Plenty of sons follow in their father’s professional footstep − police officers, firemen, bankers, soldiers and coaches. There are several notable examples in athletics: Dick and Tony Bennett, the John Thompsons (II and III), Jim Mora (Sr. and Jr.) and the Bowden family (father and two sons) but with a few exceptions, they aren’t coaching at the same time and certainly not against one another. They don’t face each other in conference play often.

But that happened April 4 in Atlantic-10 Conference men’s tennis, when Jim Boykin’s Charlotte 49ers hosted Billy Boykin’s Richmond Spiders. The 2009 season is Jim’s 16th with Charlotte and Billy’s first as a head tennis coach, and round one went to the more seasoned father as the 49ers swept the Spiders, 7-0.

While Jim is a wily veteran and Billy a rookie head coach, both have a passion for the game that crosses generations. Though their paths to the tennis courts were different, they are similar people.

“When I was going to school, I learned from a great deal of coaches,” said Jim, who has coached for 38 years, four of them in basketball.

“I started out coaching basketball, but I learned how to play tennis in two months, eight hours a day one summer. If you have a passion for the game and like young people, then coaching can be a lot of fun and not seem like work.”

Billy grew up in South Carolina while Jim worked at Anderson College, and the family moved to Davidson when he took the job at Charlotte. Billy got to sneak on to courts while his dad held practices and worked at camps and clinics in the area. He also hung out with and watched local tennis professionals.

By the time Billy was choosing a college, Jim recruited his son to play for the 49ers, but Billy’s ties to home in Davidson and the family’s relationship with longtime Wildcats coach Jeff Frank kept Billy on the northern side of the Mecklenburg County.

“Going to Davidson was a tough decision for me,” said Billy. “My mom and sisters lived right there. I needed a smaller school environment. Dad actively encouraged me to go to any college that I wanted, but at the end of the day it was a better fit at Davidson. Coach Frank was a great mentor to me and a good friend of Dad’s.”

Jim was a proud parent, but he lost out on a top player for his own team. He ended up having to face his son and Davidson every season. He always had mixed feelings about playing the Wildcats, but the coach would separate himself from the father on those days, if only for a few hours.

“I wasn’t as worried about playing my son as I was about my team playing well,” said Jim. “It was a win-win when he beat some of my best players but our team won. I didn’t want our guys to lose, but I did want Billy and my players opposite him to play well.”

“I felt bad for the guy who had to play me from Charlotte,” said Billy. “I knew most of Dad’s players and I thought there was a little extra pressure on that guy to win. At the end of the day, it was just competition. You play the guy in front of you.”

After graduation, Billy went into finance, learning that his competitive spirit as a collegiate athlete would serve him well in the private sector. But he yearned for a career in academia, and his thoughts turned to tennis and teaching something he loved.

“Knowing Billy, I understand why he wanted to get into coaching,” Jim noted. “He’s a competitive person and I knew he would be a great teacher. My first thought was ‘You went to Davidson and got a great education and had a great job in the business world,’ and I kidded him that he was crazy.”

Billy spent time as an assistant at Davidson and as the assistant for both the men’s and women’s programs at College of Charleston before landing the Richmond job last year.

The two were close before Billy’s move to coaching, but became closer after the change. Billy said that most of his coaching philosophy comes from his father, but that there is an influence from other mentors.

“Billy is way ahead of me in terms of knowledge of the game than when I started,” Jim admitted. “He understands the academic constraints he works with at Richmond since he went to Davidson. He understands a smaller school atmosphere and how to get guys to compete.”

Both men said that facing each other was a good life lesson for their teams.

“What a great example to our young players,” said Billy. “We are professional rivals and we will prepare our teams as best we can. We’ll play, and then shake hands and still be close afterward.”
       
“We just want our players to perform the best that they can,” said Jim “Win or lose, the effort just needs to be there and the winning will take care of itself.”

Ryan Rose is assistant director for media relations at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.