photo by: Photo courtesy Lawrence High School Athletics

Lawrence boys and girls tennis coach Stephen Hudson.

For the second time in his tennis coaching career, Stephen Hudson will become Lawrence High School’s next boys and girls tennis coach.

Hudson took over the job at Lawrence High in 2006 before leaving after the 2010 school year. Hudson continued to coach in different capacities around De Soto. He was the assistant coach at De Soto High School while working on the school’s staff. Now he’s back after the retirement of Chris Marshall.

“Basically, my teaching career has been keeping me away from being a head coach for a while,” Hudson said. “Honestly, I was enjoying being an assistant coach at De Soto, but the opportunity came up to be a head coach again — and it happened to be Lawrence again, so that kind of worked out really well.”

Hudson will have to get acclimated to the fundraising process again, but a bonus with the job is that he knows there is a strong parental support system in Lawrence for high school teams.

Hudson first started in the sport in eighth grade and fell in love with it. He started with private lessons and practiced against the wall of his parents’ house and would knock items off of shelves on the interior of the wall from hitting it so hard with a tennis ball. His practice eventually paid off, as he made an appearance at state as a senior.

“The only limiting factor in tennis was how much time I put into it,” he said. “I liked how you could practice individually, on your own, hitting against a garage wall, which is what I did most.”

The coaching career started not long after for Hudson. After his freshman year of college, Hudson was practicing his serve on a court in Eudora when a young kid asked Hudson for some advice. The kid’s dad offered to pay Hudson for private lessons and that started Hudson on the path to coaching.

Another year after that, Hudson was named the De Soto boys and girls tennis head coach. He’s stayed in the high school coaching world for over three decades now, mostly in the area in or around Lawrence.

“I still think high school is my favorite,” Hudson said. “I like watching kids improve. It’s awesome to see them put their skills that they’ve learned into use, and I get some satisfaction out of that, even though it’s not me who’s playing.”

For Hudson, it’s all about teaching the fundamentals. Drilling the basic footwork, the swing and the preparation is key for Hudson’s teams. Once kids master those basics, it’ll carry through the rest of their lives, no matter how frequently or to what degree they continue to play.

“And then, once you have the right tools and you know the right ways of doing things, then you can start incorporating some more strategy,” Hudson said.

“Everybody wants to learn secret strategies,” he added. “Yeah, well, don’t miss. That’s the number one strategy. Poor technique is more likely to make you miss, so if you have good technique, it’s more likely to get the ball in.”

Hudson met some of the boys team at an end-of-season banquet. As for the girls, that’s what this summer is about. Hudson plans to host hitting sessions with the girls team to get to know his future players better. Even if a hitting session doesn’t get scheduled, Hudson just wants his team to go and play some tennis this summer.

“I’ll encourage them to go out and play with their friends,” he said. “The more you play, the more you practice, the better you practice. Even if you don’t have perfect technique or know what you’re doing, you’re still going to get better.”