Head coach Jacob Hunt talks to a group of campers at the Seymour tennis camp earlier this summer. Hunt will be taking over both the boys and girls tennis programs this year.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
When Jacob Hunt joined the Seymour High School boys tennis staff last fall as an assistant, he had no idea that one year later, he would be in charge of not just the boys but also the girls tennis program.
With former head coach Brandon Davis taking on a principal role at Margaret R. Brown Elementary School, he didn’t think he would have enough time to also coach both teams, so Hunt is officially taking over.
“It’s incredible. I’m so grateful to get the opportunity to coach the tennis program here, especially boys and girls,” Hunt said. “That gives me a lot of leeway of how I want to run the program. It also helps for these programs to work together. A lot of these boys and girls are already friends with each other, so to be coaching both teams really kind of makes things cohesive.”
During the boys season in the fall, players on the girls team usually help out as managers, and vice versa when the girls are in season during the springtime.
Hunt also had players on both the boys and girls teams helping out at the Seymour youth tennis camp earlier this summer.
Hunt played tennis himself at Lebanon High School, and he moved to Seymour to teach U.S. government and AP government at the high school.
“Seymour is a great community, but teaching high school here and getting the job I wanted, being really involved with the community was great,” he said.
Both the boys and girls tennis programs at Seymour have been successful as of late. Both teams won sectional titles last year, and the girls program has won sectional the past three seasons.
The sectional is going to look a little different this year. Scottsburg and Austin will be paired with Madison, Southwestern and Shawe Memorial this year, while Jennings County and Bedford North Lawrence will be in the Seymour Sectional with Trinity Lutheran and Brownstown Central.
It’ll be a tougher field to compete against, but Hunt hopes to bring a level of stability to the programs to keep them competitive.
“I think one of the main issues the program has had recently is sort of consistency. Brandon Davis did a great job of building that consistency, but beforehand, it was a coach one year, a coach another year, not having a coach for a year,” Hunt said. “It’s sort of just providing that backbone of this is something solid, this is something we’re building off of and this is something I’ll continue on for several years.”
The boys season is about to get rolling as official practice started Monday.
Seymour lost a number of valuable seniors in Eli Meyer, Jack VonDielingen, Hunter Heckman, Trevor Alberring and Reuben Kruse. But the Owls return players like Joe Schmidt, Parker Thompson, Drew Handloser and more who all played on varsity last season.
Since Hunt was on the staff last fall, he already has a feel for the team and is excited to get things rolling with them.
The Owls’ first match is Aug. 14 at Waldron.
“Oh, for sure,” Hunt said on knowing the team. “We already have something to go off of.”