Blake Freels was about five or six years old when his father started taking him to tennis practice. They lived right down the street from the old Centralia High School, where the courts were, and Blake would walk over after school to hang around and hit balls while his dad ran practice. Craig Freels was the Centralia tennis coach for more than 30 years. His wife, Nancy, was the special education teacher. Their son grew up inside that school in every sense of the word — and now he works in it.

Blake graduated from Centralia in 2002, went to state all four years in doubles tennis, played collegiately at Lakeland College in Mattoon, transferred to Eastern Illinois University where he eventually worked behind the scenes with the basketball program as a grad assistant, spent a couple of years managing a Bally Total Fitness club in South County, Missouri, and then came back home when the Annex opened and needed staff. He has been the head tennis coach at Centralia High School for 14-plus years. The sport his father built here, he's now tending.

His day job is as a paraprofessional at the Annex, the school's separate behavioral support facility located behind the main building. The Annex, which has been operating for 16 years, houses students with IEPs and behavior-related needs across four classrooms, along with three additional classrooms through the CASE program for students from placements such as the Murray Center, the Hoylton Children's Home, and One Hope United. In total, the Annex serves more than 60 students at any given time, ranging from high schoolers to younger students in specialized placements. Blake works with the behavioral classrooms — a population that runs the full spectrum from students with significant support needs to those who are otherwise functioning at grade level but need a different environment to succeed. He's working toward a special education certification to add to his general studies degree from Eastern Illinois, which he expects to complete within a couple of years.

The tennis program Blake has built reflects his own upbringing in the sport — with one significant difference. When he was coming up, Centralia had active USTA junior programs and summer tournaments drawing players from across Southern Illinois every weekend. He even competed on a Junior Davis Cup team, representing the region against Midwestern states in tournaments as far as Kalamazoo and Indianapolis. None of that infrastructure exists anymore. "Mostly now, when I get a kid that starts playing tennis, it's usually the first time — it's the first day he comes out for practice," he says. A sport that was once built from years of community competition now starts from scratch with most players.

That makes what the team has accomplished in recent years more impressive, not less. The boys' squad won conference and sectionals two years running, and in 2024 the entire team qualified for state — something that hadn't happened at Centralia since 1983. In Illinois tennis, every player must individually qualify for state regardless of how the team performs, which means even the fifth and sixth singles players have to beat top-ranked competition to get there. Getting the whole roster through is genuinely rare. Blake has two assistants helping with the boys' team: Steve Betz and Eli Dobbs. Steve Betz also assists with the girls' team, which last fall had 21 players — a healthy number by any measure.

The girls' program is a work in progress. Many girls come to tennis later than boys do, often arriving as juniors or seniors after other sports didn't pan out. Boys tend to come out earlier, giving the program more time to develop them. "If they come out freshman year, I've got two more years," Blake says. "That helps tremendously." The boys' squad currently has 18 players as spring practice begins.

For the summer, Blake runs open courts two or three times a week — not just for current players, but for any young person who wants to come hit. There are no regional junior tournaments left to point toward, but he keeps the courts available and the opportunity open. His long-term vision for the program is more about lifespan than trophies. "It's a lifelong sport," he says. "You can find a buddy or your wife and play it all your life." He tells his players that. He means it.

At home, Blake and his wife Jessica have a 16-month-old son named Tripp who, by all accounts, already loves anything with a ball. Blake says he won't pressure him toward tennis. But the courts are right there, and the family history is hard to avoid. The third generation of Freels at Centralia High School is just getting started.