With the new school year begun and off-season schedule about to begin, 27-year-old Pierre Tafelski arrived ready to build men’s tennis from scratch as their most recent head coach.
Following the exit of former four-season head coach Jakob Gustaffson following the end of the 2014 spring season, Longwood men’s tennis went for an extended period of time without an official coach until the hiring of Marty Perry mid-November of 2015.
Perry resigned after his first season ended, finishing his short Longwood career with a coaching record of 7-15 overall, 0-8 in conference play. Since Perry’s departure, women’s tennis head coach Bruce Myers temporarily helped train the men’s team as he did periodically during Perry’s time when necessary.
According to Tafelski, he is here to stay for the full process.
“I definitely plan on staying here for a while,” said Tafelski. “The men’s team has been struggling for the last few years and as a head coach that’s not something you can change overnight. It definitely takes quite some time to rebuild a program. So I definitely see myself here for a couple of years.”
A native of Nantes, France, Tafelski came to America on scholarship, planning to play tennis for Division II Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas for only a few years.
“I was coming here only for a year or two but ended up just loving the lifestyle here, the culture. I think college tennis is such a great place to start,” said Tafleski. “I think it gave me the opportunity to grow as a person and spending my four years and then I fell in love with tennis and the coaching part of it and decided to stay.”
After two years at Ouachita, he transferred to Mercer University in Georgia and began at the No. 1 singles spot for the Division I program immediately.
Post-graduation, his pursuit of a master’s degree in business and desire to coach tennis took him to Division II Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) as a graduate assistant coach for three years. The 2014 season saw HPU go nearly undefeated (23-1), losing the NCAA Division II Championship match, 5-3.
Despite his youth and lack of head coaching experience, Tafelski believes his time as an assistant coach taught him the responsibilities required of the job. In looking for a head coaching position, he was “ready to take a step forward” in his career, according to Tafelski.
“I’m still really young, but I’ve had three good years of coaching prior to this position, so I’m really familiar with the responsibilities that come with the job and I’m really excited to start as a head coach here,” said Tafelski.
His age has yet to become an issue as the head coach is over two weeks into training with the team, though he was in their shoes less than five years ago.
“I think it’s a matter of setting the authority, making them understand who sets the rules. I really don’t think it’s a problem, they already understood how I view running the program, I’ve been really clear from the first day. It was a just a matter of setting up a standard and then they understand,” said Tafelski.
With a 13-48 record overall spanning the past three years, Tafelski was “a little nervous” regarding the team’s quality and his first training sessions. However, after beginning, he believes the team has “lots of potential,” he said.
“I was a little nervous, I’ll be honest. I have a very nice group of guys, they are willing to work hard which is what I value the most--hard work. And individually, there’s definitely room for improvement which I’m definitely looking forward to,” said Tafleski.
Myers, entering his second year with women’s tennis, has already seen the difference Tafleski brings to the team in comparison to last year.
“This is his first time coaching on any level, so I think he’s very excited to build his own program and he kind of gets to start from scratch and do what he needs to do. I can already see the practices are very enthusiastic and energetic,” said Myers.
Myers pointed out how Tafleski’s experience as a “high-level” player will assist in him rebuilding the program quickly.
Tafleski plans to begin the process with confidence and hard work, then bring in a few new faces.
“First is bringing more confidence to the team. I think that will be the number one goal for the fall the next couple of months,” said Tafleski. “They’ve been struggling last year and came in a little doubtful of their skills so we’ll be putting a lot of hard work in until the start of spring break comes then hopefully bring in new recruits to give them a stronger base at like five and six in the lineup.”
The upcoming Villanova Invitational this weekend from Sep. 11 to 13 will provide the team with their first indication of their status this off-season.
