50 years!
Manitowoc Lincoln High School tennis coach Bob Feller, 73, is retiring this month, ending a career that included 11 sectional championships and roughly 20 conference championships.
“He is Manitowoc,” Bob Hagenow, who played for Feller and spent eight years as his assistant coach, told
Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter reporter Tom Dombeck. “He is the standard and a legend. He’s known statewide as one of the greatest coaches ever.”
Last weekend at UW-Madison's Nielsen Stadium, Lincoln's 3rd-seeded doubles team of Ayden Knuth and Cohen Newberg made it to the 4th round of the WIAA State Division 1 Tennis Tournament. The duo were just the latest state qualifiers under Feller's tutelage.
Feller was named “Coach of the Year” by the Wisconsin High School Tennis Coaches Association in 1994, 1996 and 1998 and was nominated for “National Coach of Year” in 2006. In 2007 he was inducted into the WI Lakeshore All Sports Hall of Fame and in 2015, into the WI High School Tennis Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
In 1974 Feller was hired to teach Psychology at Lincoln and was quickly recruited to coach boys tennis. From 1983 to '87 he also coached the girls tennis team.
In 1982 Feller created a youth tennis program at the YMCA with longtime Roncalli boys coach Bob Nelson. The duo ran the Nelson-Feller Tennis Camp at Lakeland College for 23 years.
Feller taught English at Lincoln for 35 years, retiring in 2009.
THANK YOU, Coach Feller, for all you have done to elevate Lincoln sports and to teach countless students much more than the game.
