Six years ago when Nelson became the Boys Tennis Coach the AD made him aware that Preble High School is a annual State track powerhouse and Boys Tennis has never won a WIAA Sectional Tennis Championship. Well we won our first in 2010. Our 2011 team goal was to repeat as WIAA Sectional Champions because we didn't want to be just a one year lucky winner. We repeated as the 2011 WIAA Sectional Champion to complete our team goal to put Preble Boys Tennis on the Green Bay Metro Tennis Map!

Homestead’s boys team finished second to Marquette 4-3. The #1 player played with a broken hand in the final. The Boys Team volunteered their time and talent to host a tennis clinic for wheelchair athletes showcasing tennis to southeastern 6 to 12 graders in May.

Coach Frank is dedicated to building high school tennis in the state of Wisconsin. He cares about the well being of his players academically and makes a point to teach his players the “Life Skills” incorporated in tennis. David has more than tripled Tennis participation at MUHS since becoming a No-Cut program in 2009.

Coach Werve would like to say it is an honor to be nominated for this award. Coaching Tennis is rewarding in the fact that life skills can be taught through tennis like Teamwork. Also none of this can be accomplished without tennis players, supportive parents, managers, the entire tennis coaching staff and our Athletic Directors working together as a TEAM!

Coach Alft is a dedicated coach who has a great summer program and works on helping his players improve each year. He is an advocate of tennis at all levels and dedicates a great deal of his time to building tennis in Waukesha.

There is not a coach in the state that has more passion and respect for the game of tennis than Bill. He truly cared deeply for the students he coached and he will forever impact the lives of every person that knew him, in particular those in the Wisconsin tennis community. To me Bill was a peer, a mentor, and a great friend. He was a person who inspired me to love the game. He taught me to respect tennis for its ability to help young people deal with the adversity life throws at us. For many of us the name Bill Van Lieshout will forever be synonymous with Wisconsin High School Tennis.

USM played one of the toughest schedules in the state last year at both division 2 and division 1 levels, and had victories over teams like Marquette, Brookfield East, Brookfield Central, Kenosha Tremper, Prairie School, and Brookfield Academy. We finished 2nd to New Trier at the Sweet 16, won the Waukesha South Invite, and won our conference meet placing first in 5 out of 7 positions. We also swept our sub-sectional and sectional competitions, and went on to win Team State for the 3rd year in a row. It has been a privilege to have been able to work with these talented and hard working athletes these past three years.

The Tritons made their 5 th straight appearance in the state team tournament and finished as runner-up in 2011. Notre Dame finished 1st in the Fox River Classic Conference a 12 team conference with the other 11 teams all being division1 in tennis. The Tritons finished with a 21-3 record with losses to Homestead, Nicolet and University School.

Thank you for your consideration, but Coach McCabe asks that you please vote for one of the other nominees.

In 2011, the Madison Edgewood boys advanced to team state for the 8th straight year. This hardworking team consisted of 3 seniors, 6 juniors, and a sophomore. Edgewood also qualified 3 singles players and 2 doubles teams to the individual tournament.

The biggest challenge Coach Nelson had with our 2011 girls team was replacing our #1 & 2 singles players and our #1 Doubles team that graduated in June 2011. All those Seniors qualified for the 2010 WIAA State Individual Tournament. Our only dual meets that we lost this year were to Homestead, Notre Dame and we split with Nicolet. We ended up ranked 4th at the end of this year.

Homestead girls won the 4th straight State Championship, which has never been done in the history of the Girls Team Tournament format. Homestead won all flights at the Sectional, finished 1st, 3rd and 5th in singles and 1st in doubles at the Individual Tournament. Coach Egelhoff also received the 2011 United States Professional Tennis Association High School Coach of the year (USPTA) at the world conference in Florida in September. The Girls Team volunteered their time and talent to host a tennis clinic for wheelchair athletes showcasing tennis to southeastern 6 to 12 graders in May.

Nicolet only lost to DSHA and Homestead this year and beat Green Bay Southwest 4-3 and lost to them 3-4 with out our 4 singles player in the line-up. Nicolet had 4 freshman in line-up 2 in singles and 2 in doubles. Nicolet beat DSHA 4-3 in Semis of team state after losing to DSHA three times during the season. In the WIAA Team State Finals, Nicolet gave Homestead a decent match. Nicolet’s 2 doubles beat Homestead after losing 4 times to them during the season.

The Wildcats finished this season 20-5 and made it's 3rd consecutive appearance at the team state tournament. In addition, 7 individuals made it to the individual state tournament, which is a record for Oshkosh West. We are also coming off our 4th straight Fox Valley Association Conference title and the 4th year in a row that every varsity player earned All-Conference Honors.

The Regis Tennis Program made it to team state for the second year in a row, after not having a team ever at team state in the history of the program. The program had a losing record for several years prior to Coach Lindsay initiating a middle school program when the present seniors were in 7th grade. The majority of the players did not play tennis year round but during tennis season. We emphasized stroke technique, summer tennis camp, junior team tennis and began to see the program improve each year when the present seniors were freshmen. We saw increased enrollment of the team each year as well. We had no individual state participants in several years prior to the start of the middle school program and in the last four years we sent a total of 19 qualifiers to state with 6 players this year. In the year prior to Lindsay starting as Regis coach, the team won only one match. Our team record in the past three years was 7-9, 20-5, and 19-5 and that included adding tougher competition. Lindsay promoted Junior Team Tennis where we were able to get over 100 players participating this past summer, 40 0f the high school players from Eau Claire. Lindsay has always promoted tennis as fun, excellent exercise and a lifetime sport and shared the importance of the team.

Aside from the records and results, some internal challenges and successes happened in the program. After graduating 3 seniors, USM was able to get 5 different spots into the Individual Tournament which tied only one other team for that honor. We moved our #2 singles player and converted her to #1 doubles where she won Individual State. I also switched doubles players to singles. Our team was successful with balancing the chemistry girls. I felt success learning the WIAA rules and knowing how many matches to let my players play to be able to peak for the State Tournament.

Lindow took a team that was maybe a middle of the road team at the beginning of the season and by the end of the year with a great showing at the conference tournament ended up tying for the conference title. He had two kids that had played 3 doubles last season and qualified for the state tournament this season.

Nelson won his first conference championship in 20+ years of coaching. Had his first 20 win season and continues to do a great job with his program.

Tauschek has built a program at Kohler HS from the ground up. Every year, even with losing seniors, they get stronger and stronger. This year, for the first time in my 6 year tenure, she won the conference, posting VERY significant wins over incredibly strong teams like Roncalli, Plymouth (D1), and Sheboygan Falls.