Tennis is PHS coach’s third sport
By: Justin Feil
Paul Lynch likes to stay busy so returning to coach a spring sport at Princeton High seemed a natural move to fill up his schedule with a third season.
"It is a lot of work," Lynch said. "It’s very time-consuming. I feel like Greg Hand, out there doing all three seasons. I did it in the past, when I first got to Princeton."
Lynch is the new PHS boys’ tennis coach, taking over for Stuart Woody, who led the Little Tigers to the Central Jersey Group III championship in his one season at the helm last spring. Lynch helped Sarah Heyman as assistant to the PHS girls’ team last fall and has been an assistant to the Montgomery High boys’ basketball team for three winter seasons.
"I enjoy doing tennis," Lynch said. "I enjoy coaching and doing the three seasons. I’m doing basketball over at Montgomery. I still love the coaching. That’s why I got back into it, especially because Sarah was willing to be an assistant. I’m looking at it one year at a time and hoping to do best I can."
Lynch and Heyman have flip-flopped roles from the fall team. Heyman will work with the junior varsity players and offer advice and invaluable support for the boys’ varsity, just what Lynch did in the fall for the girls’ team.
"I’ve been the assistant with the girls off and on," Lynch said. "I was with Sarah with the girls’ team this fall. I was with Bill Humes a year. I was with David Black a year. It’s nice because you have the other to lean on. It takes some pressure off the head coach."
Lynch takes over a program known for its excellence. It won’t be an easy start. After winning their season opener, PHS was scheduled to play defending CJ IV champion West Windsor-Plainsboro South on Monday and faces another state perennial power, Moorestown, today.
A seventh-grade social studies teacher at Princeton’s John Witherspoon Middle School for the last seven years, Lynch is familiar with many of his players first as students. And he’s getting to know about their tennis skills.
"Probably about half of the kids, I taught and knew before," said Lynch, a Rutgers University graduate. "That to me is the nice surprise. I knew a lot of the kids; I just wasn’t aware of how good they were at tennis. They’re all good students and nice kids, and surprisingly good tennis players. The easiest part for me, the kids that I know, know what to expect from me as far as rules and things I’m looking to have them do."
Lynch is looking to manage a PHS team that lost several key seniors from last year’s sectional championship team. Gone is Ilia Shatashvili, the three-time Princeton Packet Player of the Year, from the top of the lineup as well as parts of the doubles tandems. PHS does return Chris Hoeland, a three-time Mercer County champion and this year’s team captain.
"I knew Chris Hoeland from when he was in seventh grade," Lynch said. "It’s been great. I’m not just saying it to be nice. He works very hard at being a good tennis player. He’s also a good person. He’s matured a lot over the years. He’s accepting that leadership responsibility that you need in a captain. He’s working with the younger guys, making suggestions to me and giving me idea that I can then use or not use.
"He’s a very good go-between me and the rest of the team. He’s a very good guy. He’s able to not take things too seriously and let it get to him, like the pressure of being No. 1 and being one of the top players in the area."
Lynch is working on the management of the rest of the Little Tiger lineup, including the always critical doubles pairings that are still a work in progress. Though Lynch never played tennis competitively, he understands the challenges to coaching the sport.
"The way our schedule is, we’re playing four days a week," Lynch said. "So you get maybe one day of practice a week. Once the season starts, most of the coaching is helping the kids with the mental aspect of the game. The mental aspect is so important. And it is figuring out the right doubles team.
"Coaching other sports, you can apply the same philosophy of set some guidelines, set some rules and make sure they understand them," he added. "I’m easy to get along with as long as they can follow a few easy rules. I’m the coach, they’re the players. It’s going to be a lot of fun because we’re going to win a lot of matches. We just need to work together to achieve it."
The start won’t be easy with the likes of WW-P South and Moorestown, but the Little Tigers are hoping to again contend for a sectional crown by the end of the season. More than anything, they’ll be looking to establish some consistency throughout the spring.
"The South and Moorestown matches are going to be huge," Lynch said. "That’s two enormous Top-20 matches right off the bat. Hopefully then we’ll have the lineup set. I think we need some consistency in the lineup. That was an issue last year that the kids talked about. There were constant change in lineups and spots."
Lynch is another change to the PHS boys’ tennis team. The third coach in three years hopes to bring some consistency to the Little Tigers, as well as taking another shot at a championship, in his first season with the boys’ team. It certainly should keep Paul Lynch busy.

