OLIVET — Brandon Ralston’s epiphany came in an environment he knew well but not in a capacity he might’ve expected.
Ralston, a 2017 Cadillac High School and 2021 Alma College graduate, was helping a buddy coach the St. Johns High School boys’ tennis team.
Fast-forward a little more than a year later and Ralston is now the head coach of Olivet College’s men’s and women’s tennis teams.
That’s quite the leap for someone who never thought about coaching tennis but it’s a sport that Ralston has played for quite some time.
He spent the one year at St. Johns and also was an assistant at Alma College with the Scots.
That prompted taking a chance when the Olivet job opened this spring.
“After (graduating) from Alma, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do,” Ralston said. “I worked in Chicago for a couple of months but that (job) wasn’t for me.
“I moved back home and then helped an old friend who was the coach at St. Johns last fall. I also was back at Alma during the fall and spring seasons and they encouraged me to apply for the Olivet job. I didn’t think I had the experience for that job but it turned out that I did.”
Ralston was officially named the Comets’ head coach last month and has hit the ground running before the 2022 fall season begins in late August. This comes after never really thinking coaching was an avenue he’d pursue out of college.
“I am super excited,” he said. “I haven’t met the players yet and so I’ve been talking to a lot of kids and doing a lot of recruiting. I am talking to the kids who want to come to college and play tennis.
“It was really an epiphany moment when I went to help at St. Johns. (Coaching) hadn’t been too much on my mind until my friend got me involved with that team. I pretty much right away knew it was something I could tell was going to be really enjoyable for me.”
Olivet is an NCAA Division III school meaning it can’t offer athletic scholarships to student-athletes but can assist with academic funds. Student-athletes who compete at the D3 level are more often in it for the education/degree and the sports experience is secondary.
The D3 experience is something Ralston truly enjoyed through his four years at Alma College where he was on the Scots’ men’s tennis team.
“I loved the experience myself,” he said. “It allowed me to be a college student and tennis not be the defining point of my life.
“The experience is really a healthy one and I can speak to that liberal arts experience.”
He tied for the team-high singles wins in 2018 at 10, going 4-1 at No. 4 singles and 6-8 at No. 1 singles. He went 2-0 in singles matches in 2019-20 before the spring season was cut short that year by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ralston went 4-6 at No. 1 singles in 2020-21, as well. He played four years of tennis at Cadillac under Mark Lloyd, Craig Baas and Scott Graham but also learned a ton from former longtime coach Tim Elenbaas.
“Scott and Tim were the two best coaches I’ve ever had,” he said. “I learned so much from both of them.”
Ralston earned second team All-MIAA honors in 2021, as well.
Ralston takes over an Olivet program that has struggled. The Comets went 0-7 during the 2022 spring season and went 5-10 in 202-21. They were 1-6 in the COVID-shortened 2019-20 season and 1-13 in 2018-19.
“We’re a little behind the rest of the conference,” Ralston said.
“We’re a relatively inexperienced team as of now and this is a tough conference (MIAA) to play in.
“We’re going to have a tough year because skill-level wise we’re not where we need to be.”
The Olivet women have struggled, as well. They were 0-8 this past spring, losing all eight matches 9-0. The Comets were 5-11 in 2020-21 and 5-4 in 2019-20 before the season was stopped due to the pandemic.
“All of the women I have met so far have been great and they are excited to get to work,” Ralston said. “I think they are going to be great to work with.”