Once an assistant coach for WJ boys’ basketball, Chase Rieder is returning to the WJ coaching staff, this time as the varsity boys tennis coach.
Q: Was the decision to leave WJ a hard one? Why did you ultimately leave?
Chase Rieder: Yeah, no, It was definitely a hard decision. I was coaching the JV boys’ basketball team for five years, and I was also a para-educator at Walter Johnson and during COVID, got an opportunity to be a special education teacher at North Bethesda Middle School, and then I got the opportunity to coach varsity boys basketball at Northwest High School. That’s why I ultimately left Walter Johnson to take on a bigger role in coaching varsity boys.
Q:What was the biggest factor for wanting to come back and coach at WJ?
A: Yeah, so you know for me, it was a good experience to, you know, work with a different school, different demographics, but ultimately, I always had the vision to come back to Walter JohnsonHigh School. Actually, this past fall, I was working with Coach Worden with the girls’ flag football team. And I am also currently the assistant varsity boys’ basketball coach with Coach Parish. And then when I got the opportunity to interview for the tennis coach position I jumped on that, as I wanted to fully be back Walter Johnson for myself. I’ve always wanted to challenge myself with different opportunities to always be improving my coaching. And I thought, you know, getting opportunities to coach a different sport would be a great opportunity, exciting, you know, and I would only do it at Walter Johnson because of the community.
Q: Do you think it’d be a lot different coaching tennis instead of just basketball?
A: So yeah, obviously, you know (coaching a totally different sport), everybody always associates me as a basketball guy, but I actually play a lot of tennis and know the sport pretty well. I actually come from more of a tennis background, as my grandfather played until he was 91 and my uncle played tennis in college. But that would definitely be like I said, back to what I was saying earlier, a challenge, as it’s something new for me, but I can definitely bring my background and experience coaching basketball because a lot of it is using footwork, being in shape, so, you know, it will translate pretty easily, and I am pretty confident that I can do that as I coached girls playing football this season; we were very successful.
Q: What are you most looking forward to in terms of coaching this year?:
A: Most exciting to look for is building new relationships with different types of students. You know, I think for years and years, I’ve always built relationships with the basketball players and obviously, you know, doing this with a different sport, and bringing my experiences to a different sport allows me to hopefully build new positive relationships. But openly, it’s about being part of the community again, and just opening up to another group of kids and building those relationships.
