Alison Ferguson takes charge of the VHS girls’ tennis team.

Alison Ferguson, the new Ventura High School tennis coach grew up in Costa Mesa, California. She learned to play tennis as a young child. She played in “Jr. World”, Jr. World is the premier level for worldwide competition among under-eighteen,  junior tennis players.

“But then volleyball took me. Took my heart.” Ferguson played volleyball in high school and college, she also played competitive beach volleyball. Ferguson went to the University of Colorado. Before teaching  at VHS she worked at Patagonia for over 20 years.

In Alyson Mandle’s transition out of VHS, she mentioned that Alison Ferguson might be interested in coaching the girl’s tennis team. Now Ferguson is coaching the girls’ tennis team.

Ferguson said, “Another thing that interested me was that I started a podcast called “Empowering Women Through Sports.’” 

Ferguson gave a quick summary of her broadcast, “It’s about interviewing women athletes and learning from them the benefits they have gotten out of sports and how good sports is where you in life and how you know derive the inspiration in a sport and it carries through into confidence and believing in yourself to overcome challenges and it’s really about life and I thought what better way to share what I’ve learned from all these great athletes with upcoming athletes and tennis players and the people on the team.” 

Ferguson has never taught tennis before. She said that she has gone to “oodles” of tennis clinics, where she worked with coaches, she worked on technique and drills “I work with some private kind of my mentors, my Yoda so to speak. I really love trying to improve my game by working with them.”

Alyson Mandle was the coach before Alison Ferguson and according to Ferguson, Mandle has been super helpful to get this season going.

Ferguson says, “Her [Mandle’s] heart and soul is really in tennis too, so she cares about the kids on the team.”

Ferguson started coaching the girl’s tennis team just before school started. She says that she is very new at this, but already she loves it. She thinks that the team is “awesome.” “I can see it in their eyes and how they are out there, really trying to improve, and as a team. A lot of people think tennis is an individual sport but they are a team and work together as a team.”

Emily Falls, a freshman on the girls’ tennis team said she wanted to join the team because she was just looking for some exercise, she also wanted to be a part of a team. Falls has been playing tennis for just a little over a year, and she feels pretty positive for the team, “I think they are all really great, I’m kinda hoping that I get closer to them so it’s kind of a bummer I only get to be there for one season.” She says that Ferguson is a

good coach and is super helpful. “I think she is a really great coach, she actually has a podcast that she sent all of us, it’s really cool to listen to.”  Ferguson sent her podcast “Empowering Women Through Sports” to all the girls on the tennis team to try to inspire all of them.

When asked what her favorite part of playing tennis is, she said “I don’t know, I think once again, I just like seeing everybody, but it’s really fun because I keep learning new stuff everyday. Ali does really help. She taught me something that just totally changed perspective on forehands in general, so that was really helpful.”

Falls seems to be feeling good about this season “I have played in a couple of scrimmages and those have been really great so far, the other teams have incredible sportsmanship.”

Falls says she thinks the season will go well.  “I know we aren’t the very best team but we are not bad either, so I have a lot of faith in my teammates that they’ll do well.”

Ferguson’s podcast “Empowering Women Through Sports” is available on Spotify.