Bob Feller retiring after 50 years as Manitowoc Lincoln boys tennis coach

MANITOWOC — Bob Feller was on a temporary, one-year contract to teach psychology at Manitowoc Lincoln High School in 1974 when the Ships boys tennis coach made an unexpected delivery in his office.

Steve Contardi was leaving the state to take his love of tennis full-time and knew Feller was a likely candidate to take over as coach.

“Contardi dropped off a big box of tennis information and told me they’d likely ask me to do it since I was the only one who really knew tennis,” Feller said.

Feller would end up teaching at Lincoln for 36 years, 35 years in the English department, and is retiring as tennis coach at the end of this season after 50 years.

“It’s either dedication or stupidity, not sure which one,” Feller said of his long career as coach with a laugh. “Was a really long one-year contract.”

An inductee in the Wisconsin High Tennis Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Feller helped continue the storied tradition of Manitowoc Lincoln boys tennis.

Under his stewardship, the Ships were sectional champions 11 times and conference champions roughly 20 times.

Bob Hagenow, a 1997 Manitowoc Lincoln graduate, played for Feller and spent eight years as his assistant before taking over the West De Pere program eight years ago. He was very clear as to what the long-time coaches legacy is.

“He is Manitowoc,” Hagenow said. “He is the standard and a legend. He’s known statewide as one of the greatest coaches ever.”

Ryan Manis graduated seven years after Hagenow but was equally profuse of his former coach.

“He created winners,” Manis said. “Once he got the train going in one direction, it’s hard to get off.”

As unlikely as his coaching career began, his introduction to the sport was equally as random as a kid growing up in Antigo.

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Feller says his friend taught him the sport in the summer of eighth grade, even lending him a racket. Once Feller proved adapt at the sport, he lost a playing partner.

“I beat him regularly so he stopped asking me to play,” Feller said with a wry chuckle.

With friends on the tennis team, Feller saw them shoveling the tennis courts in the late winter and decided to pitch in but not before getting a warning from the Antigo coach.

“He told me ‘Feller, if you pick up that shovel you’re on the team,’” Feller said, never one to shy away from hard work. “I helped clear the court and the rest is history.”

Feller, both Hagenow and Manis say, never lost that blue collar work ethic.

“He’d tell us to get our red lunch box and Igloo cooler because we were going to work,” Hagenow said.

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Added Manis, who had two younger brothers also play for Feller:

“He always told us to get our lunch boxes ready and he put in the work with us,” Manis said. “Coach Feller studied the game, was a scholar of the sport and loved it. He was my best coach ever, in any sport.”

Not wanting too give anything less than his all, Feller understood after 50 years it was time to step down.

“At 73, it’s harder to be on the courts for several hours at a time,” Feller said. “I think 50 years is a good number and by body is telling me old man, it’s time.”

Feller’s legacy lies not in conference or sectional championships or hall of fame plaques, but the love of the sport and learning he instilled in the countless young men and women he taught in the classroom and on the tennis courts.

Hagenow has been in charge of his own program for nearly a decade now, and when he faced his mentor in a meet last month, he said he felt as if he was a teenager again.

“He taught me so much and how to handle different situations I thought he was going to come over and correct me on how I was coaching,” Hagenow laughed.

Even when Feller is no longer coaching, those lessons will live on for eternity being passed down to the next generations to come.

Contact Tom Dombeck at 920-686-2965 or tdombeck@htrnews.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @Tom_Dombeck.

This article originally appeared on Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Manitowoc Lincoln boys tennis coach Bob Feller retires after 50 years