Former Wildcat returns as boys coach
“You can’t go home again?”
Mt. Spokane boys tennis coach Brian Walters would beg to differ.
Seven years after he graduated and after one year as an assistant coach, Walters has ascended to the head job for the Wildcats, succeeding longtime coach Marshall Mah, who led Mt. Spokane to three Greater Spokane League championships in the past four years, a streak broken in 2006 by the Ferris Saxons.
When his Mt. Spokane playing career was done, Walters played at Whitworth. And as he looks around the GSL now, he sees a different – and much-improved – level of play from when he was in high school.
“I didn’t even go out for tennis until my sophomore year, and I made the varsity right away,” Walters said. “Now, I’d probably be at the bottom of the JV. More teams are playing good tennis than they were a few years ago. Ferris and Lewis and Clark are always tough, Mead and Shadle Park have some good kids, and East Valley has a young and improving program.
“When I played, we had 20 kids out for tennis. Now we have 40.”
Walters wasn’t exactly born to the game, he says.
“I went out for track first,” he said. “I kept running by the tennis courts, and those guys looked like they were having a way better time than I was, so I decided to play tennis. The first day out, I didn’t even have a racket. Marshall asked me what kind of grip I used, and I couldn’t even tell him.
“It’s great to be back here, although it’s challenging being fairly close to the same age as many of my players. I’m coaching little brothers and their friends of guys I played with.
“My style is to run constant drills for the first month of practice, working on all the elements of the game, and then as we get closer to matches, the guys play each other every day to prepare. Many teams have challenge matches only once a week or when someone wants to challenge, but we’ll have matches almost every day.”
Walters’ top six players are competing hard for the top four singles spots, the coach says, and are the six on his squad who play the most tennis, working out year-round. They are seniors Jason Wuerch and Chris Jordan, juniors Nick McMurray, John Maccini and Zach Caldwell and freshman Justin McClain.
“We should be very tough this year,” Walters said. “We only graduated one of our top players, and we have 16 guys contending for 10 varsity positions. We have more guys playing all year now, and I hope that if I show my love for the game, the kids will feed off that.”
Walters’ coaching role models are Mah and Whitworth coach Mike Shanks and also the coaches from whom he took individual lessons.
“Every coach I played for or worked with had a different style, and I learned different things from each of them. I try to use that as I coach, to ask myself how they would approach a kid or a situation, because I think that working more individually with players helps them get better rather than approaching all of them as a group.”
The Wildcats have a bye today on the first day of GSL competition and open with Gonzaga Prep and North Central next week.