Racquet Fuel

What does it take to preserve and grow tennis facilities in today’s ever-changing landscape? In this episode of Racquet Fuel, hosts Kim Bastable and Simon Gale sit down with Mary Buschmann, Executive Director of USTA Missouri Valley, to explore the challenges and opportunities of managing public tennis facilities, engaging local communities, and ensuring long-term success.

Mary shares the fascinating story behind the Plaza Tennis Center, a 100-year-old facility established and operated by the KC Parks and Recreation Department in Kansas City, MO. IN 2024, USTA Missouri Valley developed a partnership with the KC Parks to revitalize the facilities, breathing new life and utilization. From navigating parks department partnerships to rethinking how success is measured, this conversation is a must-listen for anyone involved in tennis leadership.

By the end of this episode, you'll learn:
✅ Why community engagement is the key to a thriving tennis facility
✅ How USTA Missouri Valley stepped in to save the Plaza Tennis Center
✅ The importance of measuring success by court utilization, not just profit
✅ The biggest leadership lessons from Mary’s 20-year career in tennis
✅ Why creative programming (like day camps, corporate play, and red-ball tennis ) is essential for growth
✅ The challenge of finding and developing talent in the racquet sports industry
✅ Why strong partnerships with parks departments make or break public facilities
✅ How USTA’s commitment to infrastructure improvements is shaping the future of tennis

Listen now to gain valuable insights on leadership, community impact, and the evolving role of tennis facilities!

Looking to become a more confident, competent, and clear business leader with a lifelong career in the industry? Become a Certified Director of Racquet Sports. Visit our website to learn more!

What is Racquet Fuel?

Racquet Fuel provides insights into the best practices and innovations of racquets industry business leaders.

Co-hosts Kim Bastable, Director of Professional Tennis Management at the University of Florida, and Simon Gale, Senior Director Racquet Sports Development at the USTA National Campus, help racquets leaders in your ability to grow the game and to improve the experiences you offer to both your staff and players by talking to industry leaders, including USTA executives, authors and innovators. If you are on a career path in racquet sports or already a racquets business leader and you want to stay up to date on ideas and innovations in racquets industry business and leadership, this podcast is for you.

Presented by the Athlete+ Podcast Network at the University of Florida Institute for Coaching Excellence.

Episode Narration:

Welcome to Racquet Fuel, where we launch into great conversations and share powerful tools to help you become a stronger Racquet's leader. Your hosts are Kim Bastable, a former all American tennis player and now the director of professional Racquet's management at the University of Florida, and Simon Gale, the USTA senior director of Racquet Sports Development. In this episode, the iconic 100 year old Plaza Tennis Center in Kansas City, Missouri needed a new manager, and the USTA Missouri Valley section stepped up. Here are Kim and Simon with the backstory to explain why and how.

Kim Bastable:

Welcome to Racquet Fuel. Today, we are very excited to have Mary Buschmann of the USTA Missouri Valley, one of Simon's somewhat coworkers in the USTA to help us learn about some exciting USTA efforts to further tennis core tennis club businesses jump in and manage when needed. So, Simon, this is kind of an interesting USTA based podcast.

Simon Gale:

Yeah. It's it's something that I followed, not closely, but from a distance, I would say, how USTA sections have gotten involved with with taking on facilities and and operating them, I think we're gonna learn a lot about that model and and the why behind that. And Mary's got a fascinating career, and I think we're gonna learn a lot about leadership from Mary today. So welcome, Mary.

Mary Buschmann:

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

Kim Bastable:

Yeah. Mary comes to us from, I was laughing before we got on, the banking industry. She spent longer there than I did. I but a very short career, but she had a a longer term banking career before she got into USGA league coordination in the Saint Louis area and ultimately ended up in my hometown, which is Kansas City, where she, for the last twenty years, has been running the USTA Missouri Valley. And I have a lot of love for that and a love for the facility that she has been started managing last summer because it's 100 year old facility that's next to a iconic shopping center called the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri.

