Coach Neal has been coaching the Charlottesville High School boys’ tennis team for seven years. This year, as the official Director of the Tennis Team, he is overseeing both the girls and boys for the 2026 season.
Coach Neal began his tennis career when he was young. “It’s actually a fun story. I was into all the sports, you know, baseball, basketball, doing everything,” he said. “There were two boys, these kids from Spain, whose grandparents lived in my neighborhood, and they would spend the summers right down the street from us. They would always kick our butt [in tennis] every year. So we would work all year to try and be ready to beat them when they came back.”
After playing all through high school, Neal went on to play college level tennis at Mary Washington University. After graduating, he coached at his alma mater high school, and then worked as a tennis pro down in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Roanoke, Virginia.
“When I was in college playing, I always loved to coach. I always just had in the back of my mind, that like, I knew I was never going to be a professional tennis player. But I always loved helping people and seeing the results that you get.” Coach Neal said he enjoys coaching tennis because he is able to watch his players grow over the years. He says he’s been coaching the vast majority of CHS players since they were beginners. “Now they’re winning state titles and stuff. It’s cool,” he said.
In 2025, Coach Neal won the National Coach of the Year Award for his coaching of the boys tennis team. The team won two state championships back-to-back in 2024 and 2025: “When I won it, it was really, really cool. It shines a lot of attention on the program which is what I want,” Neal said. “Tennis can oftentimes be, like, a forgotten sport, you know? It’s not one of the main sports. So it sort of shined a light on the program. It’s drawing more kids out to play. I definitely prefer the sidelines than the spotlight, but it was a huge honor.”
Despite winning the State Championships the past two seasons, Coach Neal strives to instill a humble and resilient mindset in his players. “I always tell them, you can’t control the results, you know? You can only control what you can control, which is on your side of the net,” Neal said. “You can play your best match, or we as a collective can play our best match and lose. And that’s okay. If you play your best, that’s all we’re trying to get to is playing our best tennis, and the results are what the results are. That’s the goal.”
When asked what the most important quality in a coach is, Neal talked about the significance of communication between the coach and their players. “The most important thing is just having good communication skills. Whether that’s listening to the player, or being able to communicate to them clearly what they need to hear.”
“My goal is for them all to get 1% better every single day, and work into wherever that leads us,” Neal said about his goals for the upcoming season. “We could be amazing and still lose, but that’s not a bad thing. So we’re just trying to get better every day. To get the best out of ourselves.”
As the spring tennis season begins, Coach Neal says he is looking forward to rival matchups, such as Western Albemarle High School later in the season. The boys and girls tennis team appreciate Coach Neal for his kind demeanor and hardworking attitude, which is shown through the performance of his players and the CHS team’s strong record. Check gocville.org to see the upcoming tennis matches this spring.
