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Game, set and match for retiring Memorial coach Grainger

Todd D. Milewski  —  5/16/2008 6:38 am

When Chris Grainger started teaching at Madison Memorial High School in 1976, he used national championship experience to sign on as the Spartans' boys gymnastics coach.

A few years later, he started coaching boys tennis. Girls tennis followed a couple of years after that.

Eventually, he thought at the time, he would focus on one of them. That happened only in 2000, when boys gymnastics started to fade away from the varsity landscape.

"I just kept doing them all," Grainger said. "And every year I was in tennis I learned more and more from the kids, from the parents, from clinics and camps. ... The more and more I coached, the more I fell in love with it and never wanted to get out of it."

That's how a gymnast who always had an interest in tennis became an area prep tennis icon.

Now Grainger, 57, is stepping away from tennis and teaching. He's retiring at the end of the school year, so the road to the end of the boys tennis season has been filled with nostalgic turns.

"Each meet that we go to now, I just kind of cherish more and more," he said.

Combining his tennis and gymnastics teams with a few years coaching the Memorial bowling team, Grainger estimates that he has been involved in more than 70 individual seasons of athletics with the Spartans.

He led the girls tennis team to the 1988 WIAA state team title and has coached Spartans players to three individual singles titles and three more in doubles.

"I was always hoping that I would have a guys team that would win state and/or a guy that would win state because I've had it for the girls," Grainger said.

He's hoping he can get one more group to the state team championships at Nielsen Tennis Stadium, but the two teams that the Spartans likely will have to get past, Middleton and Madison West, are in the same subsectional Monday at Ripp Park in Waunakee.

After 32 years of teaching physical education at Memorial that followed three years at a school in Illinois, Grainger said he's leaving the profession now because he's at an age when he won't lose any of his retirement benefits. What's he planning for his retirement?

"I'm going to go do what I want to do now," he said.

Some of that will be umpiring rec league softball games, a duty he recently acquired at Elver Park. Some of it will be playing more golf with friends like Gary Kolpin, the former Memorial athletic director. He plans to travel to bowl in tournaments and maybe see the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York, things that a teacher's calendar have prevented.

He'll probably be involved in gymnastics. Grainger is an international-level judge who helped the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh win the NAIA national championship in 1973. He was inducted into the UW-Oshkosh hall of fame in 1986.

"Gymnastics was really my sport," Grainger said. "That's what I did, that's what I coached. I still judge it. I've judged it for 30 years. But tennis I picked up for fun, and I learned to really like it a lot, and that's where I'm at."

Kolpin, who shared the physical education office at Memorial with Grainger for years before he retired in 2005, confirmed that Grainger has built a strong reputation for success quietly.

"It's not about him, it's about the kids," Kolpin said. "He puts them first. He loves what he does.

"He's a fun-loving guy. Loves to travel. Loves every kind of sport there is. He's so competitive, but he's competitive in the right way."

Grainger will be the last of a large group of longtime Memorial coaches to hang up the clipboard. Last season it was 30-year veteran baseball coach Tom Bennett, who retired from teaching. Vic Levine retired as boys hockey coach in 2006 after his 29th season.

Kolpin resigned three years ago after 33 years as the Spartans' boys swimming coach and 26 years as athletic director.

"It's a sign of the times," Kolpin said. "I guess we're not getting any younger."

One regret Grainger said he has is that he hasn't kept in contact with enough of his former players and students. His college gymnastics coach kept everyone together with alumni meets and parties.

"If I started that, that would have been quite a monumental task," Grainger said. "I would have had an e-mail list of who-knows-how-many pages long.

"Incredible people, too," he said. "There were a lot of great kids that I coached, and still to this year I have great kids on my tennis team."

Todd D. Milewski  —  5/16/2008 6:38 am