Indian River’s varsity tennis team is taking a different approach to the season this year, since they’re basically starting over from scratch. They’re building for the future with a slew of first-year players and have placed a strong emphasis on developing individual skill behind new coach Pat Cicala.
Cicala, a Long Island, N.Y, native is a certified math, chemistry, biology and earth sciences teacher. He was a Presidential Award winner for environmental sciences and was recognized nationally as the best teacher in New York.
In addition to his academic accolades, Cicala was apart of coaching staffs that took two teams (basketball and football) to state and conference finals, respectively.
Though he’s never coached tennis before in his 28 years of teaching, Cicala did play club tennis in college. And it his hope that this experience, combined with his years of coaching and expertise in math and science, will help develop some of his first-year players in the future.
“I believe that we have some relatively good players,” Cicala said this week. “Many of them have been playing for some time now (during the off-season). And even though we got beat today, I think they’re realizing that they have the ability.
“It’s just going to be a learning experience and at this point I’m not worried about wins and losses. I’m more concerned with improving the style of tennis they play,” he added.
In an effort to help his players develop more quickly, Cicala decided to videotape his players during practice and use it as a teaching tool.
“There are tricks that I use,” Cicala said. “I videotape them because sometimes the message gets lost when you tell a player that they’re not rolling their wrists or rotating their hips. But if you show them a picture of what they’re doing right or wrong it becomes much more effective.”
“The videotape helps so much because you really can’t see yourself doing something wrong when you’re doing it,” senior player Charlie Cole echoed.
So he taped his players at the beginning of the season and will do so throughout the season “to compare and to see why their game has improved.” Cicala noted that he was pleased “that his team was willing to help each other.”
Since sports are the ultimate math equation, Cicala seems to have it broken down pretty simply: To be successful you should use whatever attributes are your strengths.
At first glance, Cicala looks more like Pauly Sr. from the popular motorcycle reality television show “Orange County Choppers” than a typical tennis coach. But, in the end, his coaching strategy has worked.
“(Coach Cicala) is a lot of fun to be around and he always keeps things light,” fourth-year player Jordan Marvel said.
“And if he sees you do something wrong he’ll tell you what you can do to fix it,” Marvel added.
“I think the reason I was always a good coach was I study the mechanics of the sports,” Cicala explained. “And the reason was because of my size.
“I was always very small but was very strong and very fast, so I always had to best use the facilities that I had,” he added. “And as a coach, if you can get a child to understand that you don’t have to be a pro server, but to use their body to the fullest extent, then their game will improve.”
Of the 12 players on this year’s team, only seniors Cole and Marvel, and sophomore Eric Lindy have ever played organized tennis. Zack Kmetz, Chris Conover and Ryan Bounce opted out of playing baseball again this year — after countless years of Little League and, more recently, time spent on the junior varsity team — for the challenge of playing a new sport together.
“I just wanted to have fun,” Conover explained. “So I switched sports to see how it was.”
“It’s a new experience but it’s working out well,” he added.
Currently, Conover and fellow first-year player Zach Izzo are playing as the team’s first-doubles tandem. Bound and Marvel are playing second-doubles. Lindy has played third-singles, Kmetz is second-singles and Cole rounds out the rotation at first -singles after spending the past two seasons on both doubles teams.
Cole had flourished in doubles over the past two seasons but noted that he was eager for the challenge of not only playing by himself but playing against the best the Henlopen Conference has to offer.
“I wasn’t planning on winning a lot of matches this year, but I was kind of excited to play against the best players in the conference,” Cole said.
“Singles is so much different than doubles because you can’t just run up and net. You have to protect your shots and get them into a position where you can take advantage of them,” he added.
Currently, Cole is 3-3 overall and 2-2 in conference play.
And though Indian River (2-4, 2-2 in the conference) is enjoying a relatively good season thus far, Cicala has promised that every position is up for challenge on select Wednesdays throughout the season.
Marvel and Bound are looking to move up in the doubles ranks, while Conover hopes secure a singles position by season’s end.
“I expect to get challenged later in the season,” Marvel acknowledged.
And no matter how the Indians’ varsity tennis team finishes out, the experience that many of these first-year players are getting now will only make them better in future seasons.
“Even if we do badly this season, they’ll (younger players) still have chances to improve over the years,” Cole said.
“The main goal is just to get the kid to enjoy tennis, Cicala emphasized. “Most of them are still sophomores.”
Indian River has a lengthy break due to the Easter holiday but will finally resume play at Sussex Central on April 18.