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St. Cloud State University
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Unexpected career leads to success
By Ryan Atkins
Published:
Thursday, April 7, 2005
Media Credit: Tim Gruber
Larry Sundby, in his 18th season as the SCSU women´s tennis coach, has accumulated over 300 wins in his time with the Huskies.
Sometimes unexpected opportunities provide some of life's greatest experiences.
For SCSU women's tennis coach Larry Sundby, an unexpected opportunity is what happened when he was asked to coach tennis without having entertained thoughts of coaching at the college level.
Sundby earned his 300th victory as SCSU coach in mid-February, which is an accomplishment in itself because Sundby never expected to coach at his alma mater, much less for 18 years.
"I didn't expect to coach this long. At the time (I was asked), I was already 45 years old and I thought I would coach for five or 10 years because I had already done eight years at high school," Sundby said.
Sundby's coaching career began in the early 1980s, when St. Cloud Tech High School needed a coach for their ninth grade girls' tennis program.
While coaching at Tech, Sundby accumulated 131 victories and earned the Minnesota High School Girls' Class AA Tennis Coach of the Year in 1992. But it was four years before that that the former SCSU men's tennis player would find himself coaching the Husky women.
Sundby had been a professor in the business department for 10 years when he was asked by the former SCSU women's tennis coach to consider the position
Sundby immediately proved that he belonged at the collegiate level, leading the Huskies to a 12-6 record, including 5-0 in the NCC during his first year in 1988. During his tenure, no team that Sundby has coached has finished below fourth place in the conference. In his first season, the Huskies won the North Central Conference conference title. Since then, his teams have won the competitive NCC twice since, while finishing second eight times. Sundby also earned NCC Coach of the Year honors in his inaugural season and in 1991.
Past Husky teams coached by Sundby have had success on the tennis court, as evidenced by a career 439-170 record combining college and high school. However, he views the success the players' have away from the court as being more important.
"My primary goal is to provide these players with a good college athletic experience," Sundby said. "They're here for four years and then move on to successful careers within their fields. To me, that is more important than winning and losing."
Senior co-captain Sara Eull attests to Sundby's belief that it is much more important for his players to succeed outside of the tennis court than on it.
"Larry is very understanding with school. If something comes up he's very flexible with practice. I even had to miss a match because I had an interview. He's also understanding during midterms. He'll give us a day off," Eull said.
Eull understood immediately that she had a special coach when she was recruited from St. Michael-Albertville High School.
"I was also recruited by Mankato and with Larry I got the impression he is a better coach and everything fit. He's more personable and did the extra stuff that showed he wanted me (on the team)," Eull said.
Despite the fact that Sundby retired from teaching a few years ago, he still has the drive to keep coaching.
"I enjoy it a great deal. I retired from teaching five years ago and I could have retired from coaching," Sundby said. "It is a contribution that keeps me connected to SCSU. It seemed sensible and an enjoyable thing to do."
Eull believes that Sundby continued coaching because of his passion for the game.
"He's so dedicated. Otherwise, he wouldn't stay this long if it is not something he loves. Especially since he's not a professor anymore," Eull said.
Sundby may have done some of his best work in the last three seasons, earning consecutive NCAA bids.
However, with only four players returning from last season's 18-7 team, Sundby believes he has the Huskies poised to make a run at another NCAA bid with a current 15-7 record in what many thought would be a year of transition.
Eull believes it's Sundby's calming personality that motivates his players to do well.
"He's very easy to talk to and he has a calm demeanor. He wants to win but he knows that there are things more important than tennis," Eull said. "Before matches, he's always very positive and very excited to get us started."
Many would think that after nearly 18 years of coaching, this might be the year that Sundby decides to walk away from the sport he never anticipated coaching.
"Every year I say it's a year by year decision. So we'll see," Sundby said.
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