SOUTH BEND— What do kazoos, trivia answers that range from Lady Gaga to Tootsie Pops and tug-of-war have to do with a tennis match?
Nothing, except if you’re a member of the South Bend Saint Joseph boys’ tennis team. Then it means, well, everything.
Saturday wraps a week of preseason camp for the Indians, which means an end to their annual Bridging, Bonding, Building team competition. The squad’s 30 players and four managers divide into groups of four to compete and solve various tasks — which include end-of-workout trivia that carry at least five SAT questions — that have little do with playing the game they’re there to play.
There are daily homework assignments that better be turned in on time. One involves players interviewing their parents, which helps foster communication between two sides that too seldom communicate. Another requires that players pen a letter of appreciation to someone who has helped them on their journey to date. There are points earned and subtracted before, during and after the daily afternoon practices at Leeper Park. Forget to wear the proper warm-up attire, which includes a charcoal gray T-shirt with the words “Believe, Become, Belong” on the back? Point deducted. Bring energy and enthusiasm and a positive attitude to the hour and 45-minute workout? Points awarded.
A team champion will be crowned Saturday.
Now in his 11th season at Saint Joseph and 41st overall as a coach, Steve Bender implemented the program five years ago for a team he felt was in need of better direction. He culled through lesson plans and exercises used while teaching communication courses, first at Buchanan High School and then at Notre Dame. The weekly program outline and exercise examples run a dizzying 23 pages. It has subheads and bullet points and just about every type of teaching tool Bender may want to tap into on a particular day.
There are 46 different drills and games. There are 15 various fitness activities. All are designed to bring together a team more than any big win.
“It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done,” Bender said of the program. “I wish I used it when I was a football and basketball coach.”
That was in another lifetime. He’s now a tennis coach. Every practice starts in typical tennis fashion — warm-ups on the Leeper courts with the neon yellow balls hit back and forth by the players, who stand four on a court. All wear their team-issued T-shirts with dark shorts. Some have hats. Other visors. The team’s four managers spend the week as players. There’s chatter. Often, a lot of it. Almost all of it, encouraging.
Hit a shot that sails long? That’s OK. Whiff on a return? Drill it the next time.
It’s as close as the group gets all afternoon to playing actual tennis as tennis is played. Sixty seconds before the scheduled 4 p.m. start time, Bender emerges from the Leeper offices. Time to collect the balls, get a quick drink of water – hydrate! – and gather for the pre-practice discussion. That includes the thought for the day. On Thursday, it’s about confidence and about moving forward so you can achieve what you believe you can achieve.
“You can never cross the ocean,” Bender says, “until you lose sight of the shore.”
Senior Onur Toper understands. Three years ago, he was a freshman seemingly afraid of his own tennis shadow. He was one of those kids who was fine staying near the shore.
“I was terrified the first time I came out here to be honest,” said Toper, now a team captain. “It gives me more empathy when the freshmen come in and they’re shy and uncertain. It’s so fulfilling to know that I was in the spot. I get to help them and compete.”
Loud and proud
Doesn’t matter if you’re a senior like Toper or one of a handful of freshmen learning how to hit a proper drop shot. Everyone matters. Everyone has a voice, and Bender better hear it.
Occasionally during warm-ups, the coach or a captain or really anyone on the team will yell two words.
“WE ARE….”
The group knows how to respond.
“SAINT JOE!”
No flies on the wall, or, in this case, the chain-link fences, allowed. If you’re out there as part of the team, you better be ready to be part of the team. No burrowing into the background. No staying silent in the shadows. Find your voice. Be a voice.
“You’re held accountable for everything,’ said senior captain John Zmyslo, who doubles as the team’s unofficial music man with his speaker and playlists that accompany the practice sessions. “It’s being there for one another. In some ways, we almost feel cheated if we aren’t.”
That accountability carries over to the practice playlist. Everyone gets to include one of their songs. On Thursday, somebody slipped in “Takin’ Care of Business” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. That one was on the radio decades before any of the Indians were born. Few gave it much thought when it started to play. Except the veteran head coach.
“I love this song!” Bender shouted from behind his mask. “Who sings this?”
Nobody knew, so Bender answered his question, then followed with another.
“Who’s takin’ care of business?”
The players all yelled that they were. Just what the coach wanted to hear. The effort during the workout waned on occasion, but as soon as Zmyslo remembered to turn the music back on, so did that effort switch.
Pushing ahead
Even during the coronavirus pandemic, Bender believed it necessary for preseason camp and his program to push through. He needed it, but the kids may have needed it more. Saint Joseph starts the school year with virtual learning for at least the first two weeks. They won’t be around one another all that much when classes resume and there’s no indication that school as they normally knew it would return anytime soon.
The pandemic cost the Indians 15 players who chose not to participate. But come the first week of August, it’s time to practice. It’s time to play.
“Can’t wait for the storm to pass,” Bender told the Tribune earlier in the week. “We must learn how to dance in the rain.”
So the tennis show goes on. Masks are worn when the group gathers for discussion. They’re off when it’s time to move, and they do a lot of moving. Some of it’s with racquets and balls and serves and everything else tennis. Some of it without any equipment at all. On Thursday, nobody touched a racquet the final 25 minutes.
Instead, they sprinted. They yelled. They gathered. They communicated.
When the Indians break from drills, they get into their groups and get three minutes to come up with a team chant, and then present it. That’s where one group used kazoos. Another used a Haka chant. They divide up again to play tug-of-war. On Wednesday, Toper’s group dominated. On Thursday, they lost two of three rather easily.
“Maybe a little overconfident,” he said. “It’s all right.”
Communication is critical in this program, and one player who seemingly never stops with it is junior Kyle Fernandez. He’s been that chattering way since he played No. 2 singles as a freshman.
“I feel like I have to bring the energy every single day so Coach doesn’t lose his voice,” said Fernandez, whose plastic gallon jug of water is about empty when practice ends. “I just have so much of it when I play. I love playing for a team that wants to compete, a group that cares about something more than themselves.”
A group that cares about one another. As players, yes, but first and second and maybe third as people. The upperclassmen know the underclassmen as well as they know their classmates. There aren’t cliques; it’s one big one. It’s all designed that way.
Fernandez fell hard for Bender’s preseason program because it stresses something that’s not always evident in the game — teamwork and togetherness. Growing up playing the game, Fernandez always was most concerned about his match. About his game. About his record.
Not so at Saint Joe.
“I never knew what it was like to be part of a team,” Fernandez said. “Coach Bender has helped me focus on that there’s more to tennis than just yourself. You can’t just focus on yourself.
“If you’re having a good day, focus on those who are having a bad day and help bring them up.”
Even when the preseason practice day ends, the teamwork never does. The captains may meet up at Dairy Queen afterward, where they discuss how to be better leaders, better groups and a better team for the next day. Text message reminders and suggestions volley deep into the night.
The regular season is right around the corner, which means time to wipe the slate clean from last season’s 23-2 record and 11th consecutive sectional championship and begin again.
Begin together. There’s a reason why the Indians have such a successful string of regular- and post-season success. There’s a reason why their year-end banquets run close to three hours. It all can be traced back to these five days in August, where the foundation for another season is set.
“Those exercises are as important as our serves and our volleys and our forehands,” Toper said. “If we didn’t do those things, I don’t know if we’d be that good of a team.”
