On the 246th episode of the GreatBase Tennis podcast, Steve Smith and Dave Anderson have a tennis conversation with Frank Butera. Their guest is a tennis teaching professional based in Boston, Massachusetts. The veteran pro teaches adults and juniors at MIT and the Marcus Lewis Indoor Center.

He was born in Boston and then raised in Italy until the age of fourteen. He began school in the US without speaking a word of English. Yet he became an outstanding student and completed a degree at Boston College (BC).

Prior to BC, he found his way to study tennis with Steve Smith at Tyler Junior College (TJC). That connection initially took place thirty-seven years ago. The two have continued to work together to help people improve.

Frank's passion for the game is second to none. He has a charming personality and an impressive command of teaching solid fundamentals, as Steve says. "It's always fun to see Frank, he's fun and he makes tennis fun." More importantly, Frank knows that if his players are always trying to improve through obtaining solid fundamentals, they will have more fun.

From this episode, there are many golden nuggets to add to one's tennis treasure chest. Here are three:

* Frank's number one rule: always try.

* Frank tells his students to be players, not just payers.

* Frank touches upon pickleball and states that one thing tennis players can learn from pickleball players is that sometimes you have to shovel snow off the courts to play.