For 40 years, Tana Stock led the Oak Park women’s tennis team as head coach, guiding generation after generation of players. Now, as she steps into retirement, a new chapter begins for the program. That leaves a big role to be filled. 

That role will be filled by Haley Cope. She is a 2011 Oak Park alumna and tennis player, and went to the University of Missouri. From there she graduated in 2015 and began working at Oak Park that same year. Cope became an assistant coach to the OP tennis team in 2020. Now, five years later she is the head coach.

“I wanted to join tennis because a lot of my friends played,” Cope said.

She wanted to become head coach because of Stock’s philosophy and wanted to continue that philosophy with her own coaching. She plans on doing some things differently this year.

One of the biggest changes players have noticed is a difference in focus.

“We work on serving more, which is really helpful,” senior Olivia Banuelos-Angulo said. “I feel like practice is slowly becoming more personalized on what we need to work on.”

This shift is part of Cope’s new approach. She has been extending the warm ups to include more serving, and to work on helpful strategies.

Cope has also started a new tradition “Word Of The Week.” Every week there is a new word that encourages players to have a positive mindset. Some words include “determined,” “competitive,” and “resilient.” After each practice the person who best demonstrated these words gets a trophy, and gets to pick someone they think also demonstrated the word well.

“The morale is super positive,” Banuelos-Angulo said

Cope is excited to watch the program grow with her plan.

“I want people to be successful and getting there can be stressful,” Cope said. Although she may have some nerves, she has a great support system from the coaches. Volunteer Jonathan Emmons has been helping out at practices for a few years, and of course Stock is always available and still helps out at practices.