In sports there are three relationships that are vital to your growth as an athlete and as a person. They can be broken down in the following directions. I’ll use tennis as my example sport.

UP – This is your mentor/coach relationship. As a tennis player this relationship may be your parent (if they are a knowledgeable tennis player), your private coach or an adult who has taken an interest in your growth. This is a vital relationship. It is the person who teaches you how to play the game, pushes you to work hard and makes sure that you are getting the opportunities you need to get better. A good “Up” is not only working on your game, but your attitude and watching out for your best interests.
• Makes sure that you are getting match play.
• Makes sure that you have the proper equipment you need to succeed.
• Helps facilitate your tennis relationships; setting you up with people to play, coordinating your tennis schedule, clinics, lessons, hitting sessions, matches tournaments.
• Holds you accountable for your attitude and work ethic.

OVER – This is your peer/teammate/competition relationship. If you are a 16 year-old boy for example, this is another tennis player who is in the 14 to 18 year-old range ideally, who is close to you in skill. He is someone who you play against competitively. As the old proverb goes, “Iron sharpens iron.” Having someone close to your age that you can battle against helps you to grow and gives you a competitive outlet. A great fictional example of this is Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow from the “G.I. Joe” comic series, they pushed each other as young ninjas (I’m a nerd, I’ll admit it). A real life example of this is would be Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish.
• Your over can be a teammate, a sibling or a competitor from another team.
• This is the person you hit with regularly.
• This is often your doubles partner.
• You can have more than one “Over” but it is vital that you have at least one.
• Having “Overs” is what makes sports fun and the more “Overs” you have, the more likely you are to stick with a sport.

DOWN – This is your relationship to a mentee and this is the most overlooked relationship of them all. Many young tennis players only have “Up” relationships. Some have “Up and Over” but very few have added the “Down” relationship to the list. The Down accomplishes many things for a young tennis player:
• It teaches them to give rather than take.
• Adds some accountably to a young athlete. A young person may not care about disappointing their “Over” but perhaps having a “Down” will help them to stay on the straight and narrow.
• It helps you understand how your “Up” views you.
• Teaching/mentoring someone often teaches you just as much as it does them.
• The opportunity to be a hero can be very rewarding
• “Circle of life,” “Balance to the force,” “Centergy” … however you want to put it, this relationship makes it all work. If there were no “Downs” there could be no “Ups” and then where would we be?