the, probably the best Davis cup player or coach was, I mean, there's been some great ones, but the greatest one, Tommy Golgson. Tommy Golgson was always out playing doubles with his brother, playing for others. He's coached Courier for a while and coached Sampras and Tim Tom. And they, they always, you know, it was always about what a great joy. They realized the joy does not change. It's not lessened. If you're a part of a family team camaraderie, when your teammate wins for the team and the joy that you have is just as great as if though you had done it yourself. I say, no, no, it's when I won. But you know, when you think about, I've been on, I've seen the guys and the look on their face and they're just the joy that they did it. And there's that's the thing about being human, the spirit, the soul that we have. Right. There's a soul in their heartbeat and there's that elation that you've done that for others. That's the reason I go back to the feeling. Why do you play tennis? I mean, you know, because of the feeling, what's the feeling?

0:53:31.8 Greg Patton: What's the other tennisfeeling? To serve others. Right. And then, and then you go and when you do well and you're doing it well for others and the thing that that's the reason parents who do it well, they get to the joy of that. And I, and I think parents sometimes don't get it, you know, it's like there's the, the repercussion.

0:53:55.5 Jack Broudy: Well, that was sort of my next question. Cause I had trouble with parents. I'm not going to mention the names cause you know them all. I had one parent. Yeah. I can't mention the name cause you'll know them and other people will, but I had one parent write me a hundred thousand dollar check. And this was back in the late nineties. Yeah. So you're probably guessing who it was anyway. And he said, I don't want you to call, you can have this check, but I only want you coaching my kids. I don't want you coaching Riley or this one. He would say, because it was too hard. It was too competitive. And he didn't, he wanted his son to get all my attention. And the other kid who he was playing a lot with was like one of the nation. And he was like three in the nation and the father just had the money. And I said, not a chance in the world. I laughed. I said, not a chance in the world. Would I do this? I said, I love all my students. Number one, number two. I said, boy, I would never just want one boss.

0:54:53.2 Jack Broudy: I said, I like having 60, 50 bosses. You know, I lose one. Okay. I'm okay. I'm not going to take your check. Did you have parents that gave you any trouble in your 40 years of coaching? You must have, you don't have to mention names, but you must have not as much because maybe I was doing junior Davis cup. It was in doing the national team because I can see that.

0:55:16.1 Greg Patton: Yeah. And there's so much in their minds are so much at stake. Right. But, and one thing I learned when I was a college coach is sometimes there's a call me and I'd go parents would call me and I go, uh, you know, their position with the kid on the team or why wasn't he playing, you know, or why did you discipline them, you know, for whatever reason. And I go, would you call the employer of your son and ask for a raise or reprimand? Cause they weren't doing that. They weren't like the vice chair of the company or something. No, you wouldn't. And if you did your son probably would get fired. So you don't do that with me. You do not know all the things.

0:56:02.7 Jack Broudy: Oh, so you did get heavy once in a while. Yeah. Oh yeah.

0:56:06.2 Jack Broudy: But not that much. Cause I'm okay. I would mean either not much.

0:56:10.8 Jack Broudy: I kind of laugh it off, but there was, there was times absolutely in 40 years, over 40 years of a college tennis coaching and then on the national team. But it was pretty, you know, the thing about the national team too, is that we were paying all their expenses. You know, I mean, those guys were being paid. We're going all over the world. Sure. They can't, you know, they're not paying me that, you know, so, and have I worked with individuals? Yeah. Have I worked individuals where I was getting paid to coach? Yeah. But really minimum. I mean, basically by and large, you know, I teach lessons now and, and stuff for the fun of it. But, and I have a, I try to get a community to use the players like I'll, I'll work with players up here in Boise now. And, uh, I have them go to group lessons and stuff. And I travel so much. I'm speaking so much that, uh, lots of the kids are working with other coaches that are good friends of mine. So I don't, you know, I, like I said, I've been able to transverse that unlike you have, cause really, to be honest with you, there's a big, there's not a difference in terms of the, I feel the knowledge and the love of the game and the passion for the game between you and I, but we're in different environments.

