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Posted
1 hour ago, Lord Elrond said:

New Billiken head coach for both men and women. SLU announcement, definitely a local guy.

 ST. LOUIS – Saint Louis University Director of Athletics Chris May has announced the hiring of James Tobin as head coach of the Billikens' men's and women's tennis teams.
 
"We are excited to welcome James Tobin to lead our men's and women's tennis programs," May said. "With his background in collegiate tennis coupled with strong connections within the tennis community, I am confident the Billikens will be in a position to succeed. We look forward to having a great season and continuing the momentum our teams have gained in recent years."
 
From 2019 to 2022, Tobin served as an assistant men's and women's coach at Lindenwood University. He also has coaching experience in St. Louis as the lead professional and program developer for Nike tennis camps, as a private coach at Dwight Davis Tennis Center, and as the lead professional with the City of St. Louis tennis program. Tobin also spent time as the lead professional at Royal South Yarra Lawn Tennis Club in his native Australia.
 
Tobin played three seasons at Missouri Baptist University, where he helped the Spartans win their first conference title and qualify for their first NAIA national tournament appearance. He was a two-time second-team All-Conference selection and a two-year team captain. Tobin holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from Missouri Baptist and an MBA from Lindenwood.
 
"I would like to send a special thank-you to the athletics department at Saint Louis University for trusting me with this role," Tobin said. "I am looking forward to the challenge ahead, and I hope to help our student-athletes maximize their SLU experience every day."

Hasn't worked full time in tennis since 2022....

Posted
1 hour ago, OkieBilliken said:

Not checking but I’m 100% sure Lindenwood has better tennis facilities than us.  Mo Bpt probably as well.   Good luck coach!    Hope you win huge and then move on to a school where you get good support.

We have no tennis facilities. Dwight Davis and any indoor club we can find. The school has built and torn down 2 outdoor facilities that I know of. The first was built with donated funds and the family wasn't even informed when it was taken out. That was a long time ago. The second was where Chafeitz arena sits. 

Posted
21 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Yeah, saw that. Makes one wonder…

He is leaving a consulting job. Wants to be a full time coach. 

Posted
26 minutes ago, shempie said:

He is leaving a consulting job. Wants to be a full time coach. 

I don’t think the question is wether he wants to be a head tennis coach.
 

Stuckey's resume before SLU 

image.thumb.png.9397c628cb95f8d9c305405587c885e7.png

Tobin's resume

image.thumb.png.d1274df866a177497f19d5f226463a6c.png

It took this long and this close to the season to hire this guy? 

Posted
24 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:

I don’t think the question is wether he wants to be a head tennis coach.
 

Stuckey's resume before SLU 

image.thumb.png.9397c628cb95f8d9c305405587c885e7.png

Tobin's resume

image.thumb.png.d1274df866a177497f19d5f226463a6c.png

It took this long and this close to the season to hire this guy? 

It’s going to be a problem until they hire separate men’s and women’s coaches which I believe was at least discussed this time. 
And yes, it’s late. Tennis recruiting is done. 

Posted
16 hours ago, shempie said:

It’s going to be a problem until they hire separate men’s and women’s coaches which I believe was at least discussed this time. 
And yes, it’s late. Tennis recruiting is done. 

I get it, it's just disappointing to see progress essentially stall and a hire that essentially signals we're not interested in being competitive within conference after such a great season. 

Posted

Who cares.  This board is just getting silly.  Sorry bro @OkieBilliken but no one who doesn't have family on the team will travel the earth like you to watch baseball, much less tennis.  You can make a case for baseball facilities that makes sense to me.  Despite the current Cardinal team sucking arse, this is a baseball town.  We do not live in a hot bed of tennis and spending shitloads on facilities would be crazy.  I miss Jimmy Connors too, but that was a LONG time ago.  

Posted
56 minutes ago, slufan13 said:

I know this is wrong of me but I honestly wish we had like 5 total sports at SLU. More NIL pumped in and less for the great Chris May to manage. 

Men's basketball

Women's basketball

Men's soccer

Women's soccer

Volleyball

You need 14 sports to be Division 1 team.  We are a big and powerful enough school not to aim so low.  

