Lisa Dausin takes over the St. Mary's tennis program after spending the past 31 years moving up the ranks in the Northside Independent School District.
Most recently, Dausin served for 12 years as the Assistant Athletics Director for Northside ISD before returning to teaching this past school year, when she taught at Warren High School in San Antonio and coached middle-school tennis.
The first female hired in the school district's athletics office, Dausin served as an extension of the athletics director, overseeing the hiring of coaches and doing legal work pertaining to athletics personnel, among other duties.
At St. Mary's, she will look to build upon the foundation laid last season, when the men went 5-14 and the women 5-16.
Before moving into the athletics office at Northside ISD, she worked at Marshall High School, coaching tennis and assisting other sports from 1980-1994. In 1995, she became the school's Girls Coordinator.
A St. Mary's graduate, Dausin has always had tennis in her blood. She played tennis, basketball and softball at St. Mary's. She graduated in 1979 with an education degree with a teacher's certification, and went on to get her master's degree in education at Southwest Texas State in 1983. She later completed her coursework for another master's degree in counseling at Texas-San Antonio in 1998.
Born in Del Rio, she spent much of her childhood in San Antonio, graduating from McCollum High School. Dausin is married to Bryan, a football coach at Warren High School. They have two sons, Ross and Rex.
Stephan Poole will step in to the role as St. Mary’s assistant tennis coach, becoming head coach Lisa Dausin’s right-hand man this season.
Poole is coming in as a coach with experience, playing tennis throughout and after high school. An alum of John Marshall High School in San Antonio, Poole made his way around the court, placing fourth in regionals for singles his junior year as well as qualifying for individual regionals for singles that same year. As a senior, Poole placed fourrth in doubles.
With the love of tennis not of out his system by the time he graduated, Poole continued to swing his racket competitively. He played for the San Antonio 5.5 Men’s League and the 4.5 Men’s League, making sectionals twice.
Poole found his way to St. Mary’s by way of his talent during high school, where he was coached by St. Mary’s own head tennis coach, Lisa Dausin.
"She’s given me the opportunity to further my career in tennis," says Poole, who will be completing his degree in exercise and sport science and soon become a St. Mary’s alum like his former coach.
Having already developed an effective line of communication — plus a successful, established tennis relationship — Poole knows he and Dausin will be a team that will advance the St. Mary’s tennis squad this season.
"I think this is the most experienced tennis coaching staff St. Mary’s has had," says Poole, referring to both his and Dausin’s personal experience in competitive tennis, "so I’m excited to see if we can make it to regionals and improve our Heartland Conference play and further the future of St. Mary’s tennis."
With tennis experience under his belt and the program taking a step in the right direction as soon as he signed on, Poole is a valuable asset to the coaching staff, bringing excitement and "making (players) remember why they started this sport."
Poole is married to Tara and they have one daughter, Madison.