0:57:32.8 Jack Broudy: Yes. When you work with one guy individually and, you know, like Brad and Brad and Brad Stein, I talk about this all the time. Uh, Brad keeps going over. I said, the dark side, I mean, you know, he's coached all these guys individually and eventually they break up, you know, but I adopt them into my family and there's no breakup because they can go on and get married and have families and this and that, uh, theoretically speaking. And you're right about that. You're right about that. And I don't, I'm not, you know, like whatever, if they'll ask me what the other coach is doing, I'll never criticize what other coaches doing. Like someone will go, what do you think this guy's doing? And I go, listen to him. I mean, he's the best interest of your kid is at heart and just, and I'm not getting involved in that. Oh my God. Never, never in my life. Every coach has coached, you know, kids that I've worked with as they're my soul brothers. They're my compadres. They're my compatriots. That's my army. That's, you know, those are my family. So, and that's, I think the reason I have so much joy in the tennis game is like, for example, I'm going to France next week.

0:58:46.0 Jack Broudy: My closest, and we've been, we haven't, I haven't coached that team for three years because of COVID and now we're starting it up again and I'm taking, and on that team, I've taken Mackey McDonald. I've taken Stevie Johnson. I've taken Marcus Cuarón. I've taken Chris Eubanks. I've taken Jerome Jenkins. I've taken Austin Krejcik. I've taken Rajeev Ram. I mean, you know, I've had some great players and the women, Danielle Collins and the great, great experience, but you know, their coaches are their college coaches at the time when they play for us. It's a collegiate national team and it's, it's just a joy. But I get these guys that haven't, you know, been teammates. Also, they get to be teammates because they're playing for the USA tennis, right? Right. And what a great honor to be playing, you know, with, you know, the USA written on your logo and representing your country. So, we're going over there and that's my whole, my responsibility is team building. It's just all team building. It's bringing this family together, you know, and playing for each other and having energy and fun and joy because it's so much fun. Having cheering, we'd sing songs and, you know, we sing songs and we chant and all sorts of stuff.

1:00:09.4 Greg Patton: It's just a, it's a great, great feeling. And I worked with the tennis coaches and I started doing this when I was a college coach. So, I would talk to the coaches and we'd talk about, and I knew kind of like, you know, the coaches would be really upfront about things about their players. And, and they're, you know, that's, those are my opponents eventually sometimes I have to play them when I was coaching. But that was something that I took as a, it was a privilege. It was an honor that they bestowed upon me that they would share these things about their players so the players could play well at an international event. So, I never, I never took advantage of that. I mean, I had to cherish that. I had to cherish my brotherhood and the fact that I was able to be part of it and had Brandon Holt on that team, you know, and, and talk, you know, and worked with Brett Macy, who was coaching Brett, you know, Brandon, Brandon, and, and, and, you know, I worked with guys from, you know, Stanford, Ed Dick and head coached. And, yeah, it's a whole different tennis world.

1:01:06.2 Jack Broudy: I mean, that's probably why I reinvented myself this way. I've always been one-on-one kind of like we are now. And, and I think for me, since it was never about team, as I dropped out of the teaching, partly because I moved to Colorado here and it's funny, I'm still coaching a little bit and can't help myself, but yeah, I just said, what am I going to do now? And it wouldn't be a team, you know, it wouldn't be associated with the school. I said, well, you know, I like my methodology still, and I think it's unique, but I want to talk to all my friends that I've always just wanted to talk to, like with you. I mean, this is a great excuse for us to chat. It really is. And I just don't know if I would have ever picked up the phone, even though I would have said, yeah, I really liked Greg, man. I knew him a long time ago. And I wonder what he's doing today. And same with like Dick Gould and everyone else I've talked to. And so it just makes me, it makes me think, you know, that this is why I probably picked what I do now to continue doing.

1:02:14.7 Greg Patton: But, you know, as you were talking about, it's all about relationships. Our relationships that we've had is that there's a camaraderie and a brotherhood. I was saying about going to the Masters U, I'm going back there, the Irish coaches are my dearest friends. I go back to England every year after the tournament. I watched the training of England, but the English coaches bring me along. I love them. The German coach and I really closely has been riding me. They said, the Irish coach, I go and spend a week in Dublin with the Irish coach and have the time of my life. Took my son there and never saw him. He was out around Dublin. My wife goes, how's Garry guys? I haven't seen him. He's been having so much fun. That's great.

1:02:48.4 Jack Broudy: That's great. It's one on my bucket list, Ireland. I want to go there.

