Charles Chau Nguyen

University of Houston

Hero

He steps up to the line as he looks across the net. His opponents are standing here ready, looking and waiting for the delivery. It is going to be a hard one and the opponent knows it. The ball is tossed and the racquet head is moving heavily to bash that yellow ball. The ball is hit. Here comes the delivery.

The quick opponent moves toward it and tries to swing. My coach moves in
towards the net, like a cat ready to catch a mouse. The opponent?s teammate moves eagerly, around the net, waiting for his partner to hit the return. The ball skids off the line and goes through the air at 127 miles per hour. The opponent does not even get the ball back. A clean ace hit out wide.

That is my coach Remi Osho, who is my hero. He is not like the greats like Agassi, Sampras, Lendl, or Laver, but he was a professional tennis player once. He is also a second father for me to look up to. He teaches me thing on and off the tennis courts. The lessons that he teaches me are his own experiences, trying to inspire me, and lessons of life I can use.

He has a lot of experience. There are times that I feel like I will never learn
enough from him. Every time I play against him, there are always new tricks that he pulls out of the bag. At times, I do not know where he is going with his selected shots. Even if he cannot run well, he finds some way to make up for it. I hit a drop shot forcing him to hit an easy shot, but he uses his experience to hit a drop shot right back and then I end up hitting the easy shot for him to put away. He has also been through the ups and downs on and off court, so he tells me things that I should and should not do when the situation comes. Therefore, he leads me in the right direction that I need to go.

My coach is always trying to inspire me. He knows at times that I do not enjoy playing in the junior events, so he puts me in the Men's Open events to tell me that I have a long learning road to go. In knowing what is in the Men's Open division I practice harder with more intensity. He also inspires me by telling me that, "You are able to beat anybody and no one has the ability to beat you, but you have to get the brain to work right before you can win those huge matches?" Which is a good way of telling me that I have to work on the mental game, instead of saying flat out that your mental game is terrible.

Another way my coach inspire me is that the way he plays is just amazing. I think about the way that he plays is great, but he only reached the 130's rank in the world. In this way, I can train myself harder and hopefully surpass his level.

Last and not least, my coach teaches me things that I can use off the court. In tennis, you have to be patient and wait for the shot that you want to win the point. Not only does he tell me that, but he also says that in the outside world the same concept can be used. For example, he says that when you want to rush something to be done and not look for the right moment to do it, you might end up with some consequence that you did not look at ahead of time.

Now, you are going to be stuck with it instead of waiting for the right moment where everything can come and run smoothly. Another life lesson that he taught me is that the anger that I have must be controlled, so that I do not waste energy excessively for something I did wrong in the past. He told me, if it happens, then it happened already and you cannot do
anything to change the past. Therefore, why do you need to throw your racquet, thus risking a chance of cracking your racquet, or wasting your energy getting mad?  Instead, you could just walk to the other side and figure what you did wrong and fix it the next time it happens? He also said that I could use this concept outside of tennis, especially in the business world.

Experience, inspiration, and lessons can all be learned from my coach Remi Osho, when I am around him. The way he takes care of me makes him my second father, and all of these qualities are what makes him my hero.