The Coach Behind Venus, Serena, Roddick and Capriati on What Separates Good From Great | Rick Macci - Tennis Hall of Fame Coach

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In this lessons episode, discover how high performance requires both relentless ambition and the discipline to recover.

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Understand why great coaching means adapting to different personalities.

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Explore how emotional control strengthens performance and relationships, and uncover why knowing when to push, when to pause, and when to stay silent can shape lasting success.

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That mindset, that hunger, that's a good idea.

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That can be a blessing, but I would assume that if it's not channeled in the right way, that could also destroy your career because you're going to injure something, hurt yourself, blow something up if you don't channel that energy and aggression in the right way.

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You have this art of taking that...

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that passion and that aggression and putting it towards something useful.

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But I see a lot of athletes burn out and pull this and break that because they are so into it, but then they don't know when to stop and they don't know when to take time off and they don't know when to recover.

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So there's an art to this too.

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It's not just all in and never take your foot off the gas.

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No, you're absolutely right.

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Listen, there's an art to this, you know, when to say it, how to say it, why to say it.

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But once again, one of the staples of what I do, I make it fun, but serious, you know, and they're kids first and tennis players second.

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You know, and there's an art to probing and how to say it, depending on the age and whether I'm talking to an eight-year-old who's the best in the world or someone 23, 30 in the world on the WTA Tour.

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It's a very different dynamic.

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The art of coaching.

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You just don't read a book and you figure this stuff out, you know.

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And the best compliment or one of the best compliments I ever got in my life was at the after party after the red carpet with Venus and Serena.

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And they both said, Rick, we were literally brainwashed.

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to become number one.

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The positivity I put around that, I tell everybody, I should be in the Hall of Fame for just putting up with Richard.

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Jesus, what was that all about?

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But no, I got it because I was there for Venus and Sreena.

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But they said that.

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You know, it was always about the future.

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It was always about, well, Hingis is going to get that.

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Navarrova would get that.

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Raph is going to get that.

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Capriati would get that.

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And I'm talking to 11-year-olds.

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Now, you got to have the thoroughbred to maybe win the Derby.

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But you got to have the thoroughbred that's mentally strong and the belief that was put in to then you got all these boxes checked.

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Big, strong, fast, quick, pretty high-level technique, great serves.

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So you get this package.

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And greatness is a package.

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But like Serena, she would get mad a lot.

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But then she got more determined.

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McEnroe was kind of like that.

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Some people get mad and they disappear.

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They show their cards to their opponent.

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They can't regroup.

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You even see that on the tour, you know, breaking points, okay?

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And I don't clone people.

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It's not like the same person.

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I teach everybody a little different, and I know how far it can go because I want someone with a backbone.

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I want someone with passion.

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I want someone with anger.

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But like you said, you got to control it because sometimes you just don't want to work harder.

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You got to work smarter.

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Amazing.

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And then I'm just very curious, managing the dynamic, because, I mean, everybody has actually now seen the movie, seen the dynamic between Richard and yourself and the girls as a coach.

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How do you manage a dynamic of somebody like Richard who is obviously you're all focused on the girl's success?

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That's the end goal.

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But two very different personalities.

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And I know there was even a sort of like a breakup point where there was a letter written.

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And I don't want to spend because everyone has seen the story.

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And I, you know, judging by.

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you were counting a lot of it was quite accurate i don't want to spend too much time on what people already know but just from your perspective how do you manage these really high tension relationships when everyone's a high performing individual well no one no one has been around the block in this area in the whole world than myself

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Stefano Capriotti, Jim Pierce, Yuri Sharapova, you know, and Richard Williams.

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You know, you got to understand, it's usually daddy's little girl.

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Doesn't happen a lot with the boys.

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Like Roddy's parents weren't even involved.

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You carry your own water.

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This is his thing.

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It's a different dynamic, you know, with the boys.

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But I think the first thing is, you got to know when to keep your mouth shut.

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Some of the best coaching is not saying anything.

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and feeling the temperature.

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I'm very good at reading people when to say this or when not to, where if you're so set in your ways, this thing would have blown up in a week.

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And I knew it was going to be a challenge because even though Richard was set in his ways, he wasn't really a tennis coach.

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Unreal father, one of the best ever.

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I mean, the girls brought their books to the court every day.

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And if it rained, he said, go up in Rick's office and study.

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And every single night...

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Good, bad, happy, sad.

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The girls would give me a hug and say, Rick, thank you very much.

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Listen, that's a world-class dad and mom.

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So, you know, it was a little different dynamic, but, and that's why I had so much respect for him.

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Even though he might say some off-the-wall things and there's a lot of controversy.

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I made him legendary before they even did anything.

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A lot of media.

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I mean, it was out of control.

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But I think no one wanted to keep your mouth shut.

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And I was there because I just loved the girls.

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I was on a mission.

