This is the 86th article in Bears Doing Big Things, a weekly column celebrating the stories of notable M-A alumni.
“My family history is in tennis, it’s like a family business,” J.J. Whitlinger ‘01 said. Whitlinger played Division I tennis at Saint Mary’s College and is the current men’s tennis head coach at Furman University.
Whitlinger played almost every sport growing up, but tennis was the one that stuck. “Like most kids, you view your dad as your hero as you grow up. I wanted to be like him, and eventually, I picked tennis,” he said. Whitlinger’s father, John Whitlinger, played tennis for Stanford University and went on to be their men’s head coach.
“I always loved the team aspect of playing for M-A,” he said. Whitlinger played on the varsity tennis team on the singles lineup all four years. During his senior year, he and his doubles partner won the PAL individual doubles title. In 2001, he was awarded the Athlete of the Year Award.
In his senior year, Whitlinger joined his friends on the football team. “It had always been a dream of mine to play, and I could play because I wasn’t playing tennis tournaments anymore. It was one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had playing sports,” he said.
Whitlinger received several Division I tennis offers and Division III football offers. He decided to play tennis at Saint Mary’s College. “One day, I went with a friend to check out Saint Mary’s, and I just fell in love with the campus,” he said.
While visiting the campus, Whitlinger connected with the men’s tennis coach. “It turned out that the men’s coach played at USC against my dad when he was at Stanford,” Whitlinger explained. “He called me and said, ‘If you want to play, then come to Saint Mary’s, we’d love to have you.’”
Whitlinger initially pursued a business major but quickly switched to political science. “I was just so bored. At the time, I was taking a minority politics class and it was really interesting to me, so I made a switch. I realized I was going to get into sports in some capacity, so I just wanted to study the stuff that I was interested in,” he said.
On the tennis team, Whitlinger typically played fifth or sixth on the singles ladder, and one or two doubles. In his sophomore year, he was awarded the All-Conference doubles award in the West Coast Conference.
After graduating from Saint Mary’s, Whitlinger began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant at Stanford. “I realized my passion was more in coaching and mentoring kids than actually playing,” he said.
Whitlinger also worked as a personal trainer at a gym and went on to be the director of junior tennis at the Fremont Hills Country Club.
In 2014, Whitlinger and his wife decided to move out of California. “My cousin was the head coach at Furman, and he’d been asking me to come out for a while. When my dad moved back to Wisconsin, I saw that I was really interested in doing it now, and thankfully he had an opening for me that summer,” he explained.
Whitlinger was the assistant coach for four years, and he has been the men’s head coach for the past six. “We’ve always been in the top two or three in our conference,” he said. “A couple of years ago, we were ranked 60 in the country, which was the highest we had been in about 20 to 25 years.”
Whitlinger was nominated to be inducted into M-A’s 2024 Athletic Hall of Fame for his tennis and football accomplishments but couldn’t make the ceremony.
In the 2023-24 season, Furman finished third in the Southern Conference. “I measure myself more on the quality of the individual that leaves my program than the wins and losses because when you get hung up on that, it’s just too devastating,” Whitlinger said. “I really focus on creating quality human beings, and teaching them what I know about life and tennis. If we win some matches along the way, then that’s great.”
Whitlinger’s advice to current M-A students: “Work hard and never, ever count yourself out. In life, whether it’s jobs or sports or whatever, so often you get turned away because someone doesn’t believe in you, but the most important thing is that you believe in yourself.”
To those interested in coaching: “Focus on the progression of the individual overall, and never focus on the results. The results will come if you’re focused on the right thing and have a progressive mindset.”
Enjoyed reading this article Tessa! Well done!