Photo courtesy of Madison Bowden
As a student on Covenant College’s womens tennis team, I see Coach Hirte almost every day at the tennis courts at 4 p.m. for practice in the fall and spring—but what’s the rest of Coach Hirte’s job like outside of coaching both Covenant's womens and mens tennis teams? What kind of work goes on behind the scenes of Covenant Athletics that we college athletes never see? This week, I swung by Coach Hirte’s office to ask him some questions about his work off the court …
What does a typical workday look like for you?
“During the day I have lots of meetings with various constituents; I try to have regular meetings with our head coaches, admissions, the student body and various other members of the department. It’s a pretty typical nine to five except during season when I’m heading out to the courts around four for practice during the tennis season.”
As the athletic director and head tennis coach, what goes on behind the scenes that athletes might not notice or may take for granted?
“My encouragement to athletes would be to be cognizant of what the head coaches do behind the scenes to make sure the team is ready to perform their best on the field. Whether it’s the logistics of planning the buses and hotels, to food stops and day-to-day practice planning; all of that is done with a high degree of intentionality. A lotta credit goes to the management of our support staff: the athletic trainers, the sports staff and Sports Information Director Will who makes sure our sports seasons go smoothly all year round.”
We’ve had several new members of the athletic department hired this past year. What goes into the process of finding and hiring these staff members?
“When we have an open position, we look for people with an invested interest and a common understanding of our mission to suggest quality candidates to us. Also, each and everyone one of our positions posted to make space more of the right people and interested applicants that I don’t currently know about to see a listing and apply.”
What goes on during the typical off-season?
“During the summer, there’s a lotta prep, a lotta making sure that schedules are approved and early arrivals are approved. There’s a lotta planning for the year and making sure coaches who have a lot of administrative duties are clear of what those expectations are, whether it’s game operations or the management of student workers. From the tennis standpoint, it's also a pretty heavy recruiting season. We really start getting ready for planning and finalizing our playing schedule. Summer is also the time in the academic calendar when we try to take some vacation time to get away for a bit.”
What is your favorite part of the job?
“I love Covenant, and I love the mission of being able to use things that are as enjoyable as sports to help people grow closer to God and explore what that means to know Jesus and to know what he has called each of us to through part of our various athletic programs.”
What does the future of Covenant athletics look like? As our student body is constantly rising, do you believe that the athletic department will continue to expand as well?
“My hope is that each of the programs would continue to be able to grow in our ability to be able to compete at a higher and higher levels, while maintaining our utmost commitment to building relationships that allowing discipleship to occur in and through our athletics.”
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Madison Bowden.