Theo Laport'16 was named Interim Head Men's and Women's Tennis Coach on Jan. 2024.
Laport comes to Bard from South Towns Tennis Club located in the greater Buffalo area, where he coached players of all ages and levels. In addition to teaching, he helped develop lesson plans, instructional videos, and innovative drills for a local youth tennis organization (ROGace) to enable new tennis coaches to run effective classes for beginner, intermediate, and advanced players. Laport was also involved in multiple outreach programs, going into local schools and organizing an inter-club summer tournament.
Prior to his time at South Towns, he also taught private lessons in the Hudson Valley and at Rhinebeck Tennis Club, where he assisted with adult clinics, co-ran a summer camp, and served as the groundskeeper, taking care of things from court maintenance to racquet stringing and re-gripping.
A 2016 graduate of Bard with a B.A. in Philosophy, Laport was a captain of the Bard men's tennis team for three seasons and won the coaches' award three years in a row. Laport was also a three-time Liberty League All-Academic honoree. He graduated with a Ph.D. in German Literature and Critical Thought from Northwestern University in 2023.
