Streator’s Kaye Tallier to retire as Bulldogs’ girls tennis coach at the end of the season

Streator’s Kaye Tallier says she knew she wanted to be a coach since she was a little kid.

Growing up in the small northern Wisconsin logging community of Wabeno, Tallier was a very good volleyball, basketball and softball player in high school and sharpened her athletic talents playing against her older brothers and father.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and coaching girls basketball and cross country at Auburndale High School in Wisconsin for five years, Tallier came to Streator in 1992.

While she also coached volleyball and softball for the Bulldogs, she was the head girls basketball coach from 1996-2000. However, during that time she started down a different path, and not one she saw coming, of coaching girls tennis that she’s followed for the past 28 years.

This season will be Tallier’s last as she will retire at the end of the school year.

“The girls tennis team was in the middle of their season [in 1996] and the coach was let go,” said Tallier, who teaches freshman health and adapted physical education for students with physical disabilities. “One of the girls on the team came to me and said, ‘Will you coach our tennis team? If you don’t, we are going to lose the rest of our season.’ She said, ‘All you need is a lawn chair.’ I said, ‘Well I have one of those.’

“I fell in love of coaching tennis right off the bat.”

Tallier said she’d played tennis against her dad growing up, and he was pretty good, but she didn’t really know much about tennis other than she had taken a tennis coaching class in college.

“All of my coaches taught me life lessons along with the game we were playing,” Tallier said. “I feel like helping your athletes keep a balance between athletics and life is a huge key in coaching. I’m coaching these girls to be better tennis players, but the ultimate goal is to coach them to eventually be great all-around people.”

“I think the fact that we’ve almost always have great numbers in the program from year to year is gratifying. I hope that means I’ve been doing things right, that girls want to come out to learn and play tennis because I’ve done things the way they are supposed to be done.”

—  Kaye Tallier, Streator girls tennis coach who will retire after the season, school year.

This season’s No. 1 doubles team of seniors Madelyn Wahl and Joyce Walkling said they can’t thank Tallier enough for what she’s done for them on and off the court.

“Oh my gosh. ... She’s an icon,” Wahl said. “You can always feel the energy around her. She is competitive, but she’s also uplifting and not critical. She knows the perfect line between pushing you but also knowing your limits. She gets the best out of you without you even knowing it.

“She never lets you stay down on yourself and always tells how she feels you can improve whatever situation you’re dealing with,” Walkling said. “She’s always there to give you a pat on the back if something went wrong or you’re having a tough time. That goes beyond the tennis part. ... Whether its school stuff or away from school stuff or anything in between, she is always someone we can go to for help or advice. She is always there for you.”

This season has brought with it many memories for Wahl and Walkling, but one trend they say will still be the talk of the season many years from now when teammates get together.

“This year coach Tallier has had a very bad habit of having her diet soda spill on the bus. It’s every bus trip we take,” Wahl said with a laugh. “She’s got her like 30-year-old mug that she probably lost the lid to it like 20 years ago and she refuses to get a new one. We’ll be riding along and then all of a sudden we’ll hear ‘Oh, my bad,’ and you know exactly what happened. You just want to make sure anything you have with you on the bus is up off the floor, because if it’s not, it’s more than likely going to end up getting soda on it before you get to wherever we’re going. It just been so expected and funny.”

Tallier admits that’s the truth but says the mug is not going away.

“Yep, that’s my mug from Thornton’s that I’ve had for I don’t know how long,” Tallier said with a smile. “But I’m never giving it up. Never.”

Tallier said while looking back at her career in coaching and teaching there isn’t anything she’d change, and she’s proud of how things have gone, the thought of ‘What’s next?’ is hard to think about right now.

“I think the fact that we’ve almost always have great numbers in the program from year to year is gratifying,” Tallier said. “I hope that means I’ve been doing things right, that girls want to come out to learn and play tennis because I’ve done things the way they are supposed to be done. We’ve also over the last few years, which is not my focus, saw our wins and loss record really jump up. We’ve had some girls really focus on their tennis and they’ve reaped the rewards as far as wins goes. A few have and are playing in college right now.

“I really don’t have a plan [for after retirement], and to be honest, it kind of scares the [heck] out of me. But I do know no matter what I do in the future, there is no way to love coaching tennis and teaching as much as I do. I look forward to coming to school every single day and being here makes me feel good.

“I’m truly going to miss it all.”