Kim Bastable:

And I remember playing on that facility with metal nets and something they might have considered to be clay courts, but I think they were more like just, I don't know, dirt. Exactly.

Mary Buschmann:

They did start with clay. We you know, we've done a lot of history in trying to follow that. And they did start with clay, and I think maybe not maybe there were 10 courts, and now we're at 14. Yeah. So there's been a lot of evolution Yeah.

Mary Buschmann:

Obviously, over a hundred years down there.

Kim Bastable:

Yeah. It's incredible. So let's talk first. I'd love to just get a little bit for our listeners. I'm not sure.

Kim Bastable:

You know, we are a leadership podcast, and our leadership role in the industry is the executive director of the USDA. So I'm curious. Just first, tell us a little bit about your day to day. What what is it that keeps you busy outside of this plaza project?

Mary Buschmann:

Yeah. That's an unique add. You know, day to day, it's more about, thinking and processing how we can continue to grow tennis. We have a five state area we're trying to cover. I have about nine folks that actually work in an office space here in Prairie Village, Kansas.

Mary Buschmann:

And then the rest of the staff, another nine are out of office and actually more in the communities. And it's all about making those connections, keeping the staff aligned. It's really hard to manage in office, out of office. So on a day to day, you're doing a lot of that and a lot of strategic thinking. Heaven only knows we all have a lot of conference calls, which connects us all together in our ecosystem, and we have developed a really a strong sense of community among my other 16 peers across the seventeen secondtions in the USTA.

Mary Buschmann:

And we lean in lean into each other a lot for like experiences or challenges everybody may be doing. But you know, we're always looking at the bottom line so we can better utilize our funds that we do have and continue to now we've got we always have the challenge of making sure everybody can experience a wonderful sport of tennis. But now the general challenge of 35,000,000 players by 2035 makes you think a little differently and a little more strategic. So it's exciting.

Simon Gale:

Mary, twenty years is a long time in a in a position, so congratulations on on your dedication to the sport and dedication to your your team and section. But one of the things that comes with time, think, is hopefully you stop and reflect on your journey as a leader. I know I don't do that very often. I'm working on that as a skill, always looking forward to what we're doing next. But when you stop and look back at your twenty years, what are some of the things you wish you'd known when you've started or some of the things you've learned over those twenty years in in a leadership role?

Mary Buschmann:

Well, yes. I learned, and I I didn't realize until you really get into it, how extremely complicated our organization is. And just trying to learn first of all, we're alphabet soup in terms of every time you refer to something, and it takes a long time to assimilate NTRP, WTN, everything you can imagine, USPTA, PTR, all those acronyms because we're acronym heavy. So that was one piece. But just in general, it's not just about this.

Mary Buschmann:

We're part of a bigger ecosystem and trying to understand all the players. You you really don't feel that until you're in it for a few years. Just I think we're making it better, and it's more about the entire ecosystem. And we're just trying to do what's best to bring communities together, but it takes a while to assimilate that. And I didn't realize that.

Mary Buschmann:

Obviously, coming a little bit from a district area in Saint Louis, I've lived in various parts of our section because I also lived in Des Moines, and now I'm here. So it just that evolution. And leagues was kind of all my thing besides tournaments and tennis. And then as I got into more of the volunteer side and understanding there's so much more broader impact that we can make, but you you learn that with time.

Kim Bastable:

You know, I think that sounds very similar to the job of a director of Racquet Sport, someone who's just their job is just to teach on court, and they kinda focus there and knock that out of the park, but they go home, and that's it's over. They've they've done. They might plan for the next lesson, but they're not thinking broader. And we are, you know, seeing that as you grow up the evolution, you go into the next job. Yes.

Kim Bastable:

You have to think about people below you, and you have to think about the bigger picture. And that's just leadership. As you move up, you do have to have a different viewpoint, and it's hard to train for that. But, you know, I think just an awareness that that's where you're gonna end up being and practicing thinking bigger than just that one small thing, like you said, the leagues or the tournaments. That's part of leadership, so that's very good.

