Sam Freeman ’11
Web A&E Editor
,” Hrisovulos said. | Photo by Stamford Tennis Academy”]
In early February, Staples alum, three time state champ, D–1 tennis player and a current private coach for top ranked junior players in Connecticut, Kris Hrisovulos ’00 was announced as the new boys varsity tennis coach. After two seasons, Brian Scott will not be able to coach during the 2010 season due to health issues.
“I am really looking forward to [the season],” Hrisovulos said.
While he never had a team coaching position in the past, Hrisovulos has had plenty of tennis experience while growing up in Westport.
Graduating in 2000, he spent 1998-00 season’s, Staples winning three state championship titles.
After graduating, he went on to play D-1 tennis at Niagara University in New York. He is currently working at a high performance tennis academy in Stamford where he has been coaching varsity players such as Danny Hirschberg ’11.
“I have not met the coach yet, but I have heard that he was a former Staples tennis player and has many years of experience teaching tennis. It will be great to have someone that can bring that to the team,” Jordan Ratner ’10, a co-captain for the 2010 season, said.
Although there has been major hype about the experience that Hrisovulos is going to bring to the team this year, many players are still upset to see Scott go.
“I am pretty upset because I thought Brian was a great coach. He coached the team my freshman and sophomore seasons and we did really well so it’s disappointing that he isn’t coming back,” said Danny Hirschberg ’11 who has been on the varsity team with Scott since his freshman year.
Since Scott was unable to join the team for the first half of the season last spring, players understand that the decision to step down was out of his control and will be supporting each other during this time of transition.
“This left last year’s captain Ivan Blaustein ’09 with the task of stepping up and becoming an even greater presence than a normal captain is expected to be. This year as co-captain I am determined to do the same. Having a new coach this year will allow us to refocus our team and will strengthen the bond of the players as we lean even more on each other for support,” Ratner said.
Following Scott, and his great coaching abilities, Hrisovulos is not nearly as nervous as most would imagine a first year varsity coach would be.
“First year is going to be tough,” Hrisovulos said. “But if they can trust me, I think it will be good. Also, being around kids before and being around a championship environment in Staples will definitely make the first year easier.”
While he may be ready to embrace the season, he knows that a lot of hard work and commitment is going to be needed from all players if they want another state championship and to beat their number one rival, Greenwich.
Hrisovulos knows exactly what is needed to make it to the top, but he needs the Staples tennis community to trust him and his intentions for the program. With trust from both players and parents alike, he is sure to bring improvement to the team.
“We have room to improve on our results from last year [lost first round of FCAIC and came in second in states] and I think that with Kris we will be able to play just as well and hopefully even better,” Hirschberg said.
Ratner agreed with Hirschberg and other team members.
“We have already found some great new talent in the freshman class that we all believe will allow us to finally take down our rivals, Greenwich, after a long drought of wins against them,” Ratner said.
In late spring, when the 2010 boys varsity tennis season has almost come to a close, it will be interesting to see if the fresh talent and highly trained coach will make for many victories and high accomplishments for the team.