By Peter Sowards

SENIOR REPORTER

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While nothing can be made official until the conclusion of the season, interim women’s tennis coach Dustin Hinson feels there is mutual interest in him coming back in a full-time position as the women’s head coach for next year and beyond.

“There’s nothing that can be official until the end of the season, but both sides seem to be happy with the job that’s been done,” Hinson said. “I’m certainly happy, and I’ve enjoyed it. I want to continue, and it’s been great working with [Director of Tennis] Darren [Haworth] as well. It’s been good, and I think it will carry on for next year.”

A father of six with a master’s degree in environmental science from the University of Idaho, Hinson has improved the win-loss record of the women’s tennis team — 4-15 in 2012 and 6-15 so far in 2013 — as well as pushed his players to focus more intently in their preparation. “There was a lot of improvement in work ethic,” Haworth said.

Replacing the departed Mykala Hedberg in January, Hinson made the best of a difficult situation. “Dustin [Hinson] did a great job this season helping to stabilize the program,” Haworth said. “The players all really liked him, and I believe he did a really good job this year under the circumstances. Taking over a team midway through the season is quite the task. He really stepped up to the plate.

Sophomore Moira Hedberg, who plays No. 1 singles and doubles, gave Hinson a vote of confidence. “He’s really good with us, and he knows how to talk to me,” Hedberg said. He helps me pull through the matches, and he keeps me fired up. I love him as a coach. He’s great.”

Once the women’s tennis team plays their final match of the 2013 season, the head coaching position officially becomes available and a hiring procedure will be implemented, according to EWU athletic director Bill Chaves. “At the conclusion of the season, we will recruit for the position, and certainly he could be a candidate for the position, no doubt about it,” Chaves said. “When we hired him on an interim basis in early January, the process would be: We’ll move through the season and then right when the season concludes, we’ll move through a recruitment process for the position full time”.

Chaves sees the improvement that has taken place under Hinson’s watch and believes it will factor heavily into whether or not Hinson is retained. “I think he’s done a real good job with the team, and I think they’ve responded well to him. I think if he so chooses to be a candidate, we’d be excited that he’d be in the candidate pool.”

Although he would prefer to find a full-time coach sooner rather than later, Chaves was hesitant to put any kind of timetable on the proceeding. “Every recruitment process kind of takes on a life of its own. I think we always want to get it done as soon as we can, but we have to make sure that you’re dotting all your ‘I’s’ and crossing all your ‘T’s’, and you’re doing all the things we need to do obviously from an HR standpoint and make sure we do all the things necessary that a recruitment process takes.”

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