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Jon Renberger has some of the strongest currency possible in attracting recruits. He has a lot of scholarship money and two entire rosters to fill.

Avila University, an NAIA Division I private school located in Kansas City, Missouri, will be adding men’s and women’s tennis programs for the 2024-25 school year. Tennis was originally sponsored by Avila, but was disbanded in the early 1980s.

Renberger was recently hired as the head coach for both the men’s and women’s programs at Avila.

The student population at Avila has grown over the last few years and the university leadership wanted to grow the athletic programs. Tennis is the third sport added since 2020, along with wrestling and bowling for both men and women.

Avila is in the process of building a tennis facility on campus that will include six lighted courts.

“We have tremendous support from the president of the university Dr. Jim Burkee, who has a tennis background, and the athletic director, Shawn Summe,” Renberger said. “They have been able to generate private donations from the community for the facility and to support the program in general. We are just so blessed that NAIA Division I school wants to grow and start programs as opposed to cutting them.”

Avila will play in the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference (KCAC), which is the oldest conference in NAIA.

The school offers over 60 degree programs, among them Business, Nursing, Education, Computer Science, Sports Communication, Public Relations/Advertising, Psychology, and Criminology and Justice Studies.

Renberger is starting from scratch in building each roster before the fall season arrives. He has two players who committed to the women’s team before he was hired, and one player for the men’s roster who is a soccer player at the school.

“We have a tremendous opportunity and significant scholarships available,” he said. “The minimum would be having enough players to compete next year, but I am hoping to have rosters of at least 10 or more scholarship players and we have those all available right now.”

Renberger, a University of Kansas graduate, has coached for 32 years in either college or high school. He started at Ottawa University in Kansas as a 22-year-old in 1990, and spent two years at University of Saint Mary in Kansas as the men’s and women’s tennis coach.

In returning to college coaching again more than 20 years later, Renberger has been given a unique chance to build two programs from the ground up.

“We want to kind of focus inside-out with our recruiting,” he said. “We definitely are going to recruit the KC metro area and heavily in the states of Kansas and Missouri. But we certainly want to expand it to the entire country and internationally as well, because I think that creates the most dynamic mix and creates a very healthy team chemistry.”

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About Rhiannon Potkey

Rhiannon Potkey is a veteran sportswriter with more than two decades of experience in journalism. Potkey has covered many sports at many levels and has a passion for finding great stories. Potkey has covered the U.S. Open, junior sectional and national events, college conference championships and Davis Cup matches. Potkey is currently Content Strategist for Tennis Recruiting. You can reach Rhiannon by email at [email protected].