Why did you want to be the JV tennis coach?

“My top reasons for wanting to coach is because, first of all I love tennis. I played in high school, and I also coached before at Jackson High School. Most importantly, I knew that a lot of my students played tennis, and I wanted to see what they would be like outside of the class. It turns out they are much weirder outside of class. It has been really cool to see their real personalities come out.”

What qualifies you to coach tennis?

“In high school I played four years of varsity tennis, I was captain and went to districts a couple times. I coached with Jackson high school for two or three years. I also coached some private and group lessons with Kirkland’s youth recreational teams.”

How do you juggle all of your jobs?

“It was really difficult when tennis first started to balance all the different aspects (teaching, coaching, honor society). I work really long hours and after tennis, and after I usually go and finish lesson planning and grading. On weekends I usually spend several hours doing work. Also, this year I have been trying to do more self-care, so not working every single hour of every single day, and that has been hard. Its not really much of a balance, it’s just sacrificing a lot of hours of personal time.”

What is the most memorable part about this season so far?

“Number one, getting to know my team, as much as I love my students in my classroom, I feel like we have a lot of fun outside on the courts and it’s fun to be able to come outside and just run around and play after being cooped up inside all day, in general just all the time I spend with the team hanging outside on the courts is fun. I also love our Dairy Queen runs that we do after matches sometimes. I love our team bonding days, like when we had a movie night in my classroom, we got to hang out and have junk food together. One of the most memorable matches was when we played Jackson High School. At first we were all fired up and passionate about getting a win and we were also nervous and scared, but we ended up over coming that and wining.”