Dave Comyns says he built a highly successful tennis academy in Sydney from scratch with a simple recipe - making sure he was the best and most passionate coach out there.
It started with one Mosman family taking a liking to him before, over the course of the past eight years, his academy has grown to having more than 200 kids a week going through the system.
But Comyns has given that all up for love and a desire to return home to Newcastle and "bring tennis back to the Hunter again".
He will take over the running of the District Park tennis complex at Broadmeadow from Christmas Eve after being awarded the lease back in October. He is ambitious and has big plans.
For starters, he says he is committed to spending as much as $100,000 of his own money on renovations to transform the complex.
"I'm passionate about bringing tennis back to the Hunter again because it's slowly gone backwards over the past 25 years," Comyns told the Newcastle Herald.
"The place was once a hub and pumping but the culture has been sucked out of it. I just want to come home and restore it to what it was and turn it into the premier centre in the country."
A big part of his motivation to return home is the ailing health of his father.
"I was probably going to try and move back home regardless of whether my tender was successful or not because my father is very sick and I want to be closer to him," he said.
"So, I had a lot of personal motivation which is why I put my heart and soul into the tender. The centre means a lot to me as well because I grew up playing there. I went to Adamstown public school as a kid and started playing tennis with a local coach. I played at a high junior level up until about 14, fell away from it for a couple of years before I started coaching at 16."
Several years later, Comyns was "head-hunted" to coach in Sydney.
"I went down in my early 20's and I was around 25 when I went out on my own and through a lot of hard work and a lot of luck as well, I built a massive private academy on Sydney's north shore," he said.
"We concentrate on the competitive side but also cater for the social side. The guts of the academy is a high level junior development program. We train kids three or four days a week and travel with them to tournaments - 50 plus at a time. There are around 200 kids a week going through the system and 11 staff working for me so it is a big operation.
"It started with one family in Mosman taking a liking to me and it just snowballed from there. There was zero advertising, it was all just word of mouth and in the space of 12 months, I was looking after 100 kids."
Asked why his academy was so successful, Comyns said: "Hard work and I made sure I was better than any other coach out there. I knew I was because of the level of player I was developing. Our kids were constantly beating other kids."
While admitting it is tough to be walking away from the academy he built in Sydney, Comyns is excited about the challenge that awaits in Newcastle.
"It's the dream centre for me," he said. "I grew up playing tennis there, I was coached there."
The lease change didn't come without controversy. Richard Nicholls' Top Spin Tennis has held the lease for a decade and the local association was criticised for the decision. Comyns was not happy to be caught in the cross-fire.
"From a marketing perspective, I've got some work to do because of the media campaign and the big petition that went out about me that's hurt my reputation," he said. "It was put out there that this big Sydney operator was coming to Newcastle to take over. I'm just a Newcastle boy, coming back home for personal reasons, that's it. I also got the licence because I'm a better operator than the previous licence holder.
"I'll spend $100,000 to redevelop the place if I have to. The current operator doesn't look like he ever reinvested back into the centre. And I'll bring a competitive culture back as well as the social side. That's what's gone. It was spitting out top players in the country 20 years ago but there's no development pathway for that anymore."
Comyns is planning a big launch in January.
"We'll have a heap of special offers for people to come and play as a way to get the ball rolling and once the school term hits, hopefully, our junior programs will be firing," he said. "It's exciting times." For more information go to: www.NCTC.club
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