By John Rittenhouse
A man who has closely followed the Luverne High School boys' and girls' tennis programs will get an inside look at the sport starting this fall.
Greg Antoine, a teacher in the Luverne School District since 1984, has been named the new head coach of both tennis programs.
Antoine takes over for a good friend and golfing buddy, Dave Svingen, who retired as a teacher-coach in June.
Svingen, a 34-year district employee, was head coach of the boys' tennis team for the last 33 seasons and was the only coach of the girls' program, which started in 1974.
In recent years, Antoine became one of the program's biggest backers. He and his wife, Barb, who works as a management assistant for the Luverne School District, have had three of their children compete under Svingen.
Dan, now a sophomore at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, advanced to the state tournament as a doubles player during his senior season.
Becky will be a senior member of the girls' team this fall, and Dusty, a sophomore, will play for his Dad next spring.
Growing up nearly right across the street from the high school tennis courts created an interest in the Antoine children. Being a tennis dad, and his desire to see the sport offered at LHS gave Greg Antoine interest in the head coaching position.
"The main reason why I decided to become the head coach is that I wanted to see the program continue. With all the cuts and things going on, I wanted to make sure the program would go on," he said.
"If the school would have hired someone coming out of college who wanted to coach tennis, I probably wouldnÕt have applied for the job."
Although he has no prior experience as a tennis coach, Antoine has held several coaching positions during his 20-year career as an educator.
He played tennis as youngster growing up in Madelia, where he graduated from high school in 1975.
Antoine then earned his bachelor's degree from Southwest State University, Marshall, and later earned a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from South Dakota State University, Brookings.
Antoine received his first teaching experience in the Amboy-Good Thunder School District in 1982 and 1983. He also held the head girls' volleyball and softball coaching positions at A-GH, and served as assistant girlsÕ basketball coach.
Antoine came to Luverne in 1984 as a freshman science teacher and served as an assistant girls' basketball coach for one year before taking the head coaching job for four years.
Antoine stepped down from the head coaching slot after the 1988-89 campaign and has been the eighth-grade girls' coach ever since.
Being familiar with the sport and having past coaching experience will work in Antoine's favor as a tennis mentor.
"I've been playing the game since I was little, and all of my kids have been in the tennis program here. I've been at a lot of matches over the last six years," he said.
Antoine is looking forward to the challenge of serving as a coach in a sport that places a lot of importance on individual performances.
"Tennis is competitive, but the pressure of coaching sports like basketball and football does not come with it. What I like about it is tennis is more of an individual sport. You compete as a team, but it's one player against another in singles, and one team against another in doubles. I also like tennis because it's a lifetime sport. You can teach a kid to play tennis, and it's a game they can play the rest of their lives," he said.
Unlike most coaches taking over a new program, Antoine has some certain advantages. He can tap the outgoing coach, as well as his youngest son and daughter, for information on staging productive practice sessions.
"I want to continue the coaching style Dave had going, which I call a laid-back competitiveness," Antoine said.
"As far as practices go, I really don't know how I'll run them right now. I'll be learning right with the kids, and they'll probably teach me how practices are run. Just like any other sport, we'll work on the fundamentals. Once you get the fundamentals down, the rest of it should come around."