The Tayo Bailey era of Butler women’s tennis got off to a winning start last weekend.

Bailey, a former standout at Butler, took over the program from Jason Suscha, who coached the Bulldogs for the past 13 years.

Butler started its spring season by defeating Atlantic 10 Conference rival Dayton 5-2 last Friday.

Junior Stephanie McLoughlin led the Bulldogs by winning her No. 1 singles match and No. 1 doubles match with senior partner Brittany Farmer.

Farmer, junior Caroline Hedrick and junior Laura Shull all won their singles matches as well.

Shull and sophomore Sienna Reuter won on the doubles side, capping the Bulldogs’ victory over the Flyers.

Bailey has emphasized an off-court training approach since taking over. Bailey has the Bulldogs in the weight room two to three times a week and working on conditioning five days a week.

The Bulldogs may be in better physical shape than last year, but Bailey values the mental side of the game just as highly. Bailey said her players must remain composed while also getting into opponents’ heads to be successful.

For the upcoming season, Bailey said she wants the Bulldogs to have a winning record and secure a top-five finish in the A-10.

Butler advanced to the semifinals of the Horizon League tournament and finished with a 9-15 record last year.

The Bulldogs play again Saturday at home against Western Michigan.

The first offer tennis coach Parker Ross received from Butler was a full ride scholarship to play on the men’s tennis team. But in taking too long to make a decision, he practically handed someone else four years’ tuition to the school.

When he received an offer this summer to coach that same team, he made sure not to pass it up.

Ross is taking over the men’s squad for former longtime coach Jason Suscha, who stepped down after the previous season.

“The old coach was great; I loved him,” Ross said. “But it wasn’t long ago that I was (like) Tommy Marks, a sophomore on my team. I can relate to these kids. I can easily communicate. I’m telling them everything I wish I had known ten years ago.

Ross’ return to Butler has been full of twists and turns as well as arrivals and departures.

The Libertyville, Ill., native was the first in his family to play tennis. He started on his front porch at just two years old when his mom gave him a racquetball racket to improve his hand-eye coordination.

Nearly two decades later, Ross decided to make tennis the sport he’d pursue in college, thinking he could go further on the tennis court than in other sports.

He chose to play at Butler over Michigan State and the University of Iowa, two powerhouse tennis institutions.

Butler had certainly wanted him—he was a national circuit veteran with high potential to help a Bulldog squad—but he did not act quickly enough.

“I chose Butler,” Ross said, “and then, the head coach called me back and said, ‘Sorry, we don’t have a scholarship for you anymore.’”

But Ross never gave up on attending Butler. He went to Iowa for a couple of years, and, realizing it wasn’t a good fit, he contacted Suscha and ended up transferring in 2004.

Over the course of his career at Butler, Ross was twice named to the All-Horizon League and was the co-captain of two Butler teams that won league championships and advanced to the NCAA tournament.

He posted a 36-29 singles record and a 39-27 doubles record before graduating from Butler with a degree in media arts in 2006.

“I made some of my best friends here—my wife, my best man in my wedding,” Ross said.

Following graduation, he went into consulting in Chicago for a few years.

“Then I was like, ‘You know what? I don’t really like consulting,’” Ross said.

Two years later, he decided to resign.

Amidst both job and city transfers, Ross needed to find something to keep himself busy in the meantime.

He coached at Five Seasons Tennis Club and the Lawrence Township Tennis Association in Indianapolis, even working with athletes in the U.S. Tennis Association’s junior circuit.

“One thing led to another, doors just kept opening,” said Ross, who spent two seasons as a men’s assistant coach under Suscha. “And why would I try to resist something that’s so natural to me? Getting back into it was a sign I never should’ve left in the first place.

“I went from being rejected by this school to being head coach. I love Butler University.”

On a team that has struggled to a 7-13 record this season, one duo is shining through on the Butler women’s tennis team.

Sophomores Stephanie McLoughlin and Gabrielle Rubenstein are 18-9 as a doubles pairing for the Bulldogs this season. That mark includes a 6-0 record in conference action.

Photo by Reid Bruner

“Teams just don’t play the way they play,” coach Jason Suscha said. “They play doubles the way it’s supposed to be played.”

McLoughlin and Rubenstein, like most college athletes, have been playing their sport of choice since they were young.

McLoughlin comes from a tennis family. Her dad was an Indiana University tennis star, and her brother, Stephen, is a senior on the Butler men’s tennis team.

“Growing up, my dad always emphasized doubles, and I played any chance I got,” McLoughlin said.

