|
Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
After five years of service as Metro's head tennis coach, Dave Alden resigned May 1 to become the head coach at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.
His tenure at Metro has been a successful one, including the 2008 season, where he won Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Men's Coach of the Year and led the Roadrunners to their second consecutive conference title.
"It was a hard decision to make after the teams I've put together," Alden said. "But at the end of the day, it was a good fit for our family."
Alden took the new position because of the possibilities that Washburn offered, especially in the recruiting department. At Metro, the tennis budget kept Alden to mostly homegrown talent, but the Topeka school maintains a top-25 program with an expansive recruiting network.
"The first question they asked me," Alden said, "was how are you going to recruit internationally."
Alden was serving double duty at Metro as both tennis coach and assistant athletic director, but at Washburn his only commitment will be to the team.
"I get to really focus all my time and energy on the tennis team," he said.
Before he becomes an Ichabod at Washburn, he has unfinished business to attend to at Metro.
"Our stated goal from the beginning is to get to Nationals," Alden said, "The Sweet Sixteen."
The men face conference rival Kearney for the third time this season in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. His squad, which includes five first-team All-RMAC selections and one second team, looks poised to deliver.
Even with Nationals on their minds, the team understands how much will change when Alden is no longer present on the practice courts.
"I think you always lose something when someone leaves, but you also gain something," senior Riley Meyer said on the team losing Alden but gaining a new coach. "I wish I had another year to play with Beck (Meares)."
Meares, the assistant coach under Alden, is slated to be the interim head coach once the off-season begins. It would be an easy transition for Meares, having played four years for Metro.
"I can't wait for next season to be interim head coach and possibly head coach," she said. "It's always been my goal to be head coach of this program."
In her playing time at Metro, Meares was honored as RMAC Player of the Year in 2004, and graduated the following year. She's been on the coaching staff ever since.
"She knows everyone," freshman Angelo Faustino said about Meares taking the job. "So I don't think it would be that big a difference."
Five years may not be a long time for some coaches, but Alden has left a solid foundation for the Metro tennis program.
"It's been an experience," Meyer said about his four years with Alden. "It's been a little rough at times, but overall it's been good. I think I've grown more as a person."
Alden's move to Washburn hasn't changed the Roadrunners' hatred of the program in Kansas that beat them earlier in the year. In fact, seeing Alden at the helm of the competing program might just spurn a few of the players to turn the regional matchup into a rivalry.
"I think it will be even more intense (playing Washburn) because he's there," Faustino said.
Alden is up to the challenge. He says that he will always be attached to the student-athletes he has coached at Metro, but the men's and women's teams Alden will inherit, has him excited about the change of scenery. And he will certainly not back down from playing his old squad in the future.
"Do we want to beat them?" Alden says about the possible matchup. "Of course we do. But I will always want these guys at Metro to succeed."
|
|
|
