A Question About Awareness, Not Answers

Every time and everywhere I’ve been where kids are competing at the orange ball level, the L7 level, or the L6 level, I encounter parents with the same quiet curiosities. What begins as a casual conversation about schedules, draws, or logistics almost always drifts into deeper territory. Not because anyone is trying to get ahead, but because something has shifted. Their child is starting to care in a different way, and the stakes feel higher even if no one has named them yet.

What stands out is not how much these parents know, but how ready they are to talk once space opens up. The questions are already there. They just haven’t been organized. What’s often missing isn’t interest or effort. It’s visibility. Some signal that says there is more to understand here, and that it’s normal not to have it figured out at this stage.

That’s the part I’m trying to think through.

Most of what I write reaches parents who have already crossed an internal threshold. They’ve recognized that junior tennis is more complex than it first appears. They’re curious. They’re actively looking. They’ve already moved from reacting to reflecting. I’m grateful for that audience, but I’m increasingly aware that the families who might benefit most are earlier in the story.

What I don’t fully understand is the moment before curiosity becomes a search. How parents become aware that they don’t yet know what they don’t know, and that good information exists when they’re ready for it. Not how they eventually find answers, but how the idea that answers might be needed first takes shape.

If you think about families early in the journey, or if you work with parents who are just beginning to realize their child truly loves something, what tends to create that first crack in certainty? Is it something they hear or overhear at an event? A conversation that lingers after the match? A piece of content encountered by chance rather than intention? I’m not asking how to persuade or convince. Most parents already care deeply. I’m trying to understand how awareness forms without pressure, without salesmanship, and without turning the experience into something heavier than it needs to be.

This feels less like a content problem and more like a visibility problem. I don’t have a solution in mind, and I’m not testing a specific idea. I’m genuinely trying to understand where that early awareness lives, and how it might be surfaced in a way that feels supportive rather than intrusive.

If you’ve seen this moment happen, or have thoughts about how it might, I’d appreciate hearing them.

If this work aligns with where your organization is heading, I’m open to serious conversations about partnership and collaboration.

Performance Architect | Founder, Communiplasticity Solutions
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