My Talk With Stanford Head Coach Paul Goldstein: Part Two

The landscape of college tennis is always changing, especially with the advent of NIL, the transfer portal and the influx of international players. As someone who competed in college tennis at the highest levels, I think examining the dynamics is important, and so I spoke with my former Stanford teammate Paul Goldstein who is currently the head coach of the Cardinal.

Goldstein is the only person to ever win Kalamazoo three times, and is the last person to defeat Novak Djokovic in the opening round of a Grand Slam. Here is Part Two (CLICK HERE TO READ PART ONE) of my interview with Goldstein where we discuss advice for high school tennis players, junior tennis players, and their parents.

The final part of my sit down with Goldstein will be featured in the January/February edition of Long Island Tennis Magazine.

Becker: What are some of future challenges you see ahead for college tennis?

Goldstein: All the changes that are happening in collegiate athletics amount to one primary thing, and that’s that more resources are needed to stay competitive. The athletic departments are going to prioritize the sports that generate revenue for them, which is primarily football and basketball. So tennis, right now, just isn’t one of them. There are opportunities in tennis for programs to generate revenue such as court rentals, clinics and things like that. But I’d say that our biggest existential threat is just resources available to our sport. Now, having said that, we lament anytime a tennis program gets cut, and rightfully so, but we still have about 270 Division I tennis programs out there. In comparison, there’s like 13 men’s gymnastics programs in Division I out there for example. So we have a lot more depth than other sports, but it’s still the biggest threat we face.

Becker: What’s your view on high school tennis from a recruiting standpoint? Do you think that there’s an overarching opinion among tennis coaches?

Goldtsein: I can’t speak for all college coaches, I can only speak from my experience. The players that we are recruiting almost all don’t play high school tennis. I don’t hold it against anyone for playing, I think it’s awesome, it gives you some experience on a team, but the reason they don’t play is because they are all going to school online. And there are just no online high school tennis teams. I think I’ve got a guy coming in a year from now, Fall 2026, who goes to a traditional brick-and-mortar school. And that might be the first student-athlete I’ve recruited from a traditional brick-and-mortar school in half a decade.

Becker: If you had two people who were the same quality player, had the same ranking, etc. but one played high school tennis and one didn’t, would you have a preference to the high school tennis player, or does it not matter?

Goldstein: If it was truly equal, I’d prefer the high school tennis player, but it’s hard to believe any two people are going to be equal. But I would give the slight advantage to the high school tennis player, because he’s got experience of being on a team. I think that’s actually more important than people give it credit for. However, if it’s not equal, I prioritize the player who I think would give us a better chance to be successful and win. I feel that we have a strong enough culture here where we can incorporate players into here and have them feel like they are part of a team and understand what it means to be a selfless teammate, and teach them that here.

Becker: Do you have general coaching advice or mantras for junior players or college players in general from the player development side of things?

Goldstein: I think the biggest thing is the coach and player being on the same page. Understanding what the player does best, and working together to figure out how to impose what you do best on your opponent as often as possible. Before they get to me, there should be a lot of that technical work and foundation being set. We don’t do a lot of technical changes, at least not significant ones in college. I guess the other thing that I think of a lot is our practices don’t tend to spend time on improving marginal weaknesses, but rather honing strengths. The example I’ll give is Andy Roddick. He was a great player when he started working with Brad Gilbert, but hadn’t won a Slam or crack the Top 5. Gilbert said to him, “We’re gonna make two changes right away. Number one, you’re going from wearing a visor to wearing an actual hat. And number two, you’ve got the biggest forehand and the biggest serve in the world; let’s make our opponents deal with that as much as possible and not spend 80 percent of our time improving your backhand.” I’d much rather him find a forehand from the backhand alley than hit a backhand, because that’s what he does best. So that’s the best general advice I’d have.

Becker: You won sportsmanship awards as a junior, and if they give out sportsmanship awards to tennis parents, your parents probably would have won it. What advice would you give to tennis parents of a high-level player?

Goldstein: I appreciate you saying that, and my parents would appreciate you saying that. They were phenomenal. My parents never pushed me, and I was always self-motivated. But they were incredibly supportive, and sacrificed a lot for me. My dad had four rules for me every time I stepped on the court. Have fun; don’t beat yourself, make your opponent beat you; think; and be a gentleman. So as long as I followed those four, we were good. He always told me, ‘You don’t owe me a thing, if you want to quit playing tomorrow, that’s fine.’ As I got older, there was one thing that I realized but didn’t appreciate at the time was that he never equated financial investment into my tennis with results. So, at no point did he say, I just spent X amount of dollars on a lesson, or we spent X amount of dollars for this hotel room, and you lost first round. Never. That’s something that, in retrospect, I appreciated quite a bit. So I would tell parents to let their kids fail! You hear the phrase “helicopter parent” used a lot, but the other phrase that is less common is “snowplow parent”. They clear every obstacle out of their child’s way and don’t allow them to fail. It’s important for kids to learn how to fail, to build resiliency and to learn. They, the child, has to go through that failure and learn from that experience. And if they don’t act in a way that’s consistent with your values, hold them accountable, and teach them to control what they can control. I’m not talking about a missed shot, or a result, I’m talking about the things that are within their control, which are attitude, effort and how you treat others.