Boies coaches have big plans for Port Aransas tennis teams
BY DAN PARKER SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

Winning team STAFF PHOTO BY DAN PARKER Sisters Piper (left) and Ashley Boies, the newest tennis coaches at the Port Aransas Independent School District, have winning backgrounds as players themselves.

If a coach's pedigree and competitive experience mean anything for young players, Port Aransas schools had better start clearing room in their trophy cases for lots of additions.

Coaches Piper and Ashley Boies, who are sisters, both competed at the state level when they were high school students. Their grandmother was the late Helen Tallent, one of the first inductees into the Texas Tennis Coaches Hall of Fame.

The Boies (rhymes with "voice") sisters were hired by PAISD just before the 2006-07 school year. Piper, 26, is the head tennis coach at Port Aransas High School and Brundrett Middle School. She also teaches special education at PAHS.

Ashley, 24, is assistant coach in PAHS tennis and also teaches second grade at H.G. Olsen Elementary School.

The sisters grew up in a small town called Sunrise Beach on Lake LBJ and graduated from high school in the town of Mason, about an hour away from Sunrise Beach.

While at Mason High School, Piper won the 2-A schools state title during her junior year in girls' doubles. Her partner was a cousin: Kassi Tallent, now a lawyer in Houston. The pair also got second in state during Piper's sophomore year.

Piper and her sister took second in state when Piper was a senior. Ashley also took second in state competition when she was a senior while playing doubles with Linsey Ziriax, who now is a teacher living in a small town near Mason. In addition, Mason High School took first place in team tennis at the state level when Ashley was a senior on the team.

In a way, it's not surprising that Piper and Ashley ascended to such heights in high school tennis. Mason High School has more state tennis titles than any other school in the state, Piper said. And the sisters' grandmother, Helen Tallent, is a legend in Texas high school tennis. She started the tennis program at Mason High School during the 1960s. She eventually became one of the first inductees in the Texas Tennis Coaches Hall of Fame, in 1981.

"She was very inspiring, with her love of tennis," said Ashley Boies. "And it wasn't about winning. It wasn't about just having a job as a coach. She loved the game. I mean, she played it until she couldn't play the game anymore. That's what I really hope to inspire in students: A love for the game. Tennis is something you can play all your life."

(Tallent stayed with tennis until her 70s, when treatment for cancer weakened her too much to play.)

Piper and Ashley graduated from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi - Piper, with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology, and Ashley with a bachelor 's in early childhood education.

Piper said she is pleased with how PAHS players came along this year. They won three of five events at the district level.

Regional competition will be April 25-26 at College Station. Competitors will include seniors Clark Smith and Matt Dunton in boys doubles, Katy Bridges and Kevin Drewry in mixed doubles and Patricia Stievo in girls singles.

Still, Piper feels she has more to do.

"I've got some big shoes to fill," she said. "After seeing what my grandmother did at Mason, I'd like to do something like that down here. Make tennis huge."