Kim Bastable:

That's good to point out. So tell us a little about the motivation for what was the state of the management of the plaza exactly? As you said, it's 14 tennis courts. I don't know if it had a pickleball footprint at all or, it it just it's next to an iconic shopping center. It's a seasonal club in a climate that doesn't allow you to play twelve months of the year.

Kim Bastable:

No air structure allowed because of a beautiful shopping center near it. That's never been allowed. I don't know. Maybe you've tried to make another plea for that. But what was the reason?

Kim Bastable:

How did you get into it?

Mary Buschmann:

Well, you know, there was some big discussion they've had over the years and since I've been here. They have the parks that is parkland. So it's the park board that actually and the park and rec department that actually manages or owns that. And they, over the last many years, I'm not sure when it started. It was before I was here or shortly thereafter where they put it out for bid because they really didn't have the bandwidth to actually put somebody in there and manage the facility.

Mary Buschmann:

So they went with a commercial entity who really did a great job, but it became a little bit of a frustration sometimes. I think all third parties, they're dealing with other departments, it's really about building that relationship so you have good communication, and there's frustration if you don't get responses right away. And, you know, the mindset of a commercial entity, I think, versus a parks department are are a little bit different. Parks is about servicing the community. It's not necessarily about making money, if that's a fair statement.

Mary Buschmann:

It's more maybe about breaking even. But it's that's their their mission is just serving the community and offering an experience. So I think over the years and the last group that was in there wasn't really lifting the courts up enough, and then there was an opportunity of what's gonna happen. And we couldn't afford to lose 14 courts, obviously, and not have that place open. So meeting with the parks department and some of the entities that use it, we have a couple colleges that use that facility as a home base and a couple high schools.

Mary Buschmann:

And so we all came together, and I just said, hey. If we need to step in, we'll step in. It's really important to us. I understand. I went to our board and said, we're not gonna this isn't a moneymaker.

Mary Buschmann:

This isn't a revenue stream. This is a serving the community because we can't afford not to have those 14 corps operational and functional. We there's too much of that community that uses those. So that's kinda how we got into it. We we weren't gonna let it go by the wayside.

Kim Bastable:

Yeah. So what was what does that look like exactly? You had to hire someone to be a director. I think you moved an office, someone offices out of there, one of your districts maybe. How does it look now in terms of under your management?

Mary Buschmann:

Well, it was like learning from a a fire hose a little bit, and I leaned in a couple of my peers. Laura Bone, who's actually with USTA Florida, they have great relationships with four different parks departments across Florida, and she has an arm that actually will step in if they win the RFP, and she's got a whole arm that manages and runs facilities. And then Matthew Warren out of PNW, he also has saved many facilities, and he's in the business out there as well. So I leaned on them a lot to say, okay. Share with me your job descriptions, what you do.

Mary Buschmann:

I did hire a manager so that Jacob Beck is there as my facilities manager and then empowered him to start finding desk personnel and those kinds of things. The district that's here, we there's not a lot of space there to really office out of, but our first really big hurdle was the courts were not in great condition. And the nice part was I was willing to say, okay. We're gonna have to figure out the money, Sitch, how we're gonna do this. And as we were walking into the board meeting to get approval for our contract with the parks, they kinda surprised me and said, we found some money.

Mary Buschmann:

We're going to do a redo all the courts for you. And that was a heavy lift to the tune of a half $1,000,000 just to get those courts all redone. So the additional besides just getting in there and wrapping our arms around the condition and trying to clean it up, do landscaping, all those things that we learned just from doing and finding landscapers and some things like that was we didn't have all 14 courts right away. So it really wasn't until the June where we could even really start considering heavy lift programming. So we're excited about '25 to be able to start open the doors with some great programming going on.

