RUTH CUMMINGS:
And then also I wanted them to explain what I do, which is, it’s been challenging to do that. So I thought they might be, be able to do that. So I’m gonna, let’s see if this works. If I put this in the middle. So why don’t you guys say hello? Hello. So my first question is, WHAT SCHOOLS ARE YOU GOING TO?

ELLA CUMMINGS:
I go to Trinity University in San Antonio.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
I go to Southwest Minnesota University in Marshall, Minnesota.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
I go to Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Okay. And when did you guys meet? And tell me that story.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Okay. This is the long one. So we met through tennis. I met Arianna first, probably like eighth grade, I think. At that one tournament. At a tournament, yeah. And then our dads were talking, so then our dad started making us hit together and it was a little awkward at first.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
Dead silence for two hours.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Yeah, every day. And then we went to the same high school, and then I met Ella through junior team tennis. We all. Playing and I was on a different team than them, and I played against her and we just hated each other. Yes. But then she also went to our high school, so then our mom started talking, and then I had to come here and work out every day . And at first I only talked to Ruth during the workout, so she would not say a word to me. But then we all became friends and we all started working out together. I think. You guys.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
I met Ella because I just joined their, stop it. I just joined their club team and everybody else was already friends. And so Andy, our old coach, Andy, just forced us to play together and she asked me for my number and I was like, okay. And now we’re friends.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
That was an awkward 12 year old.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
Me too.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
I think I actually forced her to ask you for number.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
Okay.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Go ask for, I’m not gonna ask her No . I’m like, come on. Yes,

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
she was. I was like, okay. Name was the worst train of my whole life, and I’ve never been more depressed in my whole life than than 12 years old. At 12 years.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
To clarify for people, when you guys say hit, we’re gonna go hit together. What does that mean?

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Play tennis. Hit some balls.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
Hit some balls.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
So you’re not hitting each other, just, you know.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
No.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
So we’re clear on that.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
I hope no one thought that.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
We do that too sometimes.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
Yeah, we do that, but, well, I think on our own.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
I was just listening to that as a non tennis player going, wow.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
We just go and punch each other.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
I do believe that it was a, a battle of the meanest look. , would you agree?

ALL:
Mm-hmm. Yes.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Like who can look like you’re gonna kill somebody? Yeah. I think Elizabeth actually wins that.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Yeah, she does . She has murder.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
I mean, we’re working out. She gets mad at me for telling her to do a one. Being told what to.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Oh, keep your backup.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Do a push up. Do a mountain climbing. Grrr!

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Growls.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
I did full grows.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Even Fred, our dog looks up. Yeah. Like, Ooh. Yeah. So do you look at your opponents that way?

ELLA CUMMINGS:
Yes. I think it’s fun.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Yes. Yes. You have to. Yes, you have to.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
All right. Why is tennis a great sport for you?

COURTENAY LEONARD:
I think tennis is a great sport for us because it is, it combines physical and mental, like it is such a mental game, which I really like and a lot of technique too. So you have to have like the right technique to hit good shots. You have to be mentally there to be able to play and you have to be physically like fast and like able to have wrong. So I think it’s the hardest sport, and I think it’s the best sport for those reasons.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Let’s just clarify this also. You guys play tennis Oh, at your colleges?

ALL:
Yes, we do play in college.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Yes. We didn’t. We didn’t say that. So yes, go ahead.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
First of all, It’s good for me because it was the only thing I was good at.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
No soccer for you?

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
No soccer for me.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
I like tennis because I think you can see yourself improving over time really easily. I think the with other sports, it’s kind of hard to see that cause it’s like team, but when you’re playing by yourself you can really see like how good you’re playing and over time, and it is really mental, like Courtney said, which I am not the biggest fan of , but I think it is, it does really improve your mindset on different things because you’re out there by yourself. So if you’re losing, sometimes it’s a little bit, a little bit mentally draining, but I think it’s a really fun sport to play. And I think if you are on like a team, like JTT. like playing in college, like you get really close to the people you’re with and it’s fun. I like it.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
It’s also very easy to get started, so that is good. You can just go get a racket anywhere and, and then you just need one other person.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Yeah. I also like, I like that because actually if you show up at a middle school tennis camp, They usually have rackets.

ALL:
Mm-hmm. They do.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
So, I know that you, you guys all coach together at the middle school right? By our house here. And that was fun, . That was, yeah. Yeah. So, alright. I want your quick top three. I know we usually do top five, but we, since we don’t have much time, top three career choices.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
I think that I would like to be a counselor. I don’t really know what kind of counselor. Maybe like a marriage counselor or, I don’t know, just something in therapy or a psychiatrist, although those are basically the same thing. It’s kind of kind of different. And then for my last one, I don’t really know. I would love to be a stay at home mom, , and have like a cooking channel while I raise my two perfect little children and beat my husband.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
She’s an incredible cook.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
She is. My top three in no order is also a counseling psychologist, a coach for tennis and a sports psychologist or like research psychologist for sports specifically tennis only.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
You can do this.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
I always do a 180. When you asked this like last time, it was like physical therapist and I switched my major.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
This is why I love asking you guys like every month cuz it, I love how changes.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
I was thinking I could do something like digital marketing in that sense. That’s my, my major. Or like something in Advertisement And the third one, I don’t really know. I’m just wing it. Here you go.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
How about a coach?

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
Yes, Sure. Bottom tier. Bottom tier.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
No children. Okay.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
I will not be coaching children. A college coach, maybe, or like if they’re like privates, like advanced privates. No summer camps. Never again.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
All right. How many summer camps? Including middle school stuff. Have you guys done?

