OU's first tennis coach in 20 years

Lance Lysaught knows he has his work cut out for him.

OU’s first tennis coach in 20 years, Lysaught came to OU for the unique challenge of beginning a men’s and women’s program from the ground up.

“It had kind of been on my radar that if one of the universities (locally) started a program, I was gonna look to get into college coaching,” he said.

Lysaught held positions as Tennis Director at the Wood Valley Racquet Club, as well as Head Tennis Professional at the Topeka Country Club for 15 years before coming to Ottawa.

Lysaught’s uncle, Mark Lysaught, had always encouraged Lance to come coach at OU if they were ever hiring, and when Mark heard an advertisement for the position on the radio, he let Lance know.

“I just felt like I was supposed to apply for the job, and went after it at that point,” Lysaught said.

So far, there have been issues Lysaught knew would come up, coaching two teams of freshmen, trying to get them acclimated to the college game.

The biggest issue Lysaught said the team is having is with court time.

There are no tennis courts on campus, so the teams have to share time with the high school and community, which only hold a five-court setting.

“Most of the (college) schools have six courts, so that’s a bit of a challenge, trying to play all the matches on five courts and get them done in time,” he said. “Courts is one of the big dynamics we’re really working around right now.”

Lysaught said court cost is variable, depending on lighting, a six-court venue would cost from $350-$470 thousand.

Assistant coach Katya Zapadalova designed a budget plan for what it would cost to build new courts, also with a spot of land picked out by the baseball fields.

“It’s just gonna be a matter of raising the money, timing, things like that,” Lysaught said. “It is something that we definitely recognize we need for the tennis program to move forward. We’re excited about actually starting conference play and figuring out where we are in the conference and where we stand,” he said. “(The men’s team) did have some wins over Southwestern in the fall, but it’s a little bit different story now in the spring now that everybody’s been training and ready to go.”