Linda Carlson and Angela Tompkins have experience with many sports, and now they have taken over as the new coaches for the OPRF JV2 and JV3 girls’ tennis teams at Oak Park and River Forest High School. 

They both bring a lot of experience to their jobs. In 2017, Carlson won the National PE Teacher of the Year award and has taught a self-defense class at OPRF for more than 10 years. She has coached basketball and field hockey in the past at OPRF. 

Tompkins is a long-term substitute teacher who has coached tennis and gymnastics at Morton High School and played tennis in high school. 

However, this is both Carlson’s and Tompkins’s first year coaching tennis at OPRF. Both coaches agree that the players on both the JV 2 and 3 teams have begun to bond, which is not only bringing them closer but improving their tennis skills. 

“They are giggling with each other and building those bonds,” said Carlson.

Now that players are closer, the more experienced players also feel more comfortable talking to their less experienced teammates about ways they can improve. 

Thankfully, many players don’t seem to have a problem with attitude or ego, which makes the more experienced more “willing to work with the other kids and be more patient about teaching them the rules,” said Carlson. 

Also essential is the players’ relationships with coaches. Tompkins said that the bonds she has started to create with her players continue to grow, and that whenever a big match is coming up and their players are nervous they will feel free to talk to her.

“They listen, they cooperate, they want to be there, they feel guilty missing,” said Tomkins.

The season was short and sweet. At press time, the JV3 record was 1-1, and the schedule was still being decided, according to Carlson.