While coaching tennis, Randall Scott emphasizes not only the physical challenges, but also the mental endurance athletes must have on the court. Scott, a former player on UNC men’s tennis team, chronicled these coaching principles in his book “The Inner Way of Tennis, Sport, and Life: Playing the Game from Inside Out.”
Scott began playing tennis at 15 years old and earned two varsity letters at UNC. After graduating from UNC, where he was both a manager and player on the tennis team, Scott joined a tennis management company and was assigned to the Hilton Guam Resort and Spa. He spent 35 years living and working across Asia, where he learned about Zen and Taoism in addition to studying Buddhism.
Today, Scott is the director of tennis for the City of Burlington, where he has worked for about five years. Scott said those philosophies helped him understand the struggles of athletes, including attachment and awareness, and that they helped him be a better coach to players.
Scott said he hoped to have these lessons in writing to help all athletes struggling with personal issues.
“The biggest thing is just there’s a lot of mental health benefits from being in the present and the mental game of tennis, but it doesn’t just apply to tennis, it kind of applies to life,” Todd Palmer, a senior assistant at the Burlington Tennis Center and Scott’s friend, said.
Palmer said Scott’s beliefs and values are visible not only in the book, but also in how he coaches players. Palmer’s son, Karsten Palmer, trained under Scott. He said Scott’s teaching helped his son grow not only as a player, but also as a person.
A former UNC tennis teammate and a longtime friend James Krege met Scott during summer school at Granville Towers in the late 1980s. The two bonded over tennis and later became roommates before graduating in 1990.
Scott’s approach stood out to Krege, who is now the men’s tennis coach at Grimsley High School in Greensboro. Krege noted his excellent understanding of the mental game of tennis and how this part of the game takes an athlete from good to great.
“We all have stories we tell ourselves and Randy has a way of helping us fight through adversity to kind of have more of a championship attitude, a can-do attitude,” Krege said.
Krege sends his players from the Grimsley High School tennis team to Scott. Krege said the team has improved due to Scott’s excellent coaching, winning conference and state championships.
“Randy’s fingerprints were all over both my coaching and on what I do, but also on the players and their parents,” Krege said.
Scott’s book, which was published in December 2025, deals with practical solutions and guidelines on how to deal with internal struggles — with an emphasis on applicable lessons to tennis.
“It’s really a book about learning to understand what is happening inside of us so that we can respond more freely to what’s happening outside of us,” Scott said.
Scott is now working on another book that moves further away from the sport and focuses on how culture influences the way people think and live. The working title of the book is “From Passenger to Pilot: Escaping the Cult of Culture.”