Get to know Mainland Regional HS girls tennis coach Kathy Yohe

LINWOOD, N.J. — It was 1990, and Kathy Yohe was sitting in her kitchen waiting to speak to someone at Rowan University, the phone chord keeping her close to the wall.

Kathy had been working as a legal secretary since she was 22, more recently taking on evening hours so she could be home with her two daughters, Christine and Colleen. The work was finally taking its toll, and she was ready for a change. She was also ready for the dream.

Kathy hung up the phone, shaking her head in disbelief. She was finally going to do it. Her older daughter Christine, only five at the time, looked up at her, curious over her mother’s smile. Kathy looked down and said, “I’m going back to school. I’m going to be a teacher.”

Christine didn’t understand. Lip trembling, she asked, “But are you still going to be our mommy?”

Kathy took her daughter in her arms reassuringly. She would always be her mother. And now, she would be many things.

For love and tennis

Kathy Yohe had always loved tennis, but at 18 years old, it was a different kind of affection that made her decide to pause college after only one semester.

“My boyfriend at the time was a professional tennis player,” Kathy recalls, “and I decided to follow him to Chile. I lived abroad for the next three years and spent every day playing tennis.” The decision to take a road less traveled improved her game and her mastery of the Spanish language, something she also loved. It would also be the subject she chose to teach, finally pursuing her degree at 32.

For six years, Kathy balanced classes by day, work at night, and family obligations every minute in between. Looking back, she isn’t sure how she did it, but forever glad she did.

“After I graduated, I accepted my first teaching position at Northern Burlington, and it was everything I’d hoped,” Kathy shares. “Then, my husband’s work brought us to EHT, and while I enjoyed the school and the people I worked with, I didn’t want to make that long commute for the next twenty years.”

Kathy began interviewing, initially entertaining an offer from another local high school until a call came in from Mainland. Her husband’s family, all Mustang alums, told her there was nowhere better. The rest is teaching (and tennis) history.

Unmatched

Kathy welcomed her new position at Mainland, and three years in, she also accepted a role as assistant coach of the tennis team.

“I helped coach the tennis team at Northern Burlington, and so when Bernadette Daley, Mainland’s assistant coach, decided to step down, I jumped at the chance, joining Janice Mott, the longtime head coach,” Kathy recalls. “I have been a part of the tennis program ever since, eventually becoming the head coach in 2007 when Janice retired. Kathy Reardon joined me as the assistant head coach, and we’ve had such wonderful memories since.”

Kathy’s memories include a dominant program that routinely wins the Cape Athletic League and makes a run at the South Jersey championships more times than not. Among her earliest accomplishments was the 2010 South Jersey Group IV Championships, a come-from-behind win, securing the title for the first time in 20 years, a triumph the program has replicated seven times since.

“So much of our success comes from the players’ dedication and hard work, the parents’ support, and the unbelievable local instructors that prepare them for match play long before they come to high school, including Homer Pangilinan and his brother, Carlo, as well as Brian Godfrey.”

After more than two decades of teaching, Kathy Yohe made 2022 her last year in the classroom, but not on the courts. Ready to spend more time with her grandchildren, Kathy retired from teaching at Mainland, but her love of the game and her players kept her from leaving completely, and the fall 2022 season marked another CAL championship and her third undefeated season in a row.

“I have met numerous people and coaches during my career as an athletic administrator, but I have never met a more genuine, authentic, and caring individual as Kathy Yohe,” Mainland Athletic Director Mike Gatley affirms. “Kathy embodies the true definition of a coach—a class act in every respect—and she makes sure the student-athletes in her program always come first.”

For a teacher who found her way to the classroom a little later in life, we are happy to find her still on the Mainland courts, joined by assistant coach (and head coach for boys varsity tennis) Chris Connolly—both of whom are excited for another new season of tennis in 2023.

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