Rubenstein, a former state singles champion at Brebeuf Jesuit High School, said she was always told that if she wanted to play in college, she needed to know how to play both singles and doubles.

“You just aren’t as valuable if you can’t play both,” Rubenstein said.

The two have been playing together since their very first week of practice at Butler.

“There is no right way to do things,” Rubenstein said. “You just learn to move with your partner, and after a while you figure out their strengths and weaknesses.”

McLoughlin said she lets Rubenstein be the aggressor in their matches.

“I tend to set up on the baseline, and Gabby has great hands and puts it away,” McLoughlin said.

Doubles pair sophomore Caroline Hedrick and junior Brittany Farmer both said that to be successful in doubles, partners have to play off each other’s strengths.

“Our game really complements each other really well,” Farmer said.  “I’m more of the power player, and she’s more consistent.”

Hedrick and Farmer have been the second strongest doubles duo on the women’s team, posting a record of 9-7 overall.

“We have opposite games, but it works,” Hedrick said.

Suscha said he stresses aggressive play in doubles­— something that he said a lot of other women’s doubles teams don’t do.

Rubenstein and McLoughlin said they have embraced the style.

“We have developed a controlled aggression,” McLoughlin said. “We come across teams that play so passively, and because we play aggressively they don’t know how to handle it. We just control the match.”

Suscha said one of the toughest things for all of the Bulldogs has been adjusting from the aggressive doubles play to the more passive play seen in singles.

“You don’t usually see teams being good at both because it is two different styles of play,” Suscha said.

Hedrick said she uses doubles action as an opportunity to prepare for her No. 1 singles matches.

“I think it’s a nice segue into singles,” Hedrick said. “You are warmed up and already in the right mindset.”

McLoughlin said she recognizes the differences between singles and doubles and has been able to overcome them to be successful in doubles play.

“You don’t necessarily have to have crazy endurance or beautiful ground strokes like you do in singles,” McLoughlin said. “You just have to be aggressive.”

Rubenstein said it’s more about mentality and athleticism.

“To play great doubles, you have to be more gifted athletically,” Rubenstein said. “But more importantly, you have to have the right mindset.”

Suscha said that Rubenstein and McLoughlin really understand what it takes to be successful.

“If you play [doubles] right and you play it aggressively, it’s hard to lose,” Suscha said. “And they’ve got it going on. They’re always coming at you.”

Coaches of athletic teams are hired to provide leadership and usher in success at all levels of sport.

They are expected to help athletes improve at their respective sports while also instilling real-world values in them.

Photo courtesy of MCT

Not all coaches do their job the same way, though.

For example, some coaches like to spend time talking to the media, and others do not.

A coach talking to the media is a typical experience in the sporting world. However, some coaches go too far and become the focal point of their teams.

This should rarely be the case, and most coaches do a great job at shunning attention.

Ozzie Guillen, the manager of MLB’s Miami Marlins, does not fall into this category.

Guillen ignited a firestorm in his new city—he was formerly the coach of the Chicago White Sox—by saying he loves former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Florida boasts a large Cuban-American population that hates Castro and is now asking for Guillen’s head.

Through this, Guillen has burdened his teams and caused them to worry about something other than the game itself. This is not what a good coach is supposed to do.

John Tortorella, the manager of the NHL’s New York Rangers, also consistently brings negative heat upon his team, because he cannot keep his mouth shut.

Tortorella was fined $20,000 last Saturday for criticizing members of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Tortorella has brought undue negative attention to a team that was at the top of its game for most of the recently completed regular season.

Just because he feels the need to sound off publicly about issues does not mean he should do it, especially when it can only cause problems for those who he is supposed to be leading and helping.

We get laughs out of coaching rants from the likes of Guillen and Tortorella, but they serve no legitimate purpose because they are not meant to help anyone or fix anything.

Sometimes a coach becoming the focal point of his or her team has some merit.

For example, Stan Van Gundy, the coach of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, recently went public about one of his players apparently trying to get him fired.

That said, Butler sports fans should consider themselves lucky—they do not have to deal with coaches who have overbearing egos and large mouths.

Men’s basketball coach Brad Stevens always directs attention away from himself, as do Butler’s other coaches.

Baseball coach Steve Farley, tennis coach Jason Suscha and volleyball coach Sharon Clark—the three longest tenured Butler coaches—have all achieved success without blabbing to the media.

Quiet coaches in sports can be a blessing in disguise.

Hopefully, Guillen and Tortorella can figure this out in the near future.

Teams at all levels of athletics go through tough stretches of play over the course of a season.

Members of the Butler men’s and women’s tennis teams can attest to that right now.

