| On the heels of a 16th Mid-American Conference Championship, a perfect regular season and the school's first-ever national ranking, Miami Tennis Coach Howard Joffe stopped by RedHawk Chatter on Wednesday to answer your questions. Read his answers about this year's team, the first-ever national ranking and recruiting philosophies. |
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| MURedHawks.com: Good morning and welcome to another edition of RedHawk Chatter. We will begin in a few minutes with Miami's Tennis Coach, Howard Joffe. |
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| Bob (Columbus): Congratulations on the 2009 championship! How much of a surprise was this given that your team features three freshmen and two sophomores? |
 |  | Coach Joffe: The answer would be no. The freshmen that were brought in are a very gifted group and have added to an already talented and young group. |
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| Mike (Oxford): Congratulations on the championship. How do you go upon coming up with your lineup during the season and how often will you tweak it? |
 | | Coach Joffe: The rules around lineup are fairly rigid so that coaches are typically limited in how far up or down a player can move. Ours is a lineup that for the most part stays pretty stable. |
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| Sara (Oxford): What do you look for in a player?... Is it a good serve, good speed, power, etc? |
| | Coach Joffe: Typically, the decision is really around being the strongest player vs. any type of player. Tennis is a sport that, in that regard, is unlike basketball and football. Probably the most salient point on recruiting would be to seek out kids that compete well, regardless of strengths and weaknesses, and have the ability to handle themselves well under pressure. |
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| Susan (Oxford): Many schools have mostly foreign players on their roster, but Miami is mostly Americans and even Ohioans. What is your recruiting philosophy? |
| | Coach Joffe: Miami is a school that should be very popular for top American tennis players. However, in an attempt to put our program into the national spotlight, it has been important to recruit foreign players to bolser our strength. |
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| Joe (Middletown): I've noticed some of your talented players are foreign. How do you end up finding them and convincing them to come to school in the United States? |
| | Coach Joffe: The tennis community is a fairly small one internationally. On that basis, we are able to network with coaches all over the world. As far as selling Miami, it is a school whose academics are in the top tier. The social life is exciting and players are made to feel welcome in such a small community. We also like to think that tennis-wise, we do a good job developing players. |
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| Sara (Oxford): Is this the best team you have ever coached? |
| | Coach Joffe: This is certainly the most exciting team in terms of its youth and talent -- and its upside going forward -- that I have coached. At USC, I was a part of some teams ranked as high as No. 1 in the nation. |
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| James, Oxford: What have you found to be the biggest challenge coming from Califorinia and a "big" time program to MU and Oxford. |
| | Coach Joffe: Definitely, the job at Miami is as challenging a job as there is in college tennis. We do not have an indoor facility on campus and our budget is not congruent with the level of tennis and ability that this team enjoyed. Having said that, our steady trajectory of improvement highlights the resourcefulness, smarts and work ethic of the young ladies on our team. |
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| Oxford: Is there an indoor tennis facility for Oxford and MU in the future? |
| | Coach Joffe: If I had a dollar for every story and rumor and discussion around a prospective indoor facility, I would be upper-middle class by now :). Until ground is actually broken, our plan is to continue our progress in the MAC and at a national level, regardless of what we have or don't have. |
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| James,Oxford: What kind of summer program do you have your MU athletes do? Do you check up with them during summer? |
| | Coach Joffe: The most effective of approach is to do what is in the best interests of each player. In some instances, this means a summer filled with tennis and conditioning. In others, it may mean a healthy absence from tennis, lots of shopping and sunbathing to refuel for the fall. |
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| Eric (Oxford): Coach, I hear you have quite the personality. Do you think that you being more personable has made this team better? |
| | Coach Joffe: If my personality has helped in any way with recruitment of players, then perhaps it has helped the team. On the flip side, by mid-April, I am quite certrain our ladies our cured of my "personality". Hopefully, they have the stomach for a little more of me before the year is done. |
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| Steve (Cincinnati): Ball State or Northern Illinois, who would you rather face? |
| | Coach Joffe: Whoever is playing worst and has significant injury (I am a poor sport!). |
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| | Coach Joffe: Seriously, the way that our girls handle themselves and perform is the most important thing. It's tournament time and we know we have to play well, regardless of who we face. |
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| Katie (Oxford): How far can this team go? Are you guys able to have a run like Ice Hockey did? |
| | Coach Joffe: Our team is very talented and if we end up making it into the NCAA Tournament, I believe we would be a very dangerous team. At this moment, I think we are capable any team in the nation that is not inside the Top 10, in the crudest sense. I definitely feel like our range is great with our talent and ability on the one hand and our inexperience on the other making us a wildly unpredictable entity. |
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| Bill (Oxford): What does the national ranking do for the program? |
| | Coach Joffe: More than anything, it is just an emblem for the efforts put forth and the direction of the program. We have every intention of reaching much further up that list sooner or later. |
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| MURedHawks.com: We have time for one more question... thank you for joining us. |
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| Sven (Richmond): Can any of your players crush a tennis ball in their hands like Jamie Summers, The Bionic Woman? |
| | Coach Joffe: The back of our ladies t-shirts exclaims "We're Pretty... PRETTY Good". This should clue you in that aside from their on-court prowess, our ladies enjoy a high standard of grooming. On this basis and at the risk of breaking a nail, I am certain that no one would dare attempt it! |
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| MURedHawks.com: That concludes our RedHawk Chatter for today. Join us next week when Golf Coach Casey Lubahn takes your questions. |
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