Kyle LaCroix has certified and mentored over 1,700 tennis coaches worldwide. He spent part of his early career living out of his car in South Florida, waiting for his break. Now he runs SETS Consulting and holds one of the rarest designations in the sport: RSPA Master Professional, one of roughly 150 currently active in the world. Kyle and Evan cover his path from Ferris State's Professional Tennis Management program through the Philadelphia Cricket Club, Saddlebrook Resort, and The Oaks at Boca Raton, plus a stretch helping retiring ATP and WTA players learn to teach. They get into 17 years of testing and certifying coaches for the RSPA, the founding of SETS in 2020, and Kyle's core thesis: racquet sports professionals maximize their ability, but not their potential.
Key Takeaways
- Living out of his car early in his career, waiting for a break.
- What a Tuesday looks like inside a high-performance tennis academy.
- Teaching a player who competed at Wimbledon how to coach a 10-year-old.
- 17 years testing and certifying coaches, and what he saw was broken.
- Why racquet sports professionals maximize their ability but not their potential.
More episodes
Evan Dechtman, TopSpin Digital
Founder
A short introduction to CourtSide: why we are building a long-form interview series for the people running racquet sports, what each episode looks like, and how to be considered as a guest.
Andy Zodin, Columbine Country Club
Director of Racquet Sports
Andy Zodin on 15 years running racquet sports at Columbine Country Club, what a director actually does day-to-day, the ownership conversations that never go away, staffing teaching pros in 2026, and how private clubs are handling pickleball.
Julius Gavin, Tennis University
Independent Tennis Coach, Founder
Julius Gavin, known online as tennis.god, has nearly 90,000 Instagram followers, charges $1,000 for six hours of coaching, and claims he can build a complete tennis game in 40 hours. We get into the math behind the program, the fraud accusations, the real economics of driving thousands of miles with a trunk full of balls, and how short-form content converts a viewer into a paid client.