Forsyth Country Day has new leader for tennis team

BY TIMOTHY RAMSEY THE CHRONICLE

Taking over a team as a first-time head coach can be an intimidating venture, even for someone who has been around the game nearly their entire life.

This is the situation Travis Bell is stepping into as the new boys tennis coach at Forsyth Country Day School. He was an assistant last season and when he was presented with the opportunity to take over, he was elated.

“I was going to play this tournament in Orlando, Florida, and I was with Coach Moore before I went to this tournament and I didn’t hear anything about it, but like 30 minutes before my match, the AD called me and said ‘Hey, would you like to take the head coaching position at Forsyth?’ and I was astounded,” Bell said about hearing the offer for the position.

“I wasn’t expecting to be head coach because it’s just my first season of being an assistant coach. I hadn’t even been an assistant coach for a whole year. It was kind of unexpected and I kind of felt like I wasn’t ready at the time, but you never know what you can do until you do it.”

It wasn’t a long process for Bell to realize that this would be a good opportunity for him. Even with the initial nerves of taking over a program at such an early time in his coaching career, Bell knew this wasn’t an opportunity he could turn down.

“It was something that I was kind of preparing my mind for later on, maybe a year or two from now. It was something that was in the back of my mind; it was no thought that one day I could not be the head coach, it was no thought of that. It was there in my mind that it was expected for me to become a head coach, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon,” he said about the way he was feeling when offered the position of head coach.

“You kind of want things but when it comes so fast, you are like ‘Whoa, I wasn’t ready for that, not yet.’ It took maybe a day or so and I was like I have to do this. They need me, I want to be a part of Forsyth and I love what they have going on there. They have a beautiful program, a great campus, great people on the campus, so I kind of felt home there. I didn’t feel like I was doing my work unless I accepted that role and filled in for Coach Moore.

Bell is coming into his first season with high expectations. He feels this

BY TIMOTHY RAMSEY THE CHRONICLE