ELLA CUMMINGS:
Probably like six.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
We worked for the city for like 4, 3, 4.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
They, they move in a pack.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
We move in a pack. We, yeah, and then we worked for a club, tennis camp this past summer together. And then, yeah, I don’t know, Madison. Six be

RUTH CUMMINGS:
You guys also helped coach your, your old high.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Yeah, I guess.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
So you wanna coach older?

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Yeah. Or like, it’s okay if they’re young, but like for, if that’s like my job, I wanna do like lessons, like people who are like, you know, serious, they wanna be there, I wanna, you know Yeah. Wanna be there. Not like huge summer camps.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Dropped off by.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Those are fun. Yeah, those are fun. But not for my whole life, you know? Just, just for summers for now.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
You leave that for other high school and college students to do? Yes. You guys? Mm-hmm. . Okay. All right. So the reason I asked them to do this interview is that I wanted to know, well they’ve been friends and I wanted to get that on camera cause they’re just so adorable and they’ve been the Three Musketeers for years. And we have traveled the tournaments. We got lost, Depeche Mode. These are all inside jokes we got. We were three hours off .

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Yeah. Who,

ELLA CUMMINGS:
She missed the exit like two, two hours later.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
She was, that’s not, act like this is completely my fault. just whose fault? Just 90%. Okay. So there we were on the way back from El Paso to Albuquerque and my dad and I were driving in one car ahead of them, and then these three were in the other car behind us. And my, we got on the highway and my dad’s like, oh, you can turn off the map so I know where I’m going. I was like, yes, sir. That’s, so I turned them off and we actually had to change a highway, like into an hour into it, but we didn’t, so we like, were literally going to Arizona, not Albuquerque. And then we realized that, and it was also like 12 at night when we realized.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
It was a fight to stay away.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
Mother Ruth, so angry.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
They had to play Depeche mode over and over and over to keep me up.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
Everything else was too slow.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
It was. So we have done a lot together. So I wanted to, so I am helping college athletes and high school athletes and their parents. And I just wanted to get your take on what I do because it’s been challenging for me to explain it to people, and I really want to help them with everything I know. So, of course, massage, stretching exercises, visualization, breathing and just keeping a positive attitude and anything. That I have learned in my life as an athlete. So I’d love your take. So and I appreciate you and love you all and thanks for your time. It’s 8:30 on a Saturday morning. Yes, I got them up . So who wants to go first?

COURTENAY LEONARD:
I’ll go first. Yeah, I would say to describe what you do is very difficult because it’s so much and like there’s days. Ruth will just tell me new information that I never knew . Is it random facts about somewhere else in the United States or is it stuff I need to know to get to prevent getting injured? It’s always new stuff and it’s a lot of mental stuff. Like Ruth was our assistant coach in our high school team and she’s really turned around matches for me, so she’s been such a lifelong friend and supporter and mentor and just a second mother to me.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Thank you. Love you guys. Yes.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
Okay. well, mother Ruthie is my mother, mother , and so she’s been really helpful. I don’t really know like what aspects that like are specific, that aren’t my motherhood, but my mom is really, really good at getting. having new workouts and stretches and whenever I’m home I am sore for years and years. Yes, I am sore from last week’s workouts, my butt. Still I can’t sit down and comfort and she is really good at stretches and although I absolutely hate doing it, she always has a stretch before workouts for like hours and hours is what it feels like.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
At least 10 minutes at least.

ELLA CUMMINGS:
She gives really, really good advice and she’s really good at helping. and helping like all things mental, she’s really good at like just helping when you’re really feeling down or when you need something. And she’s really good at giving relationship advice. I love watching her give relationship advice to other people. It’s really funny. It’s like one of her lifelong passions, setting people up on dates and doing that. It’s really fun. And then, I don’t know, helped me a lot with college. School and she’s just really, really supportive and really, really helpful. And I think of her as a mother and a best friend. And I really think that she’s a big part of my life and has helped me develop so, so much. And I love how she is with tennis, even if it makes me furious, I do appreciate the advice that she gives me on court, even if I don’t say a word and I look furious. It really does help me a lot and. What else I was gonna say? Yeah, I think that’s the majority of what she really helps with and I love you mother, little kitty.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Thank you. You guys shiny boo. I love you too.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
Capture the kiss. Capture the kiss.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Thank you baby . Yes. Mommy. Where this baby? Sorry, I’m confused, not you.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
Ruth has also been a really big point of support in my life as well because I haven’t always been the most confident and I’m actually still working on it. But she, I was always there. When I call her and complain about my wrist or my knee, she always gives me exercises and. Because I don’t like to stretch, even though I’m not very flexible at all. So that’s good. And she always checks up on me. Which I love. And also with tennis too, is I’ve been in a lot of matches with Courtney, so she has like turned like in. This is really bad. It’s okay. Keep going. Keep doing, you’re good.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
You’re doing amazing. I like lost my train of thought. Doubles. She helps a lot.

COURTENAY LEONARD:
Doubles matches.

ARIANNA LUMANOG:
Oh yeah. And doubles. When we’re really frustrated and angry and I think that’s good because she’s just like a light. She’s so positive. It’s so good. She was very positive. She can also always tell like if you’re a little sad or upset, she can always tell and she always like can like read you and try to make you feel better. Yeah. And she is always taken me to all practices when my parents couldn’t be there and like tournaments and watched me when they couldn’t watch me. I really appreciate that. Thank you.

RUTH CUMMINGS:
Good job guys.