Author: nhagberg

It was the third set of the most intense match I saw at the Minnesota State High School League Girls State Tennis Tournament last week.  The team match was tied 3-3, the deciding match was on the court with the two girls battling like two prize fighters trading weary punches, and everyone in the building…

The truth is, not everybody likes me. This is a hard truth for someone who has spent a great deal of his life wanting to be liked. But it is, nonetheless, the truth. And it is essential to know in going forward with any endeavor of importance without being paralyzed. When my daughter, Madeline, now…

Summer camps end today.  I could say, “Where does the time go?” but after 36 years of this, I have a pretty good idea. This is what I see that I could not see 36 years ago: I see a Tennis & Life Camps that will thrive long after I am dead.  I do not…

“I stink.” Not words you expect to hear when you come upon a court of little tykes who had been 15 minutes ago having fun and laughing at the games they were playing on court. But, in the shade, sitting cross legged by himself while the chaotic energy of other eight year olds swirled around,…

It is raining this morning as I write this.  We are indoors with drills. For many years at TLC, we had a saying as a staff about weather.  “Only God and Steve can control the rain…”  Steve Wilkinson, co-founder of TLC, was like Moses parting the Red Sea.  He looked up at the sky and…

It is never a matter of if.  It is always a matter of when.  Trouble will visit our minds and our lives.  If we know this, we do not have to be afraid.  We can face it without saying “Why me?” and say instead, as Arthur Ashe said when he contracted AIDS through an unscreened…

This morning, outdoors, at 6:45 AM CDT, I was destroyed on court by my buddy. He played brilliantly. He set up shots beautifully, and executed put-aways as effortlessly as if he were strolling down the Champs-Élysées . My own racket felt like a trampoline. I considered at one point stopping play, placing it between two benches,…

What if you started every game in tennis behind Love-40 against opponents of equal ability?  How long before TLC’s Three Crowns of Positive Attitude, Full Effort, and Good Sportsmanship collapsed in on you? Today is May Day, the day of May baskets.  May poles.  May Day celebrations of spring (that season which does not occur…

Yesterday would have been Steve Wilkinson’s 76th birthday.  And I forgot.  He would have been ok with that. One of my favorite memories of Steve was his wandering the courts in the Swanson bubble with the list of all 100 campers’ names in his hands.  Learning the names somehow came easy to me, and that…

One of my pet peeves is when I hear an announcer say, “Well, they may not have won, but they gave it 110%!”  Or a coach, “Unless you’re giving me 110%, go home right now!”  I want to say to them, “Were you not required to take math when you were growing up?” Full effort,…