Freshman Eleanor Gibbs’s hits were getting lazy.
After an hour of rallying the tennis ball back and forth with her dad at McCrum Park in the 80-degree heat, her hits had no spin and were too easy to return.
Her dad called out to her.
“Swing the ball more! You can do it.”
“Don’t shake your head at me, I know you can do it.”
Eleanor was at one of her weekly summer practices with her dad and SM East head tennis coach Andrew Gibbs as he helped prepare her for school tryouts.
She hoped to make the top 32 out of 200 players. But she didn’t expect to make varsity — with less than 10 other players.
“I guess a lot of people think that I’m only on the [varsity] team because I'm his daughter,” Eleanor said. “But I work just as hard as everyone else to be where I am.”
Eleanor and her dad have also grown closer through their shared interest after car ride conversations about breakfast on their way to tennis matches or milkshakes after a 90-minute practice.
Both of Eleanor’s older sisters, Audra and Emilia Gibbs, were on the blue and white team as juniors and seniors. Eleanor is the first of them to take tennis seriously, making varsity her freshman year.
“I think [Eleanor] just connected with the sport way more than Audra or I did,” Emilia said. “She just kind of instinctually understands how to win.”
While Emilia took lessons for one semester in elementary school, Eleanor has been taking lessons since the age of 8 with her dad and his close friend, former assistant tennis coach Jedd Behr.
Now that she’s playing on the varsity team at SM East, Andrew tries to remain neutral as a coach, separating his role as both her dad and coach. On the court, he’s “Coach Gibbs” or “Mr. Gibbs.” Not “Dad.”
“If I'm emotionally neutral, it helps [the team] to better respond to their frustrations,” Andrew said. “It helps them to reflect their excitement when things are going well. And so I try to do that same thing [with Eleanor]. It's a little bit harder as ‘Dad.’”
On the other side, he tries to keep tennis feedback conversations on the court. Whether it's at dinner time or during homework study sessions, Andrew tries not to bring up tennis.
“[At home is] not a time to rehash a match,” Andrew said. “The other piece is letting her direct [what she wants to do], because bottom line, I want her to enjoy playing.”
Despite having to constantly find the balance between coach and dad, Andrew believes he’s doing a good job of keeping his roles separate while also trying to put less pressure on Eleanor.
“I feel a little bit of pressure from him, just because he's my dad [and] he's my coach,” Eleanor said. “I know he wants me to be good, but he's really good at making people feel comfortable.”
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