Steve Brooks enters his second year as Southeast Missouri's head women's tennis coach in the 2025-26 season.

In his first season, the Redhawks took the OVC regular season title with a perfect 5-0 record in OVC matches. In the championship season he also coached Lera Valeeva to first team All-OVC honors. Coach Brooks was also awarded the OVC Coach of the Year award in his debut season.

Brooks was named the 10th head coach in program history on Aug. 26, 2024. He comes to SEMO with more than 20 years of collegiate coaching experience, including 15 at the NCAA Division I level.

Prior to SEMO, Brooks worked as an assistant coach at fellow OVC member Tennessee State from 2022-24. There, he oversaw budgeting, facilities and travel. Brooks helped the Tigers earn a spot in the OVC Championship semifinals each of the last two years.

Before TSU, Brooks was the Director of Tennis/Pickleball Bristol Racquet & Fitness in Bristol, Tennessee for six years (2015-21).

He has previous head coaching experience working one year as interim head women’s tennis coach at Emory & Henry College (2019), nine seasons as head women’s tennis coach at East Tennessee State (2001-10) and two years as head men’s tennis coach at The Citadel (1999-01).

While at ETSU, Brooks guided the Bucs to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. In each of his final five years during his time in Johnson City, Brooks' teams played in the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament finals. His teams also boasted high academic honors with 60 academic all-conference selections, 27 ITA Scholar-Athlete picks, six ITA All-Academic teams, a Fulbright Scholar and a NCAA Sportsmanship Award.

In addition to ETSU, Brooks made other coaching stops at the University of Tennessee, University of Arkansas and his alma mater, Carson-Newman College.

As a collegiate player, Brooks earned undefeated conference records in both singles and doubles all four years at Carson-Newman. The winningest player in program history with 200 victories, Brooks ranked as high as eighth nationally in NAIA in 1984.

A native of Jefferson City, Tennessee, Brooks earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Carson-Newman in 1985. He completed his master's degree in administration/recreation at Tennessee in 1989.

Name	Title	Email Address	Phone	Mailstop
Steve Brooks	Head Coach	sbrooks@semo.edu	651-2548	0250
Mae Canete	Graduate Assistant

Upcoming Events

Results

Completed Event: Women's Tennis versus #3 Bryant on April 18, 2026 , Loss , 1, to, 4

Completed Event: Women's Tennis versus #7 Southern Indiana on April 17, 2026 , Win , 4, to, 0

Completed Event: Women's Tennis at Tennessee State on April 11, 2026 , Win , 7, to, 0

Completed Event: Women's Tennis versus Lindenwood on April 6, 2026 , Win , 5, to, 2

Completed Event: Women's Tennis at Western Illinois on April 3, 2026 , Loss , 3, to, 4

Completed Event: Women's Tennis at Missouri on April 2, 2026 , Loss , 1, to, 4

2026-27 Women's Tennis Coaching Staff

Coaching Staff

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