Conventionality is a word that has simply never been a part of Jane Forman’s vocabulary. After finishing an illustrious collegiate and professional career, Forman made the natural transition into coaching. However, she quickly realized that continuing strictly on the tennis pro path was not in the cards.
Fast forward 29 years and Forman is now running Jane Forman Sports, a highly successful sports management company encompassing the Jane Forman Tennis Academy, Dade County Sports and the Dade Country Sports Foundation. In addition to her tennis academy, Forman has dedicated her life to making sports more accessible to the youth of Miami through this business venture.
“I knew I wasn’t going to be the type of personality that was going to be a club pro. I have too much pent up energy and creativity for what I do, so I need complete freedom,” said Forman. “When you are running your own business, you can explore all avenues. Things change over the years and the way I ran my business 29 years ago is completely different than how I run it now. I attribute that to being able to change with the times, use what I think the community needs and be able to soar with it.”
One of the most unique innovations Forman has constructed is her ‘Sports at Your School’ program, which makes after-school sports more accessible to children in the Miami Dade area. Rather than having parents drive their children to different athletic facilities, the program brings the sport directly to the schools throughout the area. “I’m trying to make tennis convenient for people so that they’ll want to take up the sport,” explained Forman.
Recently, Forman has begun channeling her energy into another new innovation, which focuses on the female competitive recreational player. “I’ve realized there are more people who just want to learn how to play the game of tennis and enjoy tennis than the people who are playing at a very high level. There are way more kids and way more adults who want to learn the beautiful sport of tennis than phenoms who will make it to Wimbledon,” she said.
Applying her experience as a professional tennis player to recreational play, Forman has been providing online instructional videos on doubles strategy and tactics for the average USTA league player, an idea that was inspired from one of her own students.
“About a year ago, one of my students asked me to do an instructional video. At first I thought, ‘Oh God, are you kidding me?’,” recalled Forman. “I bit the bullet and I did the video. She posted it on her page and the next thing I knew, I had 7,000 views. I then started doing one weekly and then twice a week. All of the sudden, her prompting me to do this has turned into a huge, huge tennis system. I call it Team Forman Tennis System. It now has its own page, own website and own program.”
Through these instructional videos, Forman hopes to deliver instruction on the everyday situations that occur in women’s league play. “If you look at online tennis instruction, you see coaches giving advice to the high performance kids and pros. How can the recreational player relate to that? I don’t think they can, so I decided to gear every single thing that I’m doing to that level of play. We tout the program as, ‘You don’t have to be a pro to train like a pro,’” she explained.
Forman strongly believes that competitive recreational league play is the key to maintaining the relevance of tennis as a sport. “It’s the most vital part of the game. League play is taking social tennis to the next level. Without league play, I believe tennis would die,” she said.
“People want to play the game and they need guidelines, rules and to be competitive to enjoy it because it’s a sport,” said Forman. “It creates a spark and gives the players something to shoot for just as though you were training a high performance kid. The quicker I get someone on the court with me, the quicker I get them in a league.”
Forman’s videos focus primarily on women because female recreational play is a thriving market in today’s world. Through her work, she has found that females are willing to learn the ins and outs of the game in order to win in a competitive setting.
Just as Forman is dedicated to helping women reach their potential on the court through her instructional videos, she also hopes to see more female coaches enter the tennis business world.
To women looking to start their own academy, Forman offers sound advice – “Go with your gut and try to be as independent as possible. Be free-thinking and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Be as creative as possible within the community you are teaching.”
It is imperative that young girls have strong female coaches to look up to as role models. “We are in a business that is predominately male, so the more free-thinking, creative, self-promoting women we can have on the court, the better,” she said.