By BY BRUCE HIXON – SPORTS EDITOR
A second area spring sport has gotten the plug pulled on its season, as W.S. Neal High School has announced it will not be fielding a tennis team.
While T.R. Miller High School cancelled its golf season due to a lack of interest from students, W.S. Neal cancelled tennis because the school was unable to find anybody to coach the team.
Hathcock, who coached W.S. Neal's tennis team last year and switched to golf this spring, said the decision to cancel tennis affects about 10 students.
Coaching stability has not been a strength within the W.S. Neal program. This year's coach would have been the fourth in four years. Hathock was peceded by David McCollum in 2005 and Kraig Rittenhouse in 2004.
The decision to cancel tennis comes at a time in which the city of East Brewton is in the process of building tennis courts at R.T. Johnson Park. W.S. Neal planned to shift home tennis matches from Jefferson Davis Community College to the new facility.
Hathcock hopes the cancellation of tennis is just for this year.
W.S. Neal's decision to cancel tennis is having an area domino effect. Thirty percent of T.R. Miller's regular season schedule consisted of three matches against W.S. Neal.
T.R. Miller now has just seven regular season matches.