Felix Balderas 
HARLINGEN – UTRGV Athletics is set to host the 2024 Western Athletic Conference Tennis Tournaments in Harlingen at Pendleton Park. This will mark the fourth time UTRGV has hosted WAC Tennis Championships with the most recent being in 2016 and 2019.
Jonah Goldberg, senior associate athletic director for communications and championships, said the announcement was made in conjunction with a free youth clinic UTRGV Tennis was hosting at the future site of the 2024 WAC Tennis Tournaments.
“We had the opportunity to have a large number of community members who were there because they and their kids were participating or watching and then we had our own student-athletes and coaches there which was a really unique thing because often these championships are announced via press release… we had the opportunity to get our student-athletes involved and get the community involved which was a really special opportunity for us and we were very excited to be able to do that for them,” said Goldberg.
Chasse Conque, vice president and director of athletics, spoke about the significance of being able to host this Conference.
“As a proud member of our conference in the Western Athletic Conference, when you have the ability to host and then you do a good job hosting it helps build that credibility within the conference, so as these teams engage their best… if we do those well which I know we will, our team and staff will work hard, I know the community will support us as they have. It gives us great credibility when we go back and bid on other championships. We would love to be a leader in hosting Western Athletic Conference’s here in the Rio Grande Valley, “ said Conque.
Conque mentioned that hosting the 2024 WAC Tennis Tournaments can bring great notoriety to our region on a national level will provide new opportunities for UTRGV and will also benefit our local community.
“When you have a university and a team working as hard as they do, and you got great partners and a community, that makes it all happen,” said Conque.
He added his contentment for men’s head tennis coach Nathan Robinson and women’s head tennis coach West Nott in their ability to lead their teams.
Women’s head coach West Nott is entering his fifth year with UTRGV. Nott spoke about his process as a coach; he has focused on developing character in his team, having the right attitude, giving their best effort, having great management, developing a culture, and sending that message to the community and getting them enthusiastic about coming out to matches and cheering them on.
“I know our athletic department has been working really hard towards things like this and so this was a perfect time, the perfect facility was in place, and I think that we have the perfect team to go ahead and execute this plan…For us every day we are trying to figure out how we can be at the top of the WAC and be in the best possible position to capture it… we are going to see what we can do and let’s see what happens.” said Nott.
Conque stated that being able to host the 2024 WAC Tennis Tournaments can help to lead to bigger things for UTRGV and more championships in the Valley.
