by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Current Wellington High School girls and former boys tennis coach Brian Aufdengarten has received two prestigious awards from the United States Tennis Association for his work on a Kansas statewide website.

The website: http://baufdengarten.wixsite.com/kansas-hs-tennis, has been the go to site for Kansas high school tennis coaches and enthusiasts.

Aufdengarten created the site in 2015 and for the past three years it has had a cumulative collection of boys and girls tennis tournament results throughout Kansas and state rankings.

For his effort, he has received both the Kansas “Media Excellence” district award; and the multi-state “USTA Sectional Conference Media Excellence’ award” that includes Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

Aufdengarten received the Kansas District award at Terradyne on Nov. 13, and the sectional award Dec. 3 at Overland Park.

“I developed the site during the boys season when I was no longer coaching boys in the spring and had a little time,” Aufdengarten said. “I always loved stats and always looked at various newspapers from across the state. I wanted to create a site that was centralized for high school tennis coaches.”

Those who don’t understand the inner workings of high school tennis, probably don’t realize how important seeding meetings are especially before the post-season regional and state tournaments. Where a player is seeded may make a difference from becoming a state placer or someone getting eliminated quickly in regionals.

“I remember my first year as a head coach in 1995 and going into my first seeding meeting and wondering ‘what the heck?’,” Aufdengarten said. “But I learned quickly to say the least.”

Aufdengarten said the site has about 75 to 80 percent of all high school Kansas tennis tournaments across the state from Class 1A to Class 6A. Coaches can go on the site and compare one player against another. They know direct wins and indirect wins.

“I can pretty much predict how a seeding meeting will go before it even starts,” Aufdengarten said. “The coaches across the state love it. And I have found parents of tennis players love it as well.”

Aufdengarten has been the head high school tennis coach for 16 years in Wellington and has been coaching tennis since 1995. He won a girls tennis state championship title in 2010. 

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