Both squads have suffered from extended losing streaks prior to conference play this season.

The men’s team dropped its first 10 matches this season before coming out on top against Bradley on Feb. 24.

The women started their spring season with a 2-3 mark before becoming mired in their current seven-game losing streak.

As a result of these struggles, the men sit at 1-13 while the women hold a record of 2-10.

For the men, the 10-match drought was two matches longer than the squad’s lengthiest skid over the past six seasons.

“We’ve played a good number of ranked teams, and the level of tennis is pretty high,” freshman Pulok Bhattacharya said. “We did manage to learn from [the losses]. Everything isn’t coming together right now.”

The men have played six teams that were ranked in the nation’s top 100 at some point this season, including a season-opening match against current No. 2 Ohio State.

The Bulldogs took on five of those ranked teams on the road as well, with the team’s Feb. 5 match against Harvard being the exception.

While the women’s team has taken on only one ranked team— Memphis on Feb. 12—the Bulldogs have faced off against squads from 10 different conferences.

“We had a really tough schedule at the beginning of the season with IU and DePaul,” sophomore Caroline Hedrick said. “We’re having a hard time getting a rhythm down.”

Non-conference play has proven to be far more difficult than Horizon League action for both teams.

Last season, the men captured three of their six regular-season victories in conference play, while the women scored six of their 14 wins in league play.

“I think we’re still a top contender to win the conference,” freshman Tommy Marx said. “We just have to put it together.”

Both Marx and Bhattacharya expressed the importance of seniors Zach Ervin and Stephen McLoughlin, who are the elder statesmen on a team with six freshmen.

“The seniors know how to change the mood at practice,” Bhattacharya said. “Mainly it’s them motivating and always being behind us.”

Players from both teams said injuries have played a big role in the slow starts.

Hedrick, the regular No. 1 singles player on the women’s team, has been sidelined with an injured foot. She says she hopes to be practicing again during spring break.

For the men, Bhattacharya and McLoughlin have missed time with injuries.

Still, players said there have been missed opportunities.

“[The match against] Grand Valley State could’ve been a win, and Ball State was close,” sophomore Gabrielle Rubenstein said. “It’s all about competing under pressure.”

Marx said that the men’s team “definitely would’ve won at Dayton with a full lineup.”

Players on both sides said that coach Jason Suscha has been instrumental during the tough times.

“One of the biggest things he says is trying versus competing,” senior Kahfii King said. “It’s a very interesting concept: not trying to do what you think you can do but doing what you know you can do.”

Sophomore Brad DiCarlo said the men’s team has also been having two practices every day “to get more work in.”

Horizon League play begins for both teams on March 24.

Both teams will open on the road against Valparaiso and Illinois-Chicago on March 24 and 25, respectively.

Hedrick said the match against UIC is big because “we haven’t beaten them in a long time.”

For the men, Marx said, “Cleveland State and Green Bay will be the two toughest teams in the league.”

Players from both teams said that despite the tough start, they feel they have a good chance.

“We’re always thinking we want to win conference,” Rubenstein said.

“The main goal is to try and win conference and make the NCAA tournament,” Bhattacharya said.

Butler is no different from any type of organization when it comes to hiring new employees.

The only difference is when the school has to hire new coaches.

The school has many spots to fill, ranging from president to adjunct faculty to janitorial staff. Also included are the coaching positions on Butler’s 19 athletic teams.

“A sport without a leader is not very good,” Athletic Director Barry Collier said. “This results in the search for a head coach being completed at a more rapid pace than other hirings at Butler.”

The process for hiring a coach begins with the vacancy itself.

Interested applicants submit their name to the school. The school will then do extensive background checks on each candidate  and  review their credentials to verify the candidates are capable of properly mentoring and teaching a group of collegiate athletes.

After that stage, the process really picks up.

Photo by Maria Porter

For higher profile sports such as basketball and football, a school will typically have a few preferences for possible hires before the vacancy becomes official.

“For some of the smaller sports like [tennis], athletic directors don’t know who they want until the interview pool comes in,” tennis coach Jason Suscha said.

Once the candidate pool swells to an acceptable level, the school begins the interview process, both over the phone and in person.

For second-year softball coach Scott Hall, this step could not arrive soon enough.

Photo by Steven Peek

“I was excited to get into the interview process,” Hall said. “It couldn’t get over fast enough for me.”

Along with interviews, there are multiple ways a school will attempt to lure coaches to its programs.

Collier said that academics, facilities, other staff members, the current team members, available scholarships and operating budget all come into play during the hiring process.

“None of these factors is more important than the others,” Collier said.

