Michele Conlon - Head Coach - Staff Directory - Iowa State University Athletics

Staff Directory

Michele Conlon

Title:
Head Coach
Email:
Phone:
(515) 294-3418

Academic and athletic excellence, strong team unity and a well-rounded collegiate experience have been the foundation of Iowa State’s tennis program under head coach Michele Conlon. The Iowa State women’s tennis team is off to a great start in 2007 and is working to capitalize on the success Cyclone tennis has achieved in recent years. In 2004, Sabrina Evers was named to the All-Big 12 Team in one of the toughest conferences in the nation and the Cyclones earned a national ranking in 2002 at No. 68.

At ISU, Conlon is not only a coach, but also serves as a mentor for her players off the court. Under her tenure, there have been 38 first-team academic all-conference players, including five in 2007. It was the seventh consecutive year that at least half of Conlon’s squad was picked to a Big 12 Conference academic team. With a 100-percent graduation rate during Conlon’s 16 years at the helm, Iowa State’s tennis teams consistently maintain one of the highest team grade-point averages among all Cyclone athletic programs. The 2007 team was recognized as an ITA All-Academic Team with four of the eight ISU team members earning ITA Scholar-Athlete honors.

Conlon’s strong community involvement is evident in her role as the director of Ames’ largest tennis event, the annual ISU Pro-Am. She is a current member and former board member for the Ames Morning Rotary Club. She has served as Director for the Iowa Special Olympics Tennis Tournament. Conlon is currently a member of the Hall of Fame and Collegiate Committees for the Iowa Tennis Association and is chair of the Missouri Valley Collegiate Committee. Conlon was the tennis venue coordinator for the first-ever National Special Olympics Games held in Ames, Iowa, in July 2006.

She is a graduate of the United States Tennis Association’s High Performance Coaching Program. Conlon has been a featured speaker at high school coaches conventions, is a member of the United States Professional Tennis Association and United States Professional Tennis Registry, and serves as a Wilson Advisory Staff Member. The Iowa City, Iowa, native has been teaching tennis as a professional for 20 years across the globe, including Marin County, Calif., and Germany. Before being named the women’s tennis head coach at ISU in the summer of 1992, Conlon served two years as an assistant for the Cyclone men’s and women’s tennis teams. From 1988 to 1990, she served as a graduate assistant for the Iowa women’s tennis team.

A four-time letterwinner at the University of Iowa, Conlon was the Hawkeyes’ top player in singles and doubles from 1983 to 1987. During the summer of 1992, Conlon was honored as the Women’s Tennis Athlete of the Decade by the University of Iowa. She was also honored as the UI tennis program’s Academic Athlete of the Decade. At Iowa, Conlon received the team’s 1985 most valuable player award and earned 1985 All-Big Ten Conference honors. During her collegiate career, she was named the 1987 Big Ten Sportswoman of the Year and was nominated for the Big Ten Conference Medal of Honor.

While attending Iowa, Conlon was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Pi Lambda Theta honoree and earned Dean’s List recognition seven semesters. She was one of two student-athletes in the United States to serve as a member of the NCAA Long Range Planning Committee, and was named Physical Education Major of the Year at Iowa. She received her master’s degree in athletic administration from Iowa in 1990 after earning her bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1988.

In 1994, Conlon was inducted into the State of Iowa Tennis Hall of Fame. In 2002 she was inducted into the Iowa City High School Hall of Fame in Iowa City, Iowa.