Posted
1 hour ago, Billiken Rich said:

Who cares.  This board is just getting silly.  Sorry bro @OkieBilliken but no one who doesn't have family on the team will travel the earth like you to watch baseball, much less tennis.  You can make a case for baseball facilities that makes sense to me.  Despite the current Cardinal team sucking arse, this is a baseball town.  We do not live in a hot bed of tennis and spending shitloads on facilities would be crazy.  I miss Jimmy Connors too, but that was a LONG time ago.  

Baseball is by far the biggest indefensible failure of the current athletic department.   My feeling is if you field a team, at least don’t put your student athletes in an embarrassing environment.   Good lord there are nice apartment complexes that have six tennis courts.   Not exactly a massive capital expenditure.   

Posted
1 hour ago, OkieBilliken said:

Baseball is by far the biggest indefensible failure of the current athletic department.   My feeling is if you field a team, at least don’t put your student athletes in an embarrassing environment.   Good lord there are nice apartment complexes that have six tennis courts.   Not exactly a massive capital expenditure.   

You are right.  Results don't matter.  Pretty bells and whistles are what's important.  Baseball is something like 99-63 over the past three seasons.  That's a failure to you? 

Posted
2 hours ago, Billiken Rich said:

Who cares.  This board is just getting silly.  Sorry bro @OkieBilliken but no one who doesn't have family on the team will travel the earth like you to watch baseball, much less tennis.  You can make a case for baseball facilities that makes sense to me.  Despite the current Cardinal team sucking arse, this is a baseball town.  We do not live in a hot bed of tennis and spending shitloads on facilities would be crazy.  I miss Jimmy Connors too, but that was a LONG time ago.  

Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Alternate opinions are not wanted on this board.  "If you don't believe what I believe, you are wrong."

Posted
6 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

You are right.  Results don't matter.  Pretty bells and whistles are what's important.  Baseball is something like 99-63 over the past three seasons.  That's a failure to you? 

Baseball facilities are the failure.   I’m sure you know I meant that but as always feel free to troll…

Posted
16 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

You are right.  Results don't matter.  Pretty bells and whistles are what's important.  Baseball is something like 99-63 over the past three seasons.  That's a failure to you? 

Hoosierpal isn't going to read this but here we go:

Here's the problem with this post, he's not meeting anyone in this thread where we're having the conversation. To be quite honest, I don't know who he's having a conversation with, because he's got everyone blocked who doesn't agree with him. He says something tangentially related to the topic that is true but really isn't an actual point of discussion.

Example:

Hoosierpal says "Baseball is something like 99-63 over the past three seasons.  That's a failure to you? "
You see he's correct, the baseball program is not a failure, far from it. He knows that's something nobody can disagree with, because literally NOBODY in this thread has said the baseball program has been a failure.

The failure, which has quite clearly been explained is that SLU Baseball has excelled despite insufficient facilities for a D1 College Baseball program.

This guy is either an idiot or a troll. He's not even a Billiken fan by his own admission. I am once again asking @SluSignGuy to bring back negative post reactions.

Posted

By the way, are we going to do this with every sports team we have?  By this, I mean complain on threads that this poor [fill in the blank] team is not taken care of by our Athletic Department and doing so is not in line with our values.  I think we have heard complaints the facilities about field hockey (I know that is being fixed), baseball, softball, and now tennis in just the past week.  I agree with slufan13's sentiments above.  Let's take care of our marquis programs first.  Our second priority should also be our marquis teams.  Also, our third priority.  Everyone else is in line after that.  I frankly don't care if a kid getting a scholarship to SLU for tennis has to go to the very nice facilities at the Dwight Davis Tennis Center to play his or her sport.  That kid is getting his education paid for by playing a sport that no one SLU attends or, frankly, cares about.

Posted
1 hour ago, OkieBilliken said:

Baseball facilities are the failure.   I’m sure you know I meant that but as always feel free to troll…

You took me off Ignore?  Why?  

I have two of the regular posters on Ignore and my posting life is so much better.

