The Guardian: “What type of player were you?”
McCaffrey: “I really never had private lessons or coaching, so to speak, as a kid or even as a player in college. I never really had anybody push me or give me lessons on proper grips or mechanics and just how to use the kinetic chain in the body—all those different things. I never had anybody truly show me how to do things, so I learned on my own. Because I never really had anything taught to me, I learned how to play every style of game. I had a pretty good career. I had a style of game that sort of adapts. If things weren’t working one way, I would have to find a different way to make things work to win. To me that was the ultimate goal—to win—and it meant if I couldn’t win my way, I was going to win any way it took to beat somebody.”
The Guardian: “How has your playing career shaped you as a coach?”
McCaffrey: “Because of that [lack of instruction], I’m very liberal with how I approach their games because there are so many different types of elements to a tennis player’s style of game. They could be a serve-and-volleyer, they can be an all-court player [or] they can be a grinder from the baseline. And I think the guys have really appreciated that I don’t have a cookie-cutter approach to how I tell guys to win. Guys need to adapt, they need to overcome. If things aren’t working well, who cares; change it. It’s kind of jazz [where] you improvise. If it works, stick with it until it doesn’t work. When it doesn’t work, listen to me. If it doesn’t work, listen to us and you’re going to win. And we think we’ve done a really good job with that.”
The Guardian: “What attracted you to coaching?”
McCaffrey: “When I was in college, I was asked to pick the three things I enjoy most, to write them down on a piece of paper. I wrote that the three things I enjoy most are: listening to the Dave Matthews Band, backpacking and hiking, and tennis. Nothing was above the others. I gave this to my professor, and I was told one of these needs to be something you do as your life. So obviously I’m not going to follow around the Dave Matthews Band, that’s just not going to happen. And I’m not going to waste my life thinking and backpacking. But somehow, I needed to make tennis part of my life. At the same time, I really enjoyed working with people. So I think that marriage just worked.”
The Guardian: “What memories from coaching high school tennis follow you?”
McCaffrey: “I’ve coached at the high school level, the Division III level and Division I. There’s times that I’ll look at some of my experiences as a high school coach and think ‘Man, I wish I knew then what I know now’. That would have made life a lot easier. Because of all the different experiences, you grow, you learn. The first time I guided high school singles and doubles players to their first championships, won the New England championships; those were very rewarding things that had me speechless and proud of them and the work they put in. Winning at the Division III level was very rewarding because you’re not maybe blessed with kids or student-athletes with the same level of talent.”
The Guardian: “How do you balance coaching both men and women, and do you have to adjust your approach?”
McCaffrey: “Most people have to. The gender difference can be great. But a lot of people maybe take too much time, they think you can yell at guys, but you can’t yell at women. And I think that’s just wrong. It’s not so much that you have to coach to each gender, but you really have to coach to each individual person. Each person, each player—male or female—has a different style of learning and a different style of responding. It’s kind of a give-and-take. I ask a lot of my players, but at the same time, I do it in a caring, nurturing way. I’m going to ask them to do things I’ve done a thousand times. In return, I’m going to challenge them and they’re going to know I still care for them and it’s nothing personal.”
The Guardian: “What philosophies do you try to instill in your players?”
McCaffrey: “We really try to create this team-first approach. If you put the team first and your personal game second, good things will happen. The team is really the most important part of this. Things can be done more efficiently, more confidently when you have a lot more people working towards the same common goal. We don’t really have a lot of people who just go rogue and do their own thing. We do everything with the team first and then we address the individual things after that.”