Mary Buschmann:

We didn't really hire pros. We offered pros just to rent the courts and and do their clinics or offer some things down there so we could get our arms around activity and walk ups and gauge all that and just make sure people were being welcomed when they walked in, which they didn't necessarily feel before. But what I really found welcoming through all the challenges was the patient of the patients of the tennis community because they were so excited we were there because they knew we would make it a good experience walking in the door. And so that's been pretty heartfelt from perspective. But no doubt about it.

Mary Buschmann:

I I leaned all over the place. Jacob brings some experience by working at a couple different facilities, so that's been great. He's really creative. And, again, in '25, we're gonna bring some new events to the plaza. We've got an additional university that's gonna play out there because Avila's bringing back men's and women's tennis, which is very exciting.

Mary Buschmann:

And the school had committed to building courts on campus. Those aren't ready, so they're gonna play their matches this spring at Plaza. So I'm excited to bring a lot of collegiate tennis and really play up and support them. We've got cameras on the courts. We're gonna offer live streaming, which they haven't had before.

Mary Buschmann:

We're working through that right now. And then there's a couple other improvements we wanna make through our journey in '25. And, again, it's really important to know that we have the support of not only the tennis community, but our section board of directors saying this is the right direction we need to be. And I do believe in our ecosystem, more of us will realize that the infrastructure is so important. We have such momentum right now for tennis, and we need to make sure that we can support that.

Mary Buschmann:

So I I think you'll see a lot more of us just rising up to the challenges that we find in communities and making sure that they can coexist, whether it's helping organize a local group that's willing to do the programming or us stepping in when we need to.

Simon Gale:

So, Mary, what do you see with this model? Do you see this becoming more prevalent? Do you see other sections picking up on this momentum and saying, hey. This is a chance to connect the community?

Mary Buschmann:

Well, yes. USTA Eastern is doing a partnership, and they're really doing the partnership with a local CTA that is gonna is partnered with the parks. Actually, in, Schenectady, New York where I lived there for a period of time when I was doing all that banking stuff. So it's really fun. I feel like it's in my backyard.

Mary Buschmann:

So they're partnering. It's a it's a collaboration with the city. The the section has put in money to redo the courts. The CTA has really stepped up. They're doing all the programming and managing.

Mary Buschmann:

And so, yeah, I think we'll see a lot more of that. I I think we've always felt our role is to connect the dots, but but we're gonna connect them even stronger and, obviously, with some finances where we can. I'm very excited that USTA has made the commitment to putting many more dollars in our tennis venue services bucket for spending so we can help support the efforts that are gonna be out there to either improve existing courts or build new because we have all this interest and we don't have the court space. So, yeah, I I think you will see a lot more of that, Simon.

Simon Gale:

So I hear the I I see the vision. I hear how it's gonna impact communities, and there's there's some amazing things you're bringing to this facility. What are the risks involved when the USCA gets involved with taking on a a facility like this?

Mary Buschmann:

You know, sometimes and it depends on the environment, I would think. I know there's always a hesitancy because you don't wanna take away from your providers, But I think we're finding more and more that's not the case. It's really they're welcoming the help as opposed to feel like we're trying to compete. We wanna offer tennis. It's not all about USTA.

Mary Buschmann:

It's about the tennis community. So whatever programming is gonna fit, that's what we're gonna support. We're supporting our sport. And, yes, to answer your question in case it comes up, if Pickleball wants to come down there, I'm not I I don't wanna put permanent lines, but they they can come in and they have come in and run a court to put down lines and, you know, pick them up after. So we can we can coexist, but I think we're fortunate specific to this area.

Mary Buschmann:

We have so many other pickleball entities that they don't necessarily need to be right there.

Simon Gale:

So on the flip side, what does success look like? How do you measure success? Is it profitability versus participation? How does the USTA, which is maybe not having to generate a profit from a facility like a regular owner would, how do you measure success in five, ten years time? What does that look like?