With these variables in mind, the athletics department then attempts to find the best candidate to fill the position—for both the student-athletes and the sport.

“There were certain standards, like the Butler Way, that they made sure I understood and was capable of upholding,” Hall said.

The task of finding a new coach is not a one-person job, however.

Collier said there is always a committee, usually ranging from three to six people, that is actively involved at some step in the hiring process.

In addition to the athletic director, a member from the human resources department participates, as do other coaches.

Even though Hall is just entering his second year coaching the Butler softball team, he participated on the committee to hire a new soccer coach last fall.

The final say in the hiring process always rests with the university president. Once the president approves the hire, a formal request will be sent to the candidate.

Photo courtesy of Butler Athletics

Butler’s 12 current head coaches have accepted that request, and there will certainly be more acceptances in the future.

“Butler either sends a formal request or [the request] is sent to the NCAA website, which happens  through Butler’s Human Resources Department,” Suscha said.

The Butler women’s tennis team was busy over the weekend, defeating Dayton on the road Saturday after falling to Eastern Kentucky at home the day before.

The Bulldogs (1-3) picked up their first victory of the season with a 6-1 win over the Flyers (0-4).

Five of Butler’s six singles competitors won their respective matches in straight sets. Leading the way was sophomore Caroline Hedrick, who defeated Dayton sophomore Claire McNulty 6-1, 6-0 in No. 1 singles action.

The Bulldogs also received victories from sophomore Stephanie McLoughlin (No. 2), senior Cam Thompson (No. 4), sophomore Laura Shull (No. 5) and sophomore Angelina Qin (No. 6) in singles play.

Photo by Rachel Anderson

Butler was also victorious in No. 1 and No. 2 doubles.

The squad’s match on Friday against Eastern Kentucky saw a different result, as the Bulldogs dropped a 7-0 decision to the Colonels (3-0).

The only Bulldog not to lose in straight sets was Thompson, who lost 6-4, 5-7 (1-0).

“[Thompson] has that ability when she is determined,” coach Jason Suscha said. “It was a really fun match to watch.”

Qin and senior Ashley Breitenbach were the only Bulldogs to pick up a win on the day, taking their No. 3 doubles match 8-6. It was the first time the two were paired together this season.

Against both Eastern Kentucky and Dayton, junior Brittany Farmer was forced out of action due to illness.

“That cost us a bit with Eastern Kentucky,” Suscha said. “They are a quality team with nice athletes.”

Butler will be back in action Saturday when the team travels to the University of Indianapolis at 5 p.m.

The men’s tennis team opened its 2012 spring season facing what could be some of the toughest competition it will see this year.

The result was not what the Bulldogs hoped for, as they dropped a 7-0 decision to No. 3 Ohio State last Wednesday.

“As a team, going up against someone like Ohio State, we didn’t go in with the attitude of having to win,” senior Zach Ervin said. “We had the mindset of playing hard, and we will use it as a measuring stick for the rest of the season.”

Despite the loss, the team took away positives from the match that could help them throughout the rest of the season.

Each singles player won at least two games in their respective matches, while every Butler doubles pair won at least one game.

“We competed way beyond expectation,” freshman Pulok Bhattacharya said. “I have a pretty good feeling about this year.”

The Bulldogs were also able to identify some aspects of their play that need improvement.

“[The match] helped me know what specific shots I need to work on,” freshman Austin Woldmoe said. “It also showed us the type of level we need to be at, and everyone needs to up their level.”

According to coach Jason Suscha, one of the glaring aspects of Butler’s play that the team needs to work on is holding its serves and improving its serve percentage.

“We didn’t compete as well as we should have,” Suscha said. “Not that it would have changed the score, but we didn’t give ourselves a chance.”

The road does not get much easier for the Bulldogs, as they face top competition throughout their spring season, including No. 29 Indiana, Purdue, Harvard, Wisconsin and Drake.

“These [matches] actually pump me up a bit, saying I’ve been given such a big challenge, why not take it?” Bhattacharya said. “We are not scared of playing any of them. We expect to win.”

Butler will also have to deal with Horizon League powers Green Bay and reigning league champion Cleveland State.

“It’s definitely a tough schedule, and we’re on the road for 17 or 18 [matches],” Ervin said.

The road-heavy schedule will challenge a young Bulldog team that has six freshmen and only two seniors on its roster.

That does not mean, however, that the team lacks big goals for the season.

“We expect to compete and win the Horizon League in both the season and in the tournament,” Ervin said. “Our ultimate goal is to reach the NCAA tournament, and I think all of our individual and team goals revolve around that.”

