Get to Know Your USTA Kansas Youth Pathway Coordinator

Christi Hoke is the new Youth Pathway Coordinator for USTA Kansas, having taken over the position in March. In this role, she works with the Junior Competition Committee to implement Net Generation programming and other junior events. Her first goal: get things back into full swing.

“My goal is to get all of the kids’ competitive tournaments back and running since COVID shut everything down,” Hoke said. “Then there are other events that I am trying to get the schedule up and running because I know the kids want to get out and play.”

Hoke has a long history with tennis, having played since she was 7-years-old. She began playing with her brother’s broken racket, but took a liking to the sport and ended up playing through high school and college. After a break from the sport, she became involved again through coaching.

“When my son was five, I wanted to get him into tennis,” she said. “I went to the local facility, and they asked if I would be interested in coaching because their coach was leaving. So that catapulted me in, and I did all of the classes that my kids were in and grew with them.”

When the opportunity opened to become the Youth Pathway Coordinator for Kansas, Hoke was ready to go. She viewed it as an opportunity to help make it easier for kids in Kansas to be involved in USTA junior programming. 

“I thought it was a good opportunity to try to work on stuff that I had struggled with in the past as a parent trying to get my kids involved,” Hoke said. “The driving force was wanting to help build tennis in Kansas for kids.”

USTA Kansas is happy to have Christi aboard and we look forward to the ways in which we can grow the game together!