Huntington Alum Named
Hofstra Head Coach
For those who know him well it’s not surprising at all that Phil Wayne has been named head coach of the Hofstra University men’s tennis team. It’s been obvious the Huntington High School Class of 2002 member has what it takes to be successful at whatever he chooses to pursue.
“It’s a really exciting opportunity, especially for someone as young as me to lead a Division I team,” Mr. Wayne said. “It’s going to be a challenge, but I look forward to it. We struggled last year, but I’ll be using my experiences playing at Delaware and previous coaching experiences to put together practices and match strategies that I think can really improve our team.”
Mr. Wayne worked as a part-time social studies teacher at Huntington High School during the 2008/09 school year and coached the boys’ tennis team at J. Taylor Finley Middle School. Last year he was the assistant coach of Hofstra’s men’s and women’s tennis teams and assumed additional responsibilities in the office of student athlete services.
“Phil is an excellent role model and knows the game of tennis inside-out,” Huntington Superintendent John J. Finello said. “All of us in the district are happy for Phil and proud of him. He was one of the best Blue Devil players ever. Hofstra is very fortunate to have him working with its student-athletes.”
Hofstra turned to Mr. Wayne to take over the men’s tennis team after Director of Athletics Jack Hayes decided to split the head coaching position between the women’s and men’s squads. Amanda Foukas, who had been serving as the combined head coach will remain at the helm of the women’s team. Mr. Wayne, who was Ms. Foukas’ assistant last year, was asked to lead the men’s team, effective immediately.
“Amanda and Philip have done an excellent job working with our tennis teams,” Mr. Hayes said. “We felt that our student-athletes would be better served if they each guide one team as head coach.”
“We compete in a really difficult conference but I’d like to bring in some top players from around the country to try and improve the Hofstra team into the future,” Mr. Wayne said. “We also return some really strong players from all over the world including Brazil and Australia. This season I hope to raise the level of our play throughout the Northeast as we take on some of the best collegiate tennis players in the country.”
Mr. Wayne was an exceptional tennis player at Huntington High School and helped the Blue Devils win the 2002 Suffolk County championship. He also played on the basketball and volleyball teams and earned stellar grades. He went on to play four years of varsity tennis at the University of Delaware where he is fourth on the all-time doubles victories list with 43. He won 22 singles matches during his collegiate career, including a 9-1 mark in 2004/05.
The Huntington grad’s tennis coaching career includes a stint as assistant coach at Northeast High School in, Maryland. He obtained a bachelor’s degree at the University of Delaware and a master’s degree at Loyola College.
Mr. Wayne was a golden-boy at Huntington. He enjoyable a remarkable run on the Finley boys’ tennis team as a player and was later All-County on the varsity level. Teachers held him in high esteem and he had a close-knit core of friends.
He’ll be hitting the ground running at Hofstra, with an excellent grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of each player and a good idea of where he wants to take the program. “Some other things I plan on doing are keeping my players focused both on and off the courts,” Mr. Wayne said. “It’s important to me that they maintain high grades while practicing two-three hours a day, six days a week.”
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