Suscha said he agrees that even though the Bulldogs are a young team, they have the talent to win a conference championship.

The Bulldogs will begin a four-match road trip with contests against Northern Illinois on Thursday and Wisconsin on Friday.

Instead of suffering its eighth consecutive loss, the Butler men’s tennis team snapped a seven-game losing streak Saturday with a 5-2 win against Dayton.

The Flyers (1-9), who are facing similar troubles this season, failed to capture a win in any of the three doubles matches. The Bulldogs (2-8) swept in doubles to start the competition with a 1-0 lead.

Butler head coach Jason Suscha said he saw something different in his team at the start of the Dayton match.

“It was important that we played aggressively early on,” he said. “It helps tremendously to win in doubles, and I feel that the sweep set the tone for the rest of the game.”

The Bulldogs continued to establish their dominance on the singles side of play, winning at the No. 1, 3, 4 and 5 spots.

Freshman Brad DiCarlo said the team’s balance of play put them in contention for the win.

“It was clear that while everybody was individually focused, we we’re still working together to get the points we needed for the win,” he said. “That’s something we’re going to have to continue if we want this season to be a success.”

Junior Zach Ervin was optimistic when speaking about the match and the team’s future.

“I think this is the first time we’ve gone out and concentrated on ourselves and staying focused on our game plan consistently throughout the entire match,” he said. “As long as we can forget about what our opponent is doing and remember what we’re supposed to do, we’ll be fine.”

The Bulldogs will not play during Spring Break, but their schedule resumes when they travel to Macon, Georgia to take on the Mercer Bears (4-6) March 16.

The Butler women’s tennis team will enter its Saturday match on a five-match winning streak after capturing four wins in five days.

Two of those wins were against schools the Bulldogs (5-3) had never defeated before.

Xavier (4-6) was one of those foes, and the Musketeers fell 5-2 on Feb. 23.

“This match definitely means a lot,” senior Gabriela Bobrowski said. “After our start to the season, we can definitely tell that things are starting to come together.”

Two days later, the team found itself facing another opponent Butler had never beaten, the Redbirds of Illinois State (2-4).

Things were difficult in the beginning for the Bulldogs when Bobrowski and sophomore Brittany Farmer lost their matches’ first sets.

However, neither was willing to give up. Each battled back to win their matches and help guide the Bulldogs to a 5-2 win.

“I recognized at the beginning of the year that things were just not clicking,” head coach Jason Suscha said. “We’d come close in every one of our matches, but we just couldn’t get everything to work at the same time.

“With a couple wins under our belt, I can definitely see all of the gears starting to turn at once.”

The Bulldogs headed home with  momentum and played Suscha’s alma mater, the Evansville Purple Aces (6-3), the next day.

The match started with a tightly-contested set of doubles duels.

Butler’s freshmen duo of Gabrielle Rubenstein and Stephanie McLoughlin dropped a close match at No. 1 doubles.

But, the Bulldogs clinched the doubles point thanks to a No. 2 doubles win by Bobrowski and Farmer and a No. 3 doubles win by senior Natali Jaimes and freshman Caroline Hedrick.

Hedrick came back after her doubles win to provide the Bulldogs with yet another key performance.

After dropping her first set, 6-0, she rolled past Evansville junior Dora Kotsiou, 6-2, 6-0, in the final two sets of the No. 2 singles match.

Her win provided Butler with its third consecutive 5-2 victory.

Bobrowski said fatigue could strike them at any moment, due to playing so many matches on consecutive days.

“[Suscha] was saying that even if we didn’t feel it, we would eventually get fatigued,” she said. “We definitely couldn’t afford to make mistakes and do any more work than we needed.

“I think that helped us against Evansville, and even more so against Dayton.”

Butler completed a 4-0 week with a 6-1 victory against Dayton (2-5) on Sunday afternoon.

The Bulldogs, as they had done throughout the week, started by winning the doubles point.

Butler then won five of six singles matches, with four of the victories coming in straight sets to seal the undefeated weekend.

Butler’s three freshmen—Hedrick at No. 2 singles, McLoughlin at No. 3 and Rubenstein at No. 5—each posted convincing wins. Bobrowski also won easily at No. 4 singles, and Farmer won in three sets at the No. 6 spot.

The Bulldogs’ schedule continues versus DePaul Saturday and Ball State Sunday.

“After this past week, I feel like the team is prepared to face those top caliber teams on our schedule,” Suscha said.

“Whether it be DePaul, Ball State or Georgia, I believe we’ll be ready for them with a greater sense of confidence.”