Aug. 18, 2009
Eric Mahone, a former tennis player for IUPUI who has coaching experience at the college, high school and club levels, has been named the University of Dayton's new tennis coach. Mahone is UD's first full-time tennis coach, consolidating the men's and women's tennis programs under one head coach.
Mahone (pronounced Mah-HOAN) was a three-year letterwinner and two-time team co-captain while playing tennis at IUPUI. He comes to the University of Dayton from Five Seasons Sports Club in Cincinnati, where he has been the Adult Director since 2007. Among his duties at Five Seasons were responsibility for all aspects of the adult program and coaching the club's USTA women's teams.
The 32-year-old Mahone began his college coaching career at the University of Chicago, where he assisted head coach Marty Perry in rebuilding the men's and women's programs for three seasons. After six straight eighth-place (out of eight teams) conference finishes, both of the school's tennis programs finished third, fifth and third from 2005 to 2007. Mahone was named the University Athletic Association's Assistant Coach of the Year in 2005.
He began his coaching career in 2002 at St. Joseph's High School in South Bend, Indiana, coaching the boy's tennis team. His five-year stint at St. Joe's included a team runner-up finish at the state tournament, and coaching Ryan Keckley (brother of former UD tennis player Jeff Keckley) to the individual state championship. While coaching at St. Joseph's, Mahone also served as the Tennis Director and Head Professional at Morris Park Country Club in South Bend.
As a private coach, he has coached six USTA Top 100 players , three that reached the top 400 in ITF rankings, and three state champions.
"I am excited to be chosen as the head tennis coach at the University of Dayton," Mahone said. "In all honesty, I am leaving an amazing position at Five Seasons. But I loved my time at the University of Chicago, and have been looking for the right opportunity to return to college coaching. It is a great honor for me to coach once again at a University where the concept of scholar-athlete has real meaning."
"We're thrilled to have Eric join the Athletics Division," Associate Director of Athletics Joe Owens said. "We anticipated moving our tennis coaching position to a full-time position would give us a greater pool of candidates to work with, but we had no idea the field would have such quality and depth for us to choose from.
"Having a person of Eric's caliber emerge from this group is a great thing for our tennis teams," Owens added. "His coaching skills on the court will immediately benefit our student-athletes, and his tennis-related experiences off the court will raise the level of our programs in every way."
Mahone holds a bachelor's degree in political science from IUPUI, graduating in 2000. He also earned a certificate of executive management from the Notre Dame Executive MBA program in 2007. In 2008, he completed his Etcheberry Certification, which is a fitness, strength and conditioning education program designed for working with high-performance tennis athletes conducted by the Etcheberry Experience. |
