By Chris Baldwin
Staff Writer
Scott Dicheck is no stranger to the College’s athletic program. In 21 years, Coach Dicheck has been the head coach of both the men’s and women’s tennis teams and has seen quite a bit of success in his time at the College.
Coach Dicheck grew up in New Jersey and attended Voorhees High School where he played singles tennis. He then attended Moravian College where he was a top singles player. He started his career in coaching tennis immediately after graduating college.
He accepted a position teaching tennis at a racquet club in Allentown, Pa., and worked there for over seven years. He then began coaching at Allentown College, now DeSales University, where he coached men’s and women’s tennis for five years while also completing a masters degree in sports management at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. He then moved on to the College to continue his coaching career.
“Once I completed my masters from East Stroudsburg and my fifth year of coaching at Allentown College, I looked at some jobs and saw that this job was available,” Dicheck said. “When I came down to interview that day I definitely knew this was the place for me, and I was fortunate to get the job. There wasn’t even a second thought in taking it.”
Dicheck’s time as head coach has been nothing short of triumphant for the College’s tennis program. Since taking the position in 2000, the women’s team has won the NJAC conference every single year and made numerous NCAA tournament appearances.
The men’s NJAC conference is just starting up, and in its first year the men had won the conference, proving to be serious competitors. The men have also consistently made NCAA tournament appearances under Dicheck’s lead.
On both the men’s and women’s side, there has also not been a single losing record in Dicheck’s time as head coach. Needless to say, Coach Dicheck has had an extremely impressive career as the College’s tennis coach. He is proud of his team’s consistency through the years.
“I always tell everyone, ‘you have to love TCNJ,’” Dicheck said. “We love it here and we want everybody on the team and coaches to love it. We want players that are committed to not only getting better, but committed to each other and being good teammates. Those are the players that are gonna get better through the years.”
While Dicheck has had a successful career at the College, being the head coach for both the men’s and women’s teams also comes with its challenges. The team generally plays both a fall and spring season, so the entire academic year is a busy time for both players and coaches.
Behind-the-scenes work such as scheduling can be a challenge as he is trying to balance two teams at once. Dicheck tries his best to schedule matches where the men and women play simultaneously.
“There’s no doubt it’s challenging to come up with a schedule for me to be at both matches,” Dicheck said. “It’s something that I tried to figure out early on. One of the benefits of having regionally and nationally ranked teams, is that other teams want to play us. So I tell teams, if we’re gonna play you, it’s gonna be men and women. I try to do as much of that as possible.”
Despite these challenges, Dicheck truly loves his job. After accepting the job in 2000, Dicheck has never looked back and hopes to continue his success for years into the future.
“What I’m most proud of is that year in and year out we have a solid team, a team that is regionally ranked and generally nationally ranked, and that we’re competing in NCAA’s year in and year out, and we’ve been very fortunate to bring in the right types of players,” Dicheck said. “I’ve had 21 years here and I look forward to many more. I love it here.”
