High school sports can be nerve-wracking, but starting the season not knowing if you will have a coach or not is a whole new level of stress.
WS’s tennis team was unsure of who would be their coach this year or even if they would have one in time after their old coach, Brian Stagliano, started a new job as a Technology Specialist at Langley High School. The Student Activities Director, Andy Muir, provided them with an answer.
“They have a coach at the moment, it’s Mr. Hamilton,” said Muir.
Craig Hamilton, a gym teacher at WS, has become the coach for the boy’s tennis team this season. Having experience being the tennis coach at WS in the 90’s, Hamilton stepped in when the position wasn’t filled.
“We had advertised for about five months to fill the position,” said Muir. “We held interviews on three occasions and each one had to withdraw their application. We got to the point where we ran out of time.”
With no coach to start the season, and players questioning whether they would have a coach or not, Hamilton took the position. Finally having a coach was a relief to the players on the team, and not all that surprising.
“Towards the end I wasn’t really surprised because we knew he used to coach so he was the back up,” said junior Raghav Goyal.
Those who have Hamilton as a gym teacher and aren’t on the tennis team didn’t see this change coming, but students such as sophomore Johnathan Tran are optimistic about his role as coach.
“I feel like he would be a good coach, especially for conditioning,” said Tran.
The team was lucky to have Hamilton available to step in as coach. Being able to start conditioning and practicing for the season on time had been a concern, but everything is going as planned. Even with the normal schedule of practices, it is always a change when a new coach steps in.
“I liked [our] old coach because he was fun, but I didn’t like that he wasn’t serious,” said sophomore Thomas Barnard, “Hamilton is a good coach because he is serious and I think that will [rub] off on the team.”
Even with all the confusion about finding a coach, the tennis team is optimistic about this season.
“I think we will do well,” said Barnard, “Our team is very young, we lost a lot of seniors, but so did a lot of schools so we will see what happens.”