If it hadn't been for you...

I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for all you did to encourage me with my Creative Tennis Teaching presentation. When I first met you after my first seminar contest in 1999 you encouraged me to try it again in the future and made some suggestions. Later when I developed the gymnastic ribbons routine I wasn't sure how good it was but when a tennis pro of your status thought so highly of it. It really made an impression on me and encouraged me to further develop the modifications on the ribbons and to try some other creative ideas that are now incorporated into my presentation. I would not have presented again in the seminar contest in 2005 without your encouragement and high impressions of the ideas. I would not have had the chance to win that and present at Marco Island in 2005. I would not have been doing this presentation in 2006 at the USPTA New England Convention, nor been invited to the Florida USPTA conference in 2007 and now the PTR Symposium next month. If it had not been for your encouragement and suggestions none of this would have been happening. I had some ideas but I needed a "push" and someone who believed that my ideas were worth teaching the tennis pro community. So I want to thank you with all my heart because you were the person that God used to make me believe these ideas and concepts were worth presenting at seminars. I do not have many friends in> the tennis pro community. And though we only met at seminars and a few phone> calls and e-mails you were the one I looked up to the most and looked forward to sharing with at each convention. When anyone ever asked me who I would want working with me if I owned my own tennis club it was you. Remember we even talked once about getting a tennis club in North or South Carolina someday! So thanks again. I owe you a lot. I also want to take a moment to share with you something I wish we had talked about before. I wrote a book once many years ago. Not on tennis. But on why I believed that God existed and why the resurrection of Jesus was a historical event and in the book I detailed some very solid historical evidence for the resurrection. The resurrection as a fact in history provides us with the ultimate hope for those who are in Christ for as the apostle Paul says Jesus was the first fruits and we who trust in him as Savior will follow in resurrection someday of our bodies as well. Jesus himself said "IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE THERE ARE MANY MANSIONS. IF IT WERE NOT SO I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU. I GO TO PREPARE A PLACE FOR YOU. SO THAT WHERE I AM YOU WILL ALSO BE" (John 14) Paul said to "to live is Christ to die is GAIN". So above all in Christ we have a hope different from all the world. Why did all the apostles and early followers become martyrs? Because they saw something that changed their lives and made them realize that death will be conquered. They had evidence for a hope. That evidence has never changed. I look forward to seeing you again someday. I look forward to that very much. God Bless and thanks. Your friend- Conrad McIntire Jr.