When a door closes and opportunities are lost, it’s easy to hide away from new chances and leave things the way they were. 

However, not for Josie Yarbrough. While a junior at Marian University, her tennis career was cut short due to an ongoing wrist injury. 

Nevertheless, she kept her head up and found an opportunity at SHS the following year as the boy’s tennis head coach. 

“My Marian coach … He just let me know there was a position an

d they were reaching out to anyone who was interested,” Yarbrough said. “He gave me Southport’s contact info, and the rest is history.”

Yarbrough, who grew up playing competitive tennis, has been around the game as an athlete her whole life but never has been in a coach’s spot before. So there were many new things to get used to. 

The only real experience Yarbrough’s had coaching is teaching lessons and helping with kids camps. Despite that, her background in tennis is a huge positive for the team, and every day has been a learning curve with them. 

“Coaching is kind of a different animal than playing,” Yarbrough said. “It’s nice to play a different role (and) to see the different side of tennis.” 

With any new coach coming to a team, it can take a while for the players and the coach to mesh.

However, everyone at SHS is ready to make the program better, such as Yarbrough, the players and the new assistant coach James Thorpe.

Thorpe and Yarbrough believe there is a lot of potential growth for this inexperienced group, since they have seen lots of improvement within the first week of practice

“Her coming in fresh … It’s kind of a good mix, because she’s kind of new to this, and a lot of players are new, so it’s a pretty good fit,” Thorpe said. “They’re buying in, they’re really taking her knowledge.” 

One door may have shut for Yarbrough, but another one opened, and it’s right here at the SHS tennis courts.