Tennis Coaches and Athletic Directors:
This is such a weird time we are living in! Kind of like snow days without the snow! Hopefully, this is over soon, and we are safely back to work, school and on the courts. After talking with you and different High School Coaches, here’s an idea that may help our tennis players stay “tennis active” and “tennis educated” during this quarantine period!
Tennis Officials have a great learning site that your students can use. The more our tennis players know about rules and regs the better for all of us (Players, Coaches and Officials)!
To have access to the USTA basics rules of Tennis, your students only need to do the first two steps of “Become an Official.” The best browser to use is Internet Explorer.
If they do these easy steps, who knows, they may decide to follow through with completing their certification?!
“Become an Official” is located on our Texas Officials Website: www.usta.com/texas-
This is a great way to get your students educated on basic tennis rules (which helps them on the court) and maybe help them land a $15+ per hour Officiating job down the road!
Kevin Foster
How do I become a Certified Tennis Official?
1. Create an account on OfficialsFirst, the USTA Officiating Database.
2. Complete the Introduction to Officiating, Rules and Regulations, and Level 1 Roving Umpire courses. Click here to access these courses.
AND IF THEY WANT TO FINISH CERTIFICATION…
3. Be in compliance with the USTA Safe Play Program. To get started, go to www.usta.com/safeplay and click on “Get Safe Play Approved”. Log into your USTA account or create an account with the same email address that the Officiating Department has on file for you. The three steps you must complete are the annual SafeSport training, review and accept the USTA Safe Play Policy, and complete the background screen application.
4. Be a USTA member. (To become a member: click here)
5. Submit to the USTA a physician’s or optometrist’s statement attesting that the official has 20/20 vision, either corrected or uncorrected in each eye. The Vision Form can be downloaded on OfficialsFirst and then uploaded to your account once completed. Please note that the Vision Form must be dated within the past 12 months.
6. Contact your Section Chairperson (that’s me) to set up two days of on-court training/shadowing. After the two days, you will show your knowledge of basic themes described in the training checklist with the Section Chairperson. Following the approval from your Section Chairperson, Foundation 2 Certification will be added to your OfficialsFirst account and you will gain access to events on OfficialsFirst.