Albion has announced the hiring of Austin Hunt as director of tennis for both the men's and women's programs. He is scheduled to begin his new role on July 13.

Hunt arrives in Albion after serving as the head men's and women's tennis coach at Hope College, where he has been since 2021.

In his five seasons, Hunt led the men's program to four MIAA championship appearances and the women's team to four MIAA regular season titles and five MIAA Tournament crowns — continuing a streak of 14 consecutive tournament titles.

During his tenure, Hunt guided the Flying Dutch women's team to an overall record of 88-36, including a 38-1 mark in conference play, while ranking as high as No. 26 in the ITA poll during the 2023-24 season. They also qualified for the NCAA Tournament in each of his five seasons and won first round matches in four of those years. The men's program went 47-55, including a 26-8 record in conference play.

Hunt has mentored 16 All-MIAA selections on the men's side and 15 on the women's side. Seventeen of those have been first-team honorees, and three women's players have earned MIAA MVP honors.

Additionally, Hunt was honored with the MIAA Women's Tennis Coach of the Year award in each of the past two seasons.

"We are thrilled to welcome Austin and his family to Albion," director of athletics, Jennifer Rushton, said. "We had tremendous interest in our position, and Austin quickly separated himself during the process. He has proven himself as a strong recruiter and has had competitive success as a head coach. His plan to develop our student-athletes in the classroom, on the tennis courts and as leaders will without a doubt have our teams back to competing at the top of the MIAA. We are excited for the future of Briton tennis with Coach Hunt at the helm."

Prior to Hope, Hunt served as the assistant men's & women's tennis coach at Grand Valley during the 2020-21 season. That year, both squads competed in the GLIAC Tournament championship, and three members of each team were named All-GLIAC. Additionally, the women's program was ranked 33rd in the ITA end of the year rankings.

From 2018-20, Hunt served as assistant boys and girls tennis coach at Boyd High School in McKinney, Texas outside of Dallas where he taught an economics class for seniors.

Hunt played tennis collegiately at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids from 2012-16. He graduated with 94 combined career wins, which are ranked fifth in program history, including 46 singles victories — ranked fourth in team history. Additionally, Hunt was a three-time All-WHAC selection (including first-team in 2015), a WHAC All-Academic honoree in 2016 and a member of the WHAC Champions of Character Team in 2014.

The Odessa, Texas, native prepped at Permian High School — the subject of the best-selling book and renowned movie, Friday Night Lights. Hunt was a team captain for three years and was all-district in both singles and doubles all four seasons, graduating in 2012. As a junior and senior, Hunt qualified for the District 1-5A tournament and for the Texas state tournament in doubles where he finished in the top 16.

As a junior player competing in the USTA Gulf States Region, Hunt qualified for Texas Super-Champs level in every age division and was a two-star recruit by tennisrecruiting.net. He reached an all-time high ranking of No. 22 in the state of Texas and No. 420 nationally.

Hunt graduated from Cornerstone in 2016 with a bachelor's degree in exercise science and minor in history. He obtained his master's degree in sports management from the University of Michigan in 2017.

Tennis runs in the family for Hunt, as his father, Mark, was his assistant at Hope, the former head coach at Cornerstone after Austin competed and a 25-year high school coaching veteran in Texas. Austin's brother, Alex, is the head men's and women's coach at the University of Virginia's College at Wise.

Hunt and his wife, Kayla, have two daughters, Joanna and Evelyn.

"I would like to thank [director of athletics] Jennifer Rushton and [associate athletic director] Andy Lawrence for this amazing opportunity to be the new director of tennis and head coach of both programs at Albion," Hunt said. "I am extremely excited to begin the work to build these tennis programs into annual contenders for MIAA championships and beyond. Through our work both on and off the court, these Albion student-athletes will become the leaders they desire to be, and in turn, will go out into the world to build up other leaders. Go Brits!"