1:02:51.3 Jack Broudy: Yeah. And then, you know, one of the things that, what resonated me, if you ask, what's the greatest thing about college coaching? The greatest thing was in those days in every generation, there was different things, but I mean, I remember coaching against being good and having dinner with them and Billy Wright, who was at Cal. Oh yeah. Billy Wright, Perry, was it Perry Wright? No, it was Billy. Oh, okay. And he coached and he was the most delightful human being in the world. Delightful. And he always had like in this trunk, where do you ever go to have a basketball, a baseball bat, a baseball net, a Frisbee, you know, play tennis. I'd go, I went down to Mexico with him one time just as buddies. And then there's, you know, Bobby Bailish from Notre Dame. There's Dick Leach, who I loved it. And Dick was an assistant coach with me for world team tennis when I had his two sons playing. So his two sons were playing on my team with Amy Frazier. And I said, Dick, I mean, your sons, do you want to be a coach with me with the, you know, with the Idaho sneakers that we had up here?

1:03:51.3 Greg Patton: And he said, for sure. And then he went on the coach down in Newport Beach. Right.

1:03:56.2 Jack Broudy: Right. He's still there, I think. Yeah. And then Alan Fox, you know, I remember Alan. Alan's a great guy. I still talk to him. Oh, Alan's awesome. I mean, he's awesome. And I've always been good friends.

1:04:09.9 Jack Broudy: You know, one of my favorites is, you know, down in that area is Wayne Bryan. I've known Wayne since, you know, Wayne, my sister worked for Wayne at Camarillo and at Cabrillo Rock Club. And I've known Wayne since he was at UCSB tennis. I mean, he's older than I am, but he was like a legend up there. And I learned, you know, when I was first starting coach at UCSB, you know, Wayne's sons were like just three and four. Right. Was telling me about his theories and his thoughts. And, you know, yeah, the two greatest doubles players in the world in the history of mankind. And they're, you know, they're saving a spot for them in heaven, but they're going to get free gratis through the pearly gates because they were the greatest and the Wayne's the greatest. So I've been so blessed with these friendships, you know, you know, and, and John Hubble from up in, you know, I talked to John a few months ago. He's great. John's, oh my God, what a great coach in San Jose. Then he was a national coach with me. And, and down in your area, you know, coaches, Valerie Ziegenfuss, you know, Val Ziegenfuss, right over in LA.

1:05:17.3 Greg Patton: Yeah. She worked on the national team with me and she was my soul sister. She was so great. And I mean, I love her to death. She was so much fun. And we did these camps on the juniors, which B-John and Stevie Forman had been going to, you know, they were part of it. I remember. Yeah. It's been, yeah, it's been a joyous journey. And I just, that's, you know, you got to keep it going. I, you just don't stop. You don't stop being like, if you're, you like to play music, you know, you're Bob Della and you're still doing concerts, even though you don't have no voice.

1:05:46.8 Jack Broudy: You know, it's funny this morning, I gave a virtual tennis lesson this morning, which is what I do now. A lot of, I do videos, you know, people send me videos and I, so I worked with this guy and we were talking about, he was telling me about his piano lessons as well and how it related to his tennis lessons with me. And, and I told him, I said, you know, I have to play my guitar every two or three days. Cause if I don't, my fingers get soft. Yeah. Yeah. Can't have that, you know, can't have that. Hey, listen, you know, we ended up just going down memory lane, kind of like I thought might happen. And I didn't get to almost any of the questions I had that I know people would want to hear. So we're going to, we're going to hopefully pick it up. I really enjoy, I enjoy this and I can't take more of your time. I feel bad about that. I know you got stuff to do, but I'd sure like to do it again when you, when you have some free time.

1:06:36.5 Jack Broudy: No, for sure. I'd love to do that. That'd be great. It's been so much fun. In fact, you're my neck of the woods now, Idaho. How far are you? How far is Boise from Denver? Is it a flight or is it a drive?

1:06:48.4 Jack Broudy: It's I think it's, that's a great question. I driven it and it is a long drive. Really? Yeah. But let me check. I I've done the drive, but it's, it's, it's that, you know, we're stuck up in the corner. People don't know like to drive down to Santa Barbara. So go, cause I had, you know, my son was coaching at UCSB and my daughter was working the athletics department there and at UC Santa Barbara. And we would drive down there. It's like 13 hours. So from Boise to LA or SoCal, it was 13 hours. Yeah. It's, it's a heck of a drive. Yeah. But how far, but how far could it possibly be from Denver? We're both in the mountains.

1:07:29.9 Greg Patton: Let me ask, how long does it take to get to Denver by car from Boise, Idaho? 11 hours.

1:07:39.5 Jack Broudy: That's not so bad.

1:07:41.1 Greg Patton: Not bad. Once you get to 12 hours. Ah, yeah. Cake. 11's heaven. 12 smells.

