Ryun Ferrell, NIU women’s tennis coach, came to NIU hoping to bring the program to another level. In his fifth year at the reins, Ferrell is finally achieving his goal while looking ahead to the future. Ferrell spoke with the Northern Star about this season’s turnaround, the tennis team’s outlook and his family life.

Northern Star: What has made this season such an improvement from that of years past?

Ryun Ferrell: We run it differently. We’re working a lot harder than we ever have before. I’m holding these kids a little more accountable than I ever have before. Last year when we went 2-17, I was just trying to survive, and that was the wrong approach to take. I should have worked the kids even harder and given them zero excuses, as where I gave them excuse after excuse and just let it go. This time, it’s not going to happen. We just make sure we hold the standard high and if we don’t meet the standard, we find out what we need to do to get that and we go forward from there.

That’s probably the big thing and it doesn’t hurt having some nice talented kids coming in that can play for you.

NS: You seem to have a lot of fun with the team. Has that kind of attitude helped the returning players bounce back from last season’s struggles?

RF: I’d like to think so, but you never know. If I’m not going to have fun doing this, I’m just not going to do it. I’ll go get a job selling phones at Verizon or something. I’m working on just having as much fun as I can without taking myself too seriously while doing what I think is right. Whether people agree with it or not, I really don’t care. The big thing is that I have a wife and two kids at home that I have to take care of and provide for, so I make sure that I have a good time here so when I go home, I don’t bring my work home. I can enjoy my family when I’m home.

I’ve gotten a little smarter about how I approach my job and if people agree with me, great. If they don’t, I don’t really care.

NS: So between your two roles as a father and as the women’s tennis coach, what has caused you more stress?

RF: During the day, the team causes me more stress. At night, definitely my family, because my daughter still likes to wake up and know that her daddy is coming in to take care of her instead of letting her cry all night. The nice thing is, with this year’s squad, we’ve had minimal distractions. A couple minor things have popped up, but the team has not caused me much stress. With my family, it’s just hard to go to work because I love being with them so it gets pretty hard to leave. They kind of both go hand-in-hand. I hate leaving my family, but I have to do my job, and once I’m with the team, I call them my “eight daughters.” I praise them when they do well and I chew them out when they do stupid things. When I go back home I make sure I shut the phone down a little bit and stay away from the computer and looking up results. It’s been a hard transition to figure that out because I’m still a pretty young dad, but we’re getting there.