Bowling Green State University tennis program welcomes William Lynch and Rodney Duncan as assistant coaching hires, where they will join Coach Mike Bonnell for the 2023-24 season.
William Lynch has been promoted to an assistant coach for the Falcons, after serving as a volunteer assistant coach in the 2023 season.
Lynch has a long resume of teaching tennis, before becoming a volunteer assistant at BGSU he was a member of the Professional Tennis Registry earning the title of Instructor.
“William joined us last year as a volunteer assistant and his role continued to evolve as the year went on. The girl’s trust him, as do I, and we are so happy that he is being promoted to Assistant Coach,” said coach Mike Bonnell.
“He will continue to help run practices, travel to matches, and now help on the recruiting trail. It’s great to promote people from within and William has certainly shown his value to the program. We are lucky to have him.”
Lynch is a graduate from the University of South Carolina where he was a member of the Club Tennis Team. During Lynch’s time in South Carolina, he spent five years working at the Forest Lake Club in Columbia where he taught private and group lessons as well as assisted in junior clinics.
The previous two summers Lynch was an instructor at the University of South Carolina’s Wilson Tennis Camps. His coaching career began with the Hammond School Plus Programs, where he gave private and group tennis lessons to students after school and during the summer.
Rodney Duncan arrives in Bowling Green after five consecutive seasons as a Volunteer Assistant Coach for the Women’s Squad at Liberty University.
Duncan served as the assistant coach at Longwood during the 2017-18 season, his first stint as volunteer assistant came during the 2016-17 academic year.
“Rodney joins us from Liberty University, which is a top-notch program that has experienced great success. Only on the job a few days, he is already proving to be a great assistant coach,” said Bonnell.
“I was introduced to Rodney while at the ITA National Coaches Convention and was impressed with his knowledge and experience. He has coached, and played, at a very high level and his passion for tennis is immediately obvious. He knows DI tennis and many of the recruits that we were already talking to. He’s going to be a great fit here at BGSU.”
Prior to collegiate coaching, Duncan was a Wilson Tennis Camp Instructor from 2011-16 and served as the head girls tennis coach at Holy Cross High School in Lynchburg from 2007-10.
At the beginning of his career, he worked at the Wooster Racket Club and Wooster Tennis camp in Wooster, Ohio from 1984-87. Duncan is a graduate from the College of Wooster where he was a member of the nationally ranked Division III Wooster Tennis program.
“We are going to have nine players on the team this year and we are going to have three coaches. That is a great ratio that will really allow us to attack practices and matches in a different way. We want to give our athletes a world class experience and they will now get the attention that they deserve, Bonnell said.
“It’s going to help with recruiting, improving the level of team and individual practices, video analysis, and of course, how we coach on match days. We are poised for some great things coming and I am excited about the quality of our players and coaching staff.”