1:07:51.3 Greg Patton: No, no. 11 hours. Not so bad. It's like, uh, it's like going to, it's like going from San Diego to Vegas and back. Not a big deal. It is driving to Vegas. They'll look at the sign, throw a bet down and get back in the car and drive. I, yeah, that's, well, you know, I drove, uh, I, I drove one of the greatest, I want to read a book. I drove with my son to Ann Arbor when he was doing working on his masters and being a, a volunteer coach grad assistant for, uh, Adam Steinberg, Eastern coach of Pepperdine at Michigan.

1:08:27.0 Jack Broudy: I know Adam. I sold him a bunch of eight boards. Adam's great. He took over Pete Smith's job. He at Pepperdine. At Pepperdine. Peter was a coach there. And then he went to USC. Yeah. Right. Yeah. He, Adam took over Pete's job. I remember. Yeah.

1:08:45.7 Greg Patton: And so, uh, and so I drove back to, um, I drove to Ann Arbor with Garrett and I'm telling you, that's a drive that we, we just camped out along the beach, camped out in Yosemite. And then we went up to Mount Rushmore and we decided we didn't want to keep going. We stayed at Mount Rushmore so we could see that and then see there's an Indian, a native American monument near Mount Rushmore that they built. So we went to that one. It was, Oh yeah. Yeah. So it was kind of, you know, so that, that was a spiritual thing that I wish, you know, I probably will never get that opportunity to do that again with my son. And I, cause he's going to get married. He's 30 now. And, Oh yeah.

1:09:35.2 Jack Broudy: Life moves on for all of us. Doesn't it? Yeah. You know, it's like, gosh, dang, get that back.

1:09:39.7 Greg Patton: I want to get that back. But I guess it comes with grandkids. So my daughter and my son, my daughter's single and my son's going to get married. So, but I know they're going to, I just got to stay young and play tennis. I can enjoy the grandkids and teach them tennis. Exactly. Exactly.

1:09:56.5 Jack Broudy: No, I'd, I would definitely entertain a tennis trip out there. Are you playing tennis indoors these days or outdoors in the winter? No, we're, we could play outdoors a day, but the last few weeks we were indoors. I'm going to play pretty soon as a matter of fact, indoors today. And mostly hitting down the middle or are you playing doubles or what are you doing mostly? Well, no, I've been trying to be honest with you.

1:10:17.7 Jack Broudy: I'm trying to  tennis, compete a lot more because that's a really important, you know, I like to hit and turn the music on, just hit, but no, I get these guys and we hit for probably 45 minutes. And then for the next hour we play, we'll either play singles or lots of times I like to do, just get my double skills. We go, you know, half court, you know, serve volley. So we do, you got to compete or you're not going to get better. Right. The craziness when you compete, like sometimes I think we train too much on drilling and instead of just always putting, I'm really a games-based player. I agree. I really feel that our job is to create chaos, create chaos in practice, because I don't think we're never more alive than when there's, you're unsure of the ending. Right. And that's when we're more alive. Like when you're playing games that you're unsure of what's going to happen. Drilling, you know, that becomes routine and you're, you know, you're aware of what the ending is going to be. Right. But when you're competing, you're, you don't know there's anything that happened.

1:11:29.1 Greg Patton: And so that's the way to train. Right. I'm really games-based. And I talk about, like I said, you're never more aware when then there's, you're uncertain of the ending or you're uncertain there's chaos.

1:11:42.9 Jack Broudy: So. Right. All right. That's good to hear. Now I mostly play points and mostly, mostly just working on trying to look more like Fed every day. That's all. That's I know when we go to heaven, a lot of us are going to be flying just like Fed. That's it. I'm going to miss that guy. I'm glad Djokovic is back on the scene. Cause I think he's the greatest player right now of all time. And it's nice that they're letting him play again. That's a whole nother. That's a whole nother hour discussion that irritates the hell out of me, but I'm sure you have your opinions on that as well. But, but yeah, no, I'd like to do this another time with you. If you don't mind, that'd be great because, and I don't even care if we show everyone else in the world. I just, I just enjoy talking to you and we probably haven't done enough. We have to do this every, what, 30 years, whether we like it or not, I think I'll be here back.

1:12:37.0 Greg Patton: We'll come back for sure. 30 years from now, I'm going to look down at my calendar right now.

1:12:42.1 Jack Broudy: Okay. Thanks so much. Thanks so much, Greg. I really enjoyed it. And let's not be strangers.

1:12:50.0 Greg Patton: Okay. You got it. Thank you.

1:12:51.5 Jack Broudy: All right. Have a great trip. Safe, safe travels.

1:12:54.1 Jack Broudy: Take care. You too. Bye bye.

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