In the car ride home after his teenage son played poorly in a tennis match, Jeff Greenwald asked, “What were you thinking out there?”
“My ranking will drop,” the boy replied.
“And then what would happen?” Greenwald asked.
“I won’t get into a good college. I won’t get a good job. And I’ll be homeless,” he said.
He was not kidding. All that had gone through the young athlete’s mind.
Greenwald could relate.
Jeff Greenwald, in his Staples days.
In 1984 — playing #1 for Staples High School — he won a rare triple crown: the FCIAC and state LL (largest schools) singles championships, and the team’s 3rd consecutive state title.
After college, he continued to compete.
Greenwald won the US 35-and-over national singles and doubles championships. He was ranked #1 in the world International Tennis Federation men’s 35 category, for both singles and doubles.
He kept playing — and winning — in older age groups too. In 2019, he was inducted into the NorCal Hall of Fame.
But Greenwald was not a professional tennis player. He’s a clinical and sports psychologist in northern California. So he listened to his son’s fears as a concerned father, a fellow athlete, and a sports psychologist.
He recounts that experience — and many others — in “The Mental Edge for Young Athletes: A World Champion’s Mental Toughness Guide for Athletes, Parents and Coaches in the Digital Age.”
Greenwald’s second book — his first, “The Best Tennis of Your Life,” published in 2007, sold 80,000 copies — is a clear-eyed look at the realities of being a young competitor today.
Things were not easy when he wrote his first book. They’re exponentially tougher today.
Greenwald’s goal was to “pass on the principles I know now — and wish I knew earlier — in a way kids can relate to,” he says.
He does it without preaching or offering checklists, but by telling stories.
His audience is also parents. Greenwald hopes that reading “The Mental Edge” will help them open up conversations with their youngsters.
“We’re human. We have adrenaline. We want to win,” the sports psychologist notes.
“But there are no guarantees we will. The mind doesn’t like that. So we worry about things we can’t control, rather than focusing on the things that can make winning happen.”
Social media exacerbates already-existing pressures.
Jeff Greenwald
“There’s nowhere to hide,” Greenwald says. “All the time, you see the best of the best. You think you could be so much more than you are.
“Then throw in all the money that’s offered now in college — and high school. The pressure all goes in one direction.”
It’s no longer enough for a coach or parent to say, “Just have fun!”
“Just having fun hitting a tennis ball and playing has been decimated,” Greenwald believes.
“It’s become a job. Kids feel, ‘I’ve done this for so long. I’m supposed to do it. I have to keep going.'”
Greenwald believes that focusing on mastery can produce good results. “It’s good to want to win,” he notes. “Just do it in a smarter way.”
“The Mental Edge” helps athletes, parents and coaches strengthen resiliency to excel under pressure; lessen anxiety, and compete with freedom; create a mindset of success and positivity within an entire family, and build focus for peak performance.
Meanwhile, in individual consultations, he finds that “moving the needle with families is harder now. It takes longer to pull them long.” Eventually, parents warm to his approach. “They appreciate having a spot to land,” he says.
But Greenwald warns against too much parental emotional investment in any child’s sport.
His daughter’s passion is track. She recently told her father, “I don’t want you to watch me run. That’s my sport. You don’t need to be there.”
That was hard to hear. But it was a lesson he took to heart, as a sports psychologist.
And a father.
(“06880” reports often on Staples graduates, sports, teenagers — and, as we do today, the intersection of all 3. If you enjoy stories like these, please click here to support our work. Thanks!)
