The News-Gazette’s 21st All-Area boys’ tennis team: Cohen wins Coach of the Year

Jun. 18—The St. Thomas More boys’ tennis team finished tied for 11th at the Class 1A state tournament thanks to a third-place finish from Hunter Madigan and a strong outing from Wyatt Kirby, who advanced to the third round of the consolation bracket. This came after the Sabers won their first sectional title in program history. Coach Greg Cohen visited with staff writer Joey Wright for a chat about the Sabers’ historic season.

It’s funny. I’ve been coaching a long time. That was my 43rd year coaching high school tennis, and I don’t feel like I did enough to earn this honor. I think there’s other people that did a better job, but I’m grateful for it. We had a decent start to the season because we’ve got some more kids out this year, some kids that were kind of athletic that came out, and some kids that came back to playing, so we had more players this year, which was better than my first year that we were there. But then it was kind of an up-and-down season. We tried to work our schedule, where we tried to add some things, specifically for Hunter Madigan. We went to a Saturday invite in Ottawa partly so that he could play some better players, but also so the two coaches that were on the seeding committee at state were coaching there, so they got a chance to see him play.

We had some issues during the year with some kids that couldn’t be some of our mainstays in our lineup. They couldn’t be at some of our dual meets and some of our events, so it had some frustrating parts. But we kind of came together at the end and played real well at our sectional. Obviously, Hunter’s a great player, but I was really proud of our other singles player, Wyatt Kirby, who qualified for state. He was the difference in us winning the sectional.

Well, I think, I think that’s the case. I guess what I’m saying is I spent years and years, where we had incredible summer camps, and we traveled. Actually, the first time I met Hunter. I was bringing teams down here from Mundelein High School, and then before that from Warren High School, and we played in the quad in the summer here. We traveled all over the place, and we did all those things, but we couldn’t do that this past summer. I haven’t figured out how to do that here because St. Thomas More does not have tennis courts.

I grew up in Rock Island. I went to school down here at the University of Illinois. Actually, my first coaching job I ever had as a volunteer was when I was an education student and I was observing classes at Champaign Central. I ended up volunteering that fall, and then I ended up volunteering at Urbana for the next three seasons in tennis and four years of basketball. I was with Hal Wright, who was the varsity coach, and then I got a job teaching up in Gurnee. It was awesome because when I moved up there, it was 1,600 students, and when I retired, it was 4,200. When I retired, I started looking at townhomes down here, and then Bloomington-Normal. Never quite was a suburban Chicago person. I love the pace of life here.

I’m going to keep coaching as long as I’m healthy enough. My plan is to at least coach seven more years. I’d love to get to 50 years and to 70 years old coaching. I don’t feel like there’s anything that’s stopping me at this point, so I knew I was going to get back into coaching. When I first was moving down here, once I bought my townhome, I actually reached out to all the local schools to find out if there were any openings for tennis, and there weren’t. So, that’s why I looked at volunteering. I was going to volunteer at Centennial, and I actually spent the first day of practice last year there, when the coach at St. Thomas More had decided, because of health issues, he wasn’t going to coach. All of a sudden, that job opened up.

It was interesting for me, too, because I went to public school and I’ve taught in public school all my life. It’s a very different thing. I’m very grateful for St. Thomas More to have given me a chance to coach in this area. I talk about not doing camps. I’ve always done free lessons for third through eighth graders, and it’s hard. I don’t know if I can do that with private schools because I’m not going to recruit a kid to come to a private school. It’s different recruiting kids that live in your district to try to play tennis than it is trying to recruit kids to come to your school.

Growing up, my parents played and I was a young kid in the 1970s, and that was a tennis boom period. I had a high school teammate that finished second in state his senior year and was playing national tournaments all over, and he was a really good friend. You kind of look at that coming in. My partner and I finished top 24 in state doubles my senior year in 1981 and our team finished actually ninth in state, which is kind of familiar, so it’s kind of that category with two entries with a singles player in our doubles team. Even when I was at school down here, I coached all but one year, so I always knew I wanted to become a teacher and a coach.

We laugh about it with some of the other retired coaches. I can’t believe I did this when I was teaching. You’re getting at the end of the season for boys’ tennis — girls’ tennis is a little different here in the fall, so the hard part is the beginning, getting everything organized — but for boys tennis, you’ve got the state tournament. And then you’ve got all the stuff you have to do with records, awards night, summer camps, and at the same time, you’re getting your grades ready for the semester, getting finals ready and grading finals. It was very difficult, but it’s one of the great things about athletics for players, and it’s one of the great things about coaches is you have to learn to budget your time, and you have to learn to do that. Some people can’t and get out, and that’s, that’s too bad, but for me, it’s always been an incredible pleasure, and really the focus of my life.

2026 Greg Cohen St. Thomas More

2025 Scott Davis Champaign Central

2024 Luke Bronowski Uni High

2023 Scott Davis Champaign Central

2022 Teri Scaggs Centennial

2021 Teri Scaggs Centennial

Alex Amatyleon Centennial

2019 Teri Scaggs Centennial

2018 David Bergandine Uni High

2017 Teri Scaggs Centennial

2016 Matthew Avery Urbana

2015 Teri Scaggs Centennial

2014 Scott Davis Champaign Central

2013 Scott Davis Champaign Central