Mary Buschmann:

I think my the success that we really wanna measure is gonna be court utilization. You know, the famous lines for everybody, and I don't care where you are in the country is, oh, I drive by and nobody's on the courts. It's never gonna be a 100% utilization from the time you open door to when you close, but we've gotta do a better job of figuring out what people need in the middle of the day so that they they are active. Especially there, there's definitely pressure, and we're trying to work and build partnerships with that whole iconic plaza shopping area and say, we wanna work with you. We wanna promote you.

Mary Buschmann:

We want you to have visibility because we're gonna drive a lot people there the for your foot traffic. It's just not yeah. It's seasonal, but we have an opportunity to really do some great things to lift them up at the same time as utilize our courts.

Kim Bastable:

And as you went through this process, you mentioned you hired Jacob, but tell us how you know, there's people listening to the podcast that wanna become leaders. They probably wanna become people like Jacob. They wanna they wanna work at the facilities, whether it's commercial or public park. How do you spot these people? How did he what was the process you went through?

Kim Bastable:

What were you looking for? You were looking at resumes, what were you looking for?

Mary Buschmann:

I think from a resume standpoint, I was looking for some experience because we absolutely had to I mean, I didn't get them on board till May. So and we had to open the doors when the weather started breaking because every the universities need to get into the schools. And so it was kinda me, you know, and I was opening and closing and doing all that. But I looked for some experience and some and creativity. I wanted somebody who came with excitement, enthusiasm, not only an encore person, but could see a bigger picture of why it was important.

Mary Buschmann:

And personality, customer service was a big part of that. When we narrowed the field, we had them come kind of with a a game plan and a project of how you're gonna approach this knowing the environment. So and, you know, the the people that we really spoke with were mostly from the area, so they had a feel for it. And this was so personal in this area that was important too. I'm not saying somebody from North Carolina couldn't have come in and done something, but I I couldn't hand them any guarantees because I didn't know what to anticipate.

Mary Buschmann:

I didn't other than me knowing some how things ran a little bit down there, I really didn't have any history of dollars and cents and revenues and all those kinds of things. So it was an opportunity to really start from scratch, and that to me is always a challenge just like going back to the whole banking and ATM world. You know? Who knew that was really gonna take off, But you took it as a challenge, and that's where I am with the plaza and this tennis.

Simon Gale:

Mary, you talked about the growth in tennis specifically, and also just in general, racket sports. And I think that's also led to a need and a challenge to find good people. So as I listened to your answer there, it's all around finding a great person. We're all looking for them. Mhmm.

Simon Gale:

But there's a there's a well known pro shortage at the moment. And as we grow, is our industry and Kim and I talk about this often. Is our industry appealing to the next generation with work week and the hours and and compensation and so on? So I assume that will be one of your biggest challenges as the facility grows and gets more popular. Is that gonna be possibly one of your biggest challenges?

Simon Gale:

And and if so, what else would you add to the the challenge list?

Mary Buschmann:

Yes. I I believe so. We are going to hire a pro so we can get into this year and challenge him with opportunities. Some of our part time desk staff has a desire to want to learn and grow. So that challenge will be continuing to offer them training and show that there is a career.

Mary Buschmann:

That's probably our biggest challenge is we haven't shown well enough to our communities that this is a career path, and it doesn't only have to be on court. There's a lot of elements that come into play, and we are we're taking that on as a challenge in general through our five state area. But, you know, talking specifically here, yes, I I really want to. We've got an opportunity. We've got a captive audience with our collegiate players that are actually down there and captivating them and saying, hey.

Mary Buschmann:

How else could you give back to the tennis if you really love it? You'd like it to be a career. We have lots of pathways you follow. And I I believe that's really true across our industry, and we just have never really shown how it can be a career. And then when we're fortunate to get them in, whatever that looks like, then they go, oh, wow.

Mary Buschmann:

I I had no clue. And they get really excited, and then they don't wanna leave because they love the environment.

