When Macalester’s men’s and women’s tennis teams face Gustavus Adolphus College this season, Interim Head Coach Chase Johnson will be itching for a win.
For much of his tennis career, Johnson would have said the opposite. He earned All-American honors as a standout on Gustavus’ nationally ranked team as a student, with an overall record of 78-26 in singles and 86-23 in doubles. He went on to help coach the team after he graduated and earned Intercollegiate Tennis Association Central Region Assistant Coach of the Year in 2022. Still, he isn’t worried about split loyalties.
“I will be wanting to beat them,” Johnson said. “That might be the team I want to beat the most. … I already put all my Gustavus stuff aside, throwing a couple [things] away. … I’m proud to be repping Macalester.”
Johnson steps into this role after the former head coach, Ted Lauer, resigned abruptly in December, a move that shocked the team.
“We got the email at the end of finals week, and I was like, ‘whoa’,” Megan Twomey ’25 said. “[The team was] freaking out … like, what’s gonna happen? We have our first match in the first week of the semester — we’re not gonna be ready. What if we don’t have a coach in time? So it was very shocking and like ‘oh no,’ but it all worked out.”
Permanent head coach hiring processes take time. The team needed an interim coach for the upcoming season, one who was able to step right into a busy three-anda-half months of playing. Fortunately, Johnson fit the role.
“He had a vision for what he could do for our students,” Athletics Director Donnie Brooks explained, “and believed that Macalester students could and should have a very successful tennis experience.”
Despite his current position as interim coach, Johnson has large ambitions for recruitment in the off-season. Johnson argued that Macalester can pull higher ranked recruits from around the nation. He believes that many young tennis players are drawn to an academically rigorous institution.
“Four, even five star recruits in tennis go to Division III programs,” he said, “which seems kind of crazy to me, if you compare that to other sports.”
He emphasizes persistence and ambition in recruiting.
“I’m almost curious to see what responses I can get back,” Johnson said, “and how the school can help me recruiting wise, you know, how high can we go? How good of athletes can I hear back from, and then from there, it’s up to me to get them, eventually, to come here.”
Though hired as an interim coach, he sees a longer term with Macalester.
“I definitely have [becoming the permanent head coach] in mind,” Johnson said. “I think I knew this was going to be a super busy kind of three and a half months of season. I don’t think I would have jumped into that with there being zero percent chance I would come back. I think the idea is always to see how it goes for me, and for the school and the athletic department, and with both of us hoping that things work out.”
His coaching philosophy has three main pillars: a positive mental attitude, giving full effort and practicing good sportsmanship. He measures player success by how players handle things in their control; he doesn’t want them to focus only on whether they won or lost.
“If winning was in my control,” Johnson said. “I would have won every single match I played.”
His mentality seems effective.
“I ran into a student the other day,” Brooks said. “I asked him, ‘First practice, how’d it go?’ And he said ‘Donnie, I think that may have been my best practice in four years.’ So, it says a lot about Chase.”
Saturday, Feb. 1 marked game one for the 2025 season, where the men’s team came away from a bout with the University of Wisconsin Superior with a 4-3 victory.
While the women’s team lost their first match under Johnson, his attitude hasn’t changed.
“He knows that success is not just winning, you want to have a positive attitude, keep playing, not giving up, staying strong throughout the match,” Twomey said. “And he said [he] really appreciates how we played and how we support each other as a team. I feel like having that mindset is really good.”
