Steve was born and raised in St. Cloud, Minnesota. After playing collegiate tennis as St John’s University he joined the RAC tennis department in 2006. He is a certified USTA High-performance coach and is also the head coach of the Rochester Lourdes Boys Tennis team. In his spare time he loves spending time with his wife Jill and young daughter Cameron.
What classes do you teach?
I coach most levels of tennis at the RAC but am mostly involved in the Junior competitive program (ACE) and adult tennis/programming.
What do you like about the RAC?
The RAC is a truly unique facility and the tennis community is very tight-knit. It is the ideal place for kids. The clay courts are a great teaching tool for adults/juniors and with 19 total courts we have the flexibility to do special events/camps that other clubs can’t offer. I also love our tennis director Ben Maes.
What do you enjoy about being a tennis professional?
I love seeing players improve and work on their games and being a part of that difficult process. It is also awesome to see junior players mature over the years and see them grow up and become young men/women. The relationships that you forge over the years are what I value most about the job.
What is your coaching philosophy?
My coaching philosophy is to make tennis fun, but eventually the “fun” is feeling that you’re working hard and improving. I think it’s absolutely crucial to build the correct foundation on each shot, whether juniors or adults, so that improvement is continual. I also think great tennis players are ones that truly enjoy the mental battle of tennis. So I try to help guide players to embrace that mindset and to seek out competition, not shy away from it.
“Fun Fact” about Steve that few people know about:
I was in a band in high-school and college named Fred Savage and the Unbeatables. We have three albums and our sound was adequately described once as a “combination of Chicago, Ben Folds and Elvis Costello.”