Kim Bastable:

That's great. We do need more of that, and and I think it is. It's getting the message out to the young people. I think it's also getting the message out to the parents to let them know that this is a really great career, and all that money they've invested in their child's lessons is not, wasted in any way. There's much life that can happen with that education.

Kim Bastable:

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your plans for for '25. I I know you run a lot of tournaments, the programming. Like, what you said you were gonna hire a pro, but what can we expect to see, that, you know, is kinda new and different? I just create your creative ideas, maybe.

Kim Bastable:

What what are some of those?

Mary Buschmann:

Well, I I think we'll focus a lot on those that a couple of things. I think you'll see a lot more red ball tennis as we've been talking about as a community. I really wanna get to you tell me what your tennis looks like. If this is where you wanna stay and play and drop in and do some fun social stuff, play on the red ball, interact, have some fun, then great. You can stay there.

Mary Buschmann:

But if you wanna get better and better, we're go we'll offer clinics for that. If you just want to do it from a fitness standpoint and a health and wellness and movement, we're going to order probably offer a lot more cardio, all the different avenues for that. So we're going to find somebody that wants to promote a lot of that and be creative. And at the same time, we wanna do a lot of interaction with that community down there. So what that can look like, we're talking to a couple different entities.

Mary Buschmann:

We'll partner with some of the community centers within the parks department to bring a day camp down there. We already partner with Win for KC and their camps. So a lot of it's not gonna be only youth because we have a lot of adults that go, oh, I don't know how to play tennis. We did that. We did dabble with it where we're gonna engage the businesses down there and have noontime, come down, play for an hour, go back to work, and do some things like that.

Mary Buschmann:

So we have to get creative because of the captive audience we actually have there. We do have some big companies and corporations down there, a lot of law firms, by the way. So they're players, but I wanna offer that play during the day. So that's what we're we're working a lot with and interchanging and being creative about what present. We did we did something before a tournament last year that that was popular.

Mary Buschmann:

We did yoga on the courts at sunrise. And so we wanna think outside the box. So we get people there who in their eyes either, oh, I used to play, but once you've played, you're a tennis player. So what experience do you want now at this stage versus when you played when you were in high school?

Kim Bastable:

Well, I'm curious a couple of things. One, are you selling equipment down there? Because, you know, used to play maybe doesn't have the right a a racket that was produced in the last twenty years.

Mary Buschmann:

We'll have rackets down there. I'm not I'm not doing a lot in that merchandise space right now. I have the basics. We'll have the basics like grips, cans of tennis balls, and we're actually, we have a third party that does the stringing. So but so I'm balancing that.

Mary Buschmann:

I'd like to use it almost as an incubator so we try new things, very similar to what you're doing, Simon, at the campus. I want this to kind of be that for us so we can experiment with different things. And I also see it as an opportunity for some of our youth, the NJTL here, the Stephanie Waterman Foundation, Kim, that you're familiar with, have those athletes, if they wanna earn some extra money, maybe we teach them how to string, and they become part of that. And they they get that feel, and that's our intro into, yes. You can have a career here.

Mary Buschmann:

And we've got some really good, strong community tennis leaders that are trying to bring those young folks along, help them have them help run a tournament desk, all those kinds of things. So I think and it's really kind of cute. A couple of our part time folks are former players. They may have a full time job, but they don't wanna not have their toe in the water in in tennis, and I and I love that. It's just scary if I put some of them on court at the 16, and now they're back.

Mary Buschmann:

You know? They're adults. It's wrong.

Kim Bastable:

That's a long time to be around. Yeah. That's good. Well, one last question, and I'll let Simon wrap it up. But what about marketing?

Kim Bastable:

How are you getting the word out about this?

Mary Buschmann:

Funny you should say that. We just had a discussion, and we are gonna we're gonna hire within our USTA Missouri Valley and my marketing communication staff, hire somebody part time, and their whole focus will be the plaza and the tennis center and doing all the social media, updating the website. Right? We just tried to absorb it a little. I had a little volunteer part time help, but I I need more consistency, more better messaging, all that kind of stuff.