Posted
11 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

By the way, are we going to do this with every sports team we have?  By this, I mean complain on threads that this poor [fill in the blank] team is not taken care of by our Athletic Department and doing so is not in line with our values.  I think we have heard complaints the facilities about field hockey (I know that is being fixed), baseball, softball, and now tennis in just the past week.  I agree with slufan13's sentiments above.  Let's take care of our marquis programs first.  Our second priority should also be our marquis teams.  Also, our third priority.  Everyone else is in line after that.  I frankly don't care if a kid getting a scholarship to SLU for tennis has to go to the very nice facilities at the Dwight Davis Tennis Center to play his or her sport.  That kid is getting his education paid for by playing a sport that no one SLU attends or, frankly, cares about.

Dawg, do you know how sh!tty that lifestyle is? Any type of commute is an extra hour each way. Walk to Chaifetz, collect equipment, load equipment in transportation, drive over to Dwight Davis or Kings Point in Belleville, practice, pack up vans, drive to Chaifetz, walk back to apartment, and you still haven’t showered. Imagine getting to DD and it rains out of nowhere and you can’t practice, now you drive back to Chaifetz to get fitness or strength work in. These athletes aren’t getting full rides. Only full rides they get are bumpy ass rides in SLU vans every day to and from practice.  You try to compete in recruiting A10 level athletes. 

 

Posted

I’m confused why people want to jump in to the tennis thread to say how much dont care about tennis.   It’s probably not the thread for you.   We had a record breaking year last year’s with both the men’s and women’s team and then our terrific coach got snatched away by a  CRAPPY VALLEY school.  I am not really okay with that.   I want to compete for a conference championship in every sport.   VCU can.  Dayton can.  Not sure why we shouldn’t try.   But honestly if it pains you that a few people care about certain SLU sports and student athletes that you don’t, don’t take it personally.    We are all on the same team, I think.  

Posted
9 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:

Dawg, do you know how sh!tty that lifestyle is? Any type of commute is an extra hour each way. Walk to Chaifetz, collect equipment, load equipment in transportation, drive over to Dwight Davis or Kings Point in Belleville, practice, pack up vans, drive to Chaifetz, walk back to apartment, and you still haven’t showered. Imagine getting to DD and it rains out of nowhere and you can’t practice, now you drive back to Chaifetz to get fitness or strength work in. These athletes aren’t getting full rides. Only full rides they get are bumpy ass rides in SLU vans every day to and from practice.  You try to compete in recruiting A10 level athletes. 

 

I do know how it is, because two of my kids played high school tennis at two different schools and both schools used Dwight Davis as their home court for practice and matches.  For one of my kids, Dwight Davis was about the same distance away as SLU is.  For the other, Dwight Davis was much further away.  They often drove down to find out last minute that a practice or match was canceled.  Neither of them were receiving any scholarship money from their high school to do this and only did because they enjoyed playing the game.

Having said all of this, I understand the challenges faced by our tennis players.  However, they sign to come to SLU knowing this is the situation.  If they are good enough to receive a scholarship (even a partial one) at SLU, that means they were also good enough to play for other schools.  They chose SLU knowing that this would mean practicing and playing off campus. #spendthemoneyonbasketball&soccer

Posted
3 minutes ago, OkieBilliken said:

I’m confused why people want to jump in to the tennis thread to say how much dont care about tennis.   It’s probably not the thread for you.   We had a record breaking year last year’s with both the men’s and women’s team and then our terrific coach got snatched away by a  CRAPPY VALLEY school.  I am not really okay with that.   I want to compete for a conference championship in every sport.   VCU can.  Dayton can.  Not sure why we shouldn’t try.   But honestly if it pains you that a few people care about certain SLU sports and student athletes that you don’t, don’t take it personally.    We are all on the same team, I think.  

I do care about tennis.  I play tennis, and it is/was the primary high school sport of two of my three children.  Tennis is great.  However, if Chris May had two million dollars of extra funds, and he had a choice to build tennis courts on campus or spend the money on basketball, soccer, or possibly part of the costs of new baseball/softball stadiums, I am going to choose those other sports every time.

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