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I was rolling the dice.

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It's one thing.

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People can love something if you're getting paid for it.

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I was just like, you know, I was all in.

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It was the opposite because you invested.

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It was the opposite.

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It's one thing to say, hey, I think you're good.

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It's one thing to put out hundreds of thousands or a million dollars and, you know, go for the gusto.

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I could have been wrong, you know.

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So at the end of the day, I think just knowing when to take a deep breath, you don't react.

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you know, to anything.

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And when Richard wasn't there, that's when I would go in technically and do some reconstructive surgery, you know, because at the end of the day, we're going home eating dinner and you're not there at the table.

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So I think any coach that hears that, you know, you got to know how to handle this and not be set in your ways.

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And listen, because of the pedigree I got and everything I've done, eventually some of the parents, they start telling me what to do.

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how to hit a four and I'm going whoa wait wait I wrote the curriculum for the USPTA it's like I don't get into that I just try to get better and my favorite student is really who's on the other side of the net that hour that minute that second I've always felt that way and so I'm all about the players I don't get into the other stuff but it takes a strong mind uh to be able to think like I think and handling the parents like that

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Well, I would say, like, I think that, you know, just listening to how you manage all these relationships, you practice what you preach.

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So not only, you know, it's one thing for the person performing to have the mindset and the billion-dollar mind, right?

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But all the people that that person surrounds themselves with also has to have that billion-dollar high-performance mind.

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Because if not, then the support and the guidance that they're getting is not going to be of quality.

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Like if you got emotional, it doesn't matter if you found a way to work with somebody who could be the next Michael Jordan or two of them, right?

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It only matters if you can properly serve them as a coach.

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And to do that, you got to be like, you know, eating your own dog food, so to speak, or else you're not going to be able to do it.

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Absolutely.

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Very good.

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I love it.

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Just one final thought.

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As you look back, there was a lot of incredibly impressive moments when you were working with them.

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When you look at how you split and how you stopped working with them, was there any things that you wish you did different, any regrets on how you handled the relationship, anything at all?

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I'm just curious about that, and then let's move into a little bit more of the link between mindset and performance and some of the things that you speak about in the book.

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Yeah.

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Well, no, first off, not really.

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I never look in the rearview mirror.

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I never look back.

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I'm trying to get better.

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If you're not getting better, you're getting worse.

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But regarding that situation, it was a little complex because when it ended, Venus got the $12 million contract from Reebok.

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OK, and no one helped put more zeros behind that deal than Rick Macy.

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You know what I mean?

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The helium in the balloon.

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And besides, she played that tournament and Shoney played that tournament in Oakland because they changed the age ability rule or we wouldn't even have played that tournament.

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We kind of had to to beat the system to get in there so she wouldn't have someone dictating.

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And Richard agreed.

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You don't want anybody dictating to him.

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So when she made that debut, I didn't know what was going to happen.

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I would know they see this tall, long girl that ran like the wind.

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Okay.

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And they'd say she has enormous potential.

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And the fact she dropped Sean Stafford, 57 in the world, and almost beat number one, who she hadn't played a match in three and a half years, junior or anything, people go, whoa, whoa.

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This kid's going to be amazing.

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And her little sister, what Rick says, might even be better.

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So you got that as the backdrop.

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Eight months later, $12 million.

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We had an agreement.

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It didn't kind of go the way it should, but Richard offered me.

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$1 million a year for the next five years, a million a year for five years to be exclusively with the girls when I have to give up my business.

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And that kind of was like, whoa, because when you do something for, you know, four years and it's a crapshoot.

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Okay.

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And there's a lot of things from the past.

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Okay.

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And then the goalposts kind of change.

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Even though there was a new opportunity, okay, I just felt like, whoa.

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You got to understand, when I say four years, six hours a day or whatever, five days a week, four hours on Saturday, they were like my own daughter.

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You got to understand, it doesn't sound like a lot, but every day there was like, this was up and down or whatever.

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And you know how Richard felt, you read the letter as you acknowledged it.

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So should I have done that deal?

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No, I never look back.

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I just reload.

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And then after that, obviously, I had a big hand with Mosquina and Sharapova and Kennan and many, many other people.

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And I run a business, and it's a great model.

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So really, at the end of the day, no regrets.

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That's kind of how it ended.

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But what's interesting is...

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how everything has come full circle, and hundreds of millions of people might have known really what I did.

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Where before, it might have been from Compton to center court, and all Richard, you know what I mean?

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And you know, as a coach, there's so much.

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I went into hitting partners, taekwondo, boxing, ballet.

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You have no idea what went into this.

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because I believe.

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So yeah, no regrets.

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And here we are today.

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And everybody's like, we've reunited and we see it.

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And Shereen and I might be even doing this docu-series of Phenom Maker.

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So thanks for tuning in.

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If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

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And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode.

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See you in the next one.