Mary Buschmann:

So we're just talking about that. So we hope to have somebody on board soon. In the meantime, I've got one person who helped develop the website. She's gonna continue in that vein. But, definitely, that's so important.

Mary Buschmann:

If we can't message well or get the word out, it's hard. And I don't want everything just fired haphazard. I want a really good marketing plan. So we'll be doing that over the next month. We hope to open, you know, mid March, so we we gotta get rolling.

Simon Gale:

So, Mary, it's early days, but if you look at the USDA's focus around facilities and players and coaching as our core three buckets Yep. This obviously falls under facilities, and it's early days in terms of of where this facility's at with the USTA's involvement. Tips and tricks you would pass on to others who would lead public facilities as you've gone through this experience?

Mary Buschmann:

I don't know about tricks. I learned a lot about roll drives. But I would say my big tip is really build a solid communication and relationship with that parks department. The kindness and the collaboration that we have when I say, hey. What about this?

Mary Buschmann:

What about there's some things that contractually, you know, we're responsible for versus them. And when something doesn't happen, they are so responsive right now. And I'm not so sure that was the case, but we're constantly in communication with them. We're constantly lifting them up in terms of how how much we appreciate their support. I've had meetings with the president of the board, the park board, which is important to to garner all that.

Mary Buschmann:

And I think at the end of this month, we'll go back to the board and let them know where we're going with stuff. And that's probably the biggest tip is just really keeping that department engaged because that's gonna help us really engage the community. And it allows them to think about other entities where they could introduce us so we can help prosper and promote other things that are going on within the parks. And and I find that really valuable. So that that's probably my biggest lean in.

Kim Bastable:

That's excellent. I think partnerships and communication, I mean, that's probably not only, limited to this relationship. No. It's true overall. But it is particularly key because in the park board, they're probably not down there regularly.

Kim Bastable:

They don't really know, and you have to let them know what you're doing, and then they have a comfort level with just the feeling of, okay. I've delegated that, and it's being done well. Otherwise, they're probably not sure. So just getting the word there.

Mary Buschmann:

Well and they have so much more that they have to consider. When you go to that park board meeting and you see their agenda and you've got so much of the community in there that's ask different entities asking for this, asking for, I don't know, additional walking trails. And there's just all different things that their scope is broad. We're one piece of that, but we wanna make sure that they know that this one piece is very much in lockstep with everything they're trying to do. So

Kim Bastable:

Excellent. That's great. Well, thank you for sharing. It's great information. We enjoy hearing USTA success stories and just hearing about ways that, USTA is working toward investing in in in more tennis, more courts as as they've said they are doing, and it sounds like they're they are doing it in Missouri Valley and these other sections.

Kim Bastable:

It's truly happening.

Mary Buschmann:

Well, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

Kim Bastable:

Yeah. We're excited to be able to share the story and and kind of pump up your efforts, keep them going. We'll maybe circle back and hear how it's gone after another year.

Mary Buschmann:

That's right. Because I wanna send Jacob down to you, Simon, so he can experience the campus.

Simon Gale:

More than welcome. That's what we're here for. We'd love to have him.

Kim Bastable:

Awesome. That's that what we have for you today on Racquet Fuel. We'll speak to you next time.

Episode Narration:

That's all for today, but we're not out of fuel. You can find more information and resources in our show notes and by visiting racquetfuelpodcast.com. If you like what you just heard, please subscribe. And also leave a review, which helps other people join the mission to become stronger Racquet's leaders.

Conclusion:

This podcast is a production of Athlete Plus, the people, stories, science behind elite athletes and teams. Athlete Plus is the official podcast network of the Institute for Coaching Excellence, a research, education, and outreach center in the College of Health and Human Performance at the University of Florida. The Institute for Coaching Excellence offers various online certificate programs and degrees in partnership with the Department of Sport Management. Learn more today at coaching.hhp.ufl.edu.