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A longtime tennis player with coaching experience, Mark Sholes looks forward to guiding the Rockbridge County High School girls tennis team this spring.
Sholes, who retired to Rockbridge County three years ago after working for the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, replaces Andrew Bellairs, who stepped down after coaching the RC girls for two years to take a job teaching eighth grade math in Greenville, S.C.
For the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Sholes, 64, was lead engineer and manager of a government contract for the treatment of specialized waste generated during maintenance and repair of naval nuclear ships. When he wasn’t working, he spent a lot of time playing tennis for the leagues affiliated with the Naval Shipyard. He also coached high school boys tennis for two years at Great Bridge High School in Chesapeake.
Sholes played tennis for Colonial Heights High School before getting his bachelor’s degree in engineering at Virginia Tech, graduating in 1981.
Of his lifelong love for the sport, Sholes said, “I have two daughters that I taught to play tennis, and I grew up enjoying tennis.” After Sholes taught his daughters to play tennis, one of them played for the high school team and found out the school needed a boys tennis coach, so he coached the boys’ team for two years.
While their daughters are about to graduate from college, Sholes and his wife, Amy, moved to Rockbridge County because “we liked the area. We like the mountains.” Amy is a teacher at Central Elementary School.
When Sholes found out that RC needed a coach for the girls’ team, he decided to apply for the position, and he was approved as the new head coach at the January Rockbridge County School Board meeting.
The season was scheduled to start yesterday with a home match against local rival Parry McCluer. The Wildcats’ next two matches will also be at home at the Lexington Country Club courts. They’ll face Staunton on Thursday before starting Valley District action against Broadway on Monday, with both matches scheduled for 4:30 p.m.
Under Bellairs last year, the Wildcats went 3-12 overall and 1-7 in the Valley District, following a 7-9 season in 2022, when they made a Region 3C tournament appearance.
From last year’s team, RC graduated their top two players, Sophia Fafatas and Sara Topasna, but they have 13 girls on the team this year, with nine returning players.
Sholes and the girls were figuring out the ladder for the top eight players last week. From last year’s team, the returning players from the top six who regularly played singles matches are senior Katherine Lotts, juniors Julia Newhall and Sydney Remington, and sophomore Corinna Allen.
Looking forward to the season, Sholes said his goals for the girls are “to help them improve their tennis skills and just encourage them to not give up and to enjoy the game and have fun at it.”
