Donnie Thomas says one of the things he enjoys about coaching high school boys tennis is their improvement from day to day and match to match.
“You want to see them improve,” he said. “You want to have a nice group of kids on the court.”
Thomas, who has been coaching tennis for more than 40 years, said he expects his team to show good sportsmanship.
“I like seeing them treating (opponents with respect), not hitting the ball to them when their backs are to them when they get a little mad or something,” he said.
Thomas is in his first year at the helm with the Brownstown Central boys tennis team this fall.
“I want to see them improve every year,” he said. “With this group, I only get to see Ethan (Davis) for one year. The freshmen coming in, I can see how much they improve in four years. You just enjoy seeing them grow up.”
Davis is a senior who played No. 2 singles last fall and has moved up to No. 1 singles this season. Other seniors on the team are Grant Elliott and Nick Minton.
Thomas was the head coach at Bedford North Lawrence High School the past 14 seasons.
“They decided to go a different way, and I saw this job was open and I thought, ‘Well, I need something to do,’” he said.
Thomas is the father of five boys. Two of his sons completed their high school tennis careers before he began coaching the BNL varsity team, and the other three boys did not play tennis.
He did get to coach one of his sons in middle school. Thomas coached middle school boys for six years, and he also coached the BNL middle school girls in tennis for 20 years.
In his first year as head coach at Brownstown, he coached the Braves to a 4-1 win at Madison in their opening match of the season and saw the Braves defeat North Harrison 3-2 in their Mid-Southern Conference opener.
The Braves were 3-2 in dual meets heading into the completion of a match at Scottsburg on Monday afternoon.
“I told them (school officials) I’m hoping to give them 10 years over here,” Thomas said. “At BNL, I had a lot of help.”
At Brownstown, he doesn’t have an assistant coach, but Lute Lahrman, a former tennis player at BCHS, has helped with coaching some practices, and one of Thomas’ sons also has been at some of the practices.
Thomas said he uses the ball machine to work with the singles and doubles players to get them moving.
“The key in doubles is communicating, and they always say, ‘The team that gets to the net is usually the team that is going to win,’” Thomas said. “If you’re not aggressive and you’re just laying back on your heels, you’re going to let the other team take it to you.
“That’s what we’re working on, trying to get to the net and take control of the point, and you want to get done quickly, too. Four hits and you’re going to be done in a doubles match. You’re not going to have a bunch of long rallies.”
Thomas wants his players to come out strong at the beginning of a match.
“It’s important to come out there and be ready to play. If they’re not, they’re going to lose that first game, and you don’t know what’s going to happen from there,” he said. “It’s about 100% mental. You’ve got to get the point started. My philosophy at BNL was, ‘We’ve got to learn how to start the point, and we’ve got to learn how to finish the point. The middle is going to take care of itself.’”
The Braves will host Greensburg on Tuesday afternoon.