Metamora’s Willard wins 2026 Clutch Sports Media Boys Tennis Coach of the Year

Kelly Willard is nearing three decades of coaching tennis at Metamora and this past season was one of the most special of them all. 

Wildcard helped grow and lead a Redbirds team that set a program record with 27 wins, had multiple all-state and all conference players and won the Mid-Illini Conference regular season title and several tournaments during the year. But most of all, he fostered a fun environment where many members saw success as a byproduct of close bonds with each other and a love for the sport. 

Willard is Clutch Sports Media’s 2026 Boys Tennis Coach of the Year, rounding out CSM’s All-Area tennis awards including its All-Area Team and Player of the Year Tommy Sopko from Metamora. 

The Redbirds went 27-2 during the season and went undefeated in the regular season against Mid-Illini Conference foes. Metamora finished second in the conference tournament, but won several other tournaments during the year including the Tom Pitchford Invite, Ottawa Invite and Bloomington Purple and Gold Invite. 

Willard’s team featured plenty of individual success too, led by Sopko and Weston Lange, who were Class 1A state semifinalists and won over 150 matches in their career. Dane Hutchison, Hunter Poole and Matthew Poole were all-conference honorees and all qualified for state with each of them winning at least two matches. John Jones also earned CSM All-Area Honorable Mention honors as well. 

Hear more about Willard’s season and career in our interview with him below. Some answers have been minimally edited for clarity.

What have you been able to reflect on in the days since the season has ended? 

“As you know with most sports, we don't take a whole lot of time to look backwards because it's always about ‘How about next year?’” Willard said. “But to be honest, this team that we just finished with, one of the most gratifying parts of it is every kid on our team could be each other's brother. I mean, we are so tight and so family and so friendly. Almost every one of them got a late start in tennis, it's not the kind of area where we have 100 kids in second grade involved in an indoor program, or something like that. Once they got involved at a relatively late age, their appetites are insatiable and the friendships just grow and grow and grow. I absolutely loved being around these guys all the time. We had six nights in hotels this season. For the winter, when kids would go to River City, I'd go sit and watch for two and a half hours because I couldn't participate. I've loved all my teams, but this one was a little extra special.”

In your mind, what made the team so successful this year?

“The two things that make this team a little bit even better than some of the teams we've had are incredible athleticism and incredible hating to lose,” Willard said. “Everybody says they don't like to lose and everybody says ‘Winning sure is fun’ but there's a difference between not settling for mediocrity and just going out and saying ‘I'm not going to get beat unless you're 10 times better than I am.’ On this team, we sort of had that and if we got into a late third set or a third set breaker or something like that, I just had so much confidence in this group to pull out close matches and we did it time and time and time again. That's a huge thing and that's a hard thing to teach, that's just something you kind of have, or you kind of don't.”

“The athleticism, you know, you go through stretches where you've got some kids that have some good racket skills, but they're not as good with their feet or they can't jump very high,” Willard said. “[But] if this group got on the track and did a little track and field competition in the conference, they would do okay. We don't have a bunch of six-[foot]-five guys, we got a bunch of little guys but dang it, they are athletes. When you got athletes that love to compete and hate to lose, it was just a blast.”

What’s your coaching background? 

“This is my 29th spring with the boys at Metamora High School and that sounds like a long time, but it just has gone really, really fast,” Willard said. “My first degree is in accounting and I was a CPA and worked at Pricewater House for five years and just knew pretty early that that wasn't my life's fulfilling calling type of thing. I loved high schools and I certainly loved tennis, and so I decided to go back to school and get a math degree…and my goal was to get a math teaching job and a tennis coaching job at Metamora High School which is pretty narrow, but, man, it worked out and it's just been a blast ever since.”

“1998 was my first spring with the guys and I’ve also coached, over the years, girls for 11 different seasons, but it's mostly been a boys coaching thing,” Willard said. “I think about our program 365 days a year and probably more than my wife would like me to admit, but once you get things going, you just want to keep it going, because you realize how much fun it is to last and last.”

Aside from winning, what’s a fun memory with your team that you’ve had from this past season? 

“The things on the bus are of course great, but man, I tell you what, when we're on road trips [or] hotel stays and playing games each day in people's rooms and doing silly things, there's just inside jokes and things that might go on that are going to stick with you forever,” Willard said. “When we got to our banquet, some of the banquet is about serious stuff and some of it's about awards and all that. But I tell you what, a lot of it's about inside jokes and the parents just kind of sit there and chuckle and they don't know what I'm talking about. [The players] are going to remember winning a lot and being great, but they're going to remember how much stinking fun they had on this team.”

“I got lucky a long time ago because I was a dumb young coach and I decided my very first year that the most important thing with our program was going to be these guys are going to have fun,” Willard said. “So our drills are fun, our practices are fun, our road trips are fun and it just kind of worked out that when everything's a good time, they like to do it and they want to do it more. Then you get really good at the sport, also and it's a snowball thing, right? I know some sports, you got to be a little tougher and got to do a little more conditioning and this and that, but we have practice tonight, 7:30 to 9:30 and every one of them is itching to get there. I told the kids that graduated, ‘You can't come tonight, this is only for current high school players tonight’ and they were like ‘Oh, come on, what?’ It's all about making it fun and a great time.”

What’s a piece of coaching advice you’d give or one that’s been helpful for you?

“The biggest thing we already just talked about, which is make your program fun, that's number one, but [we have] little things that we do over the years that I just think build the camaraderie in the family,” Willard said. “Once a week, we have a team meal at somebody's house with all 12 guys and get over there and play around and have some fun. The state tournament, this is something that we've done for 29 years in a row, is get there Wednesday and  come home. Saturday. A lot of schools get there Wednesday and come home Thursday. We've never, ever, ever left before Saturday afternoon, because, A. it's camaraderie, but B. it's about seeing the best and seeing what you're striving for. We take guys to Illinois matches during the winter and

just anything to keep them together, interested, engaged and excited. I think you have to understand that the skill of the sport will come if you make the sport fun in the first place.”