WALLA WALLA, Wash. – Hannah Swee, an all-conference tennis player at Whitman College and an assistant coach since her graduation in May 2005, will serve as interim head coach of the Missionary women’s tennis team for the 2007-08 academic year.
|
|
|
|
Swee will replace Heidi Tate, who has held the coaching position for the past seven years. Tate is resigning at the end of this season to enroll in a physician assistant training program at the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif.
Swee, who came to Whitman from Rochester, Minn., was named to the All-Northwest Conference (NWC) First Team as both a junior and senior, after earning second-team honors as a sophomore. She also was named NWC Sportswoman of the Year at the end of her senior season.
Swee played No. 1 doubles and No. 2 singles for most of her final three seasons. She twice earned NWC Player of the Weeks honors, once as a junior and once as senior.
"I am very pleased to have Hannah lead our women’s tennis program in an interim role," Whitman athletic director Dean Snider said. "Hannah is a very promising young professional. As an assistant coach, she has been a strong role model for our current players, and she was actively involved in recruiting our next incoming class."
Whitman will conduct a national search during the next academic year before filling the coaching position on a permanent basis. Swee said she plans to apply for the permanent appointment.
"I would not have taken the interim position if I wasn’t serious about coaching and continuing at Whitman," Swee said. "I want to continue building on the strong foundation that Heidi has created here. By the end of the next academic year, I hope to have my master’s degree completed, and I will have a year of head coaching experience under my belt. That will make me a stronger candidate for the coaching position."
Tate, a two-time Northwest Conference Coach of the Year in women’s tennis, gives Swee a strong endorsement.
"Hannah is obviously a very good fit for Whitman, and I think she is going to be an incredible coach," Tate said. "She enjoyed an excellent career as a player at Whitman. She won numerous awards and was ranked as high as 11th in region with one of her doubles partners. She has the maturity, dedication, work ethic, compassion and creativity to make an excellent coach."
Swee said she plans to emulate some of the primary coaching lessons she learned from Tate. "A team can be like a family, and while winning is definitely important and makes the experience more positive, it’s important to keep perspective," Swee said. "Also, coaching with honesty and integrity are essential."
Swee, a graduate of Mayo High School in Rochester, Minn., majored in environmental studies and sociology at Whitman. She broke a bit of family tradition in attending Whitman, in that both her father Ronald, a physician (radiologist) at the Mayo Clinic, and her mother Marge, who tutors children with dyslexia, are graduates of Minnesota’s Carleton College. Her father was a varsity athlete (baseball) at Carleton, a liberal arts and sciences college similar in nature to Whitman. Her older sister Becky played tennis for two seasons at Carleton before transferring to Georgetown University.
"I always had this vision of going west for college, and Whitman was a great fit for me," Swee says. "Once I met Heidi, there was no turning back."
As a Whitman student, and as part of her academic interest in environmental studies, Swee was an active participant in the campus Outdoor Program. She led a number of outdoor trips as a junior and senior, and she served as a program intern during the summer before her senior year.
In addition to her assistant coaching role at Whitman, Swee has worked the past two years for the Walla Walla County Waste Management Division, doing outreach and education on sustainability practices. Last fall she started work on a master’s degree in environment and community through a distance learning program offered by Seattle’s Antioch University.
Dave Holden, Whitman Sports Information,
(509) 527-5902; holden@whitman.edu