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By Rick Peterson

TopSports.news

Longtime Hayden tennis coach James Sandstrom has turned over the reins of the Wildcat boys program to longtime assistant Christine Voegeli, ending a tenure as one of the most successful high school tennis coaches in Kansas history.

James Sandstrom has turned over the reins of the Hayden High tennis program to longtime assistant Christine Voegeli after a highly-successful run as the Wildcats' coach. [File photo/TSN]

Sandstrom is also Hayden's school principal and said this spring was a good time to step away from his coaching job, particuarly after the graduation of James and Stacey's youngest son, Michael, in 2022.

Michael was a two-time Class 4A state runnerup in doubles while the Sandstrom's older son, Sean, was a state singles champion for the Wildcats.

"Being an administrator takes a lot of time and I really feel like to give my all to the community it was the right thing to do,'' Sandstrom said. "Having coached Michael and Sean their entire life coming up I really wanted the opportunity to coach them in high school. The first few years of coaching both and being a principal, it took a lot of time, but coaching tennis was also kind of a good refresher for me so I could approach my day to day business more focused.

"But with graduation weekend being the same weekend as state tennis and all of that, it was time.''

Sandstrom coached the Hayden girls team for 16 years before current Wildcat coach Christy Sheetz took over and he coached the Hayden boys team for 23 years.

Sandstrom coached 62 girls state qualifiers and 37 medalists, including three-time state singles champion Alex O'Neil. Sandstrom's girls teams finished second in 4A twice and third four times.

As the Hayden boys coach, Sandstrom coached four 4A state championship teams, two runner-up teams and four third-place finishers along with 95 state qualifiers and 70 state medalists.

Sandstrom coached seven state singles champons, including four-time state champ Tommy Hunter, two-time champ Sean McManus and his son, Sean.

Sandstrom said he feels blessed to have been able to work with all the student-athletes he did at Hayden.

"Not only with those kids that obviously had a lot of tennis talent, but all the kids that I've ever coached,'' he said. "A great example is Patrick Gorman and Joseph Luke, their performance last year (seventh in 4A doubles). They came in after not having played much tennis prior to high school at all and just the ability to work with kids like that that are so coachable and work hard and buy-in to what you're trying to get them to do.

"I love coaching talent, but sometimes the stories that you remember are the kids that came in that didn't have the background but were just coachable and they allowed you to do basically whatever you wanted them to do because they didn't know any better and they didn't have any bad habits coming in.''

Sandstrom said he has no doubt that Voegeli will do a great job in her new role as Hayden's head coach.

"She reminded me last year that she's been with me for 12 years,'' Sandstrom said. "She knows how to run all the tournaments and she's picked up quite a few tricks of the trade. It really comes down to how you work with the kids and what tricks you have to bring out the best in them.''

Sandstrom, whose daughter Lauren is a reigning state doubles champion for Sheetz's Wildcat girls team, said he will still get out to as many Hayden tennis meets and other activities as possible.

"It's still in my blood and I like to take every opportunity I can to support all of our Hayden kids,'' he said. "So not coaching tennis will give me the ability to get out to more baseball games and sotball and soccer games and track meets and swim meets and all of those things.''