Kent Kinnear sits on the dark metal bench to the right of the chair umpire at the Atkins Tennis Center. His head turns from side-to-side as he watches the tennis ball bounce over the net. With each shot he seems to be making careful calculations, digesting each point and trying to determine how Illinois senior Pramod Dabir can best counter his opponent.

As Dabir returns to his bench, Kinnear stands up, giving him a high five and making room for him on the bench. Dabir reaches for his water bottle while Kinnear evaluates the performance of sophomore Ryan Rowe, who is competing on the adjacent court. He cups his hands over his mouth, shouting instruction to the lefty from Moline, Ill. Rowe finishes the point and Kinnear slides onto the bench next to Dabir. Winning his match handily, Dabir needs little encouragement or instruction. The men talk for a few minutes before Dabir heads back to the tennis courts, smiling at a private joke he and his coach shared.

On match nights, Kinnear sports a white polo with Illinois’ block “I” logo and khakis. His arms remain folded across his chest, just under the lone blue stripe on his shirt, for the majority of the night. His black leather portfolio always within sight, he will sit, flip to a blank sheet of paper, and begin scribbling ferociously for a few minutes. He is tracking the athletes’ games, noting their opponents’ weaknesses and writing about future adjustments the Illini need to make.

As he saunters between the courts with a quiet self-confidence and poise, he seems like he has always been meant to coach at Illinois, even though, until this year, he had never coached a collegiate match.

Kent Kinnear was born Nov. 30, 1966 and grew up mostly in Greenwood, Ind. At age 7, he played in his first tennis tournament and decided he wanted to be a tennis player. He not only became a tennis player, though, he became one of the best doubles players of the 1990s.

Kinnear’s various accomplishments, which he ticks off detachedly, as if talking about someone else, are more than impressive. He won four World Series Tour events in doubles. He beat the No.1-ranked team in doubles five different times. He won two singles titles. He picked up a doubles win against Stefan Edberg and Pat Cash early in his career, which marked a turning point where he began to believe that he really did belong in a tennis world dominated by Pete Sampras, Michael Chang, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi.

He has played against Chang, Sampras, Patrick Rafter, John and Patrick McEnroe, Luke Jensen, Boris Becker, Paul Annacone, Jared Palmer and Rick Leach. And, although Kinnear spent more than a decade surrounded by the world’s most elite tennis players, which he describes as a “surreal” experience, he maintains a fairly simplistic approach to the sport.

“Tennis is not the most important thing in life, but it is a way that you can experience a lot of things and influence people,” Kinnear said. “It’s not like I really want to be known as a tennis player, but more like someone who just happens to play tennis.”

In many ways, his unique perspective may have foreshadowed a successful coaching career long before he first entertained the idea. While traveling on the professional tour, Kinnear often spoke at events, trying to influence young people to make good decisions with their lives. He spent his first years after retiring from professional tennis working with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and serving on its Board of Directors. He founded a player development program for young juniors that emphasized learning tennis and life skills at the same time. But coaching college tennis was still a long way off.

Last year, as Illinois won its ninth consecutive Big Ten regular season title and earned its fourth straight Big Ten Championship at the Atkins Tennis Center, Kinnear was at the Cary Tennis Center in Cary, N.C. watching Clemson, his alma mater, compete at the ACC Championships. Although the Tigers lost in the quarterfinals to Wake Forest, Kinnear said he was drawn to the athletes’ competitive spirit and their intensity. He still fondly remembers his playing days at Clemson and keeps in contact with Chuck Kriese, his former coach, and his former teammates.

“Coaching, in that scenario, was really starting to appeal to me,” Kinnear said.

Shortly after those championships, when talking to a newspaper reporter, he began to realize how much his life had been affected by his coaches. The two most influential people in his life, outside of his family, were coaches.

As the summer progressed, it became apparent that Kinnear would get a shot to coach collegiate tennis. In June, former Illinois head coach Craig Tiley left to take over player development for Tennis Australia. By the end of June, Brad Dancer was appointed as his replacement. For the second consecutive year, an Illinois head coach faced the daunting task of sifting through a “boatload” of applications for the assistant coach position – Tiley had picked Dancer as his associate head coach the previous year from a pool of more than 65 applicants.

Although there were many qualified candidates, Kent Kinnear stood apart from the others.

The two Illinois coaches met for the first time at the RCA Championships in Indianapolis, Ind. Several of Dancer’s friends at the professional level spoke highly of Kinnear. Although the two had never met before, they hit it off instantly. The “quick lunch” they had arranged to talk about the coaching position, turned into a three-and-a-half-hour discussion. By the time the meeting ended, there was little doubt that Dancer had found his new assistant coach.

Kinnear was the perfect model for the program that Tiley built, despite his lack of coaching experience. Focused on player development, he was determined to help the young Illini attain their goals of playing professionally while maintaining the highest levels of integrity within the program – by recruiting high-quality athletes with impeccable character.

Approachable and warm, Kinnear is a player’s coach. Drawing on the coaching he received early in his life, Kinnear has developed a style all his own. He constantly asks himself if his approach will help the players develop into promising professionals. If a technique will not benefit the athletes in the long run, he discards it from his coaching arsenal.

“You don’t really realize how much your coaches did for you until you actually coach,” Kinnear said. “You can see (my former coaches’) fingerprints all over the things that I am sharing with the guys and that I feel are important.”

Kent Kinnear stands 6-foot-5, with strawberry blond hair and translucent blue eyes. When he speaks, everyone listens. His stories of life on the professional tour keep the members of the men’s tennis team mesmerized. He thoughtfully responds to the team members’ questions, his deep voice encouraging and unchanging. Kinnear has evolved from the quiet coach, who once knew very little about the athletes’ playing styles in September, to a coach the men have grown to admire and try to emulate, said Illinois senior Ryler DeHeart.

“He has really stepped up and been a presence on the team,” DeHeart said.

Sitting in his office after an individual practice with sophomore Ruben Gonzales, it is evident that Kinnear relishes coaching and being able to help steer and mold the athletes during their formative college years. The screensaver on his laptop shows the members of the Illinois men’s tennis team, volunteer assistant coach CJ Weber and student trainer Nate VanRaden, covered in dirt and mud after riding ATVs in Manzanillo, Mexico, where the team played in a tournament over winter break.

He said he knows that the “world is crazy in a lot of ways,” and he wants to positively influence the Illini. By the time the players leave the University, he hopes they will be good people. Kinnear hopes they will learn the importance of taking care of little details, being responsible, dealing with others in an honorable way and handling adversity well.

“In life, you don’t really have the rankings and things that you have in the sport,” Kinnear said. “But probably the biggest fulfillment is trying to influence people and lives in a positive light.”

In the past, Kinnear was able to influence large numbers of people at a time. Now, Kinnear has traded his role in the public spotlight for, what he feels will be a much more influential one. Instead of speaking to masses of people, he is responsible for helping the athletes on the tennis team make a seamless transition to manhood during their years at the University. He knows that with this team his role goes much further than that of an ordinary coach.

The Illinois men’s tennis team is more like an extended family, where each individual plays their own role. Kinnear has not only defined his role on the team, but he has also redefined the role of the Illinois assistant coach.

In some ways, he is much like Bruce Berque, the former associate head coach who spent six years at Illinois before taking the head coaching job at Michigan, DeHeart said. He is meticulous, much like the former Illini leader, and believes in the importance of hard work and pushing the athletes to excel.

In other ways, however, he is much different.

Kinnear finds being a husband and a new dad the most fulfilling part of his life. He does not know how long he plans to coach at Illinois, but will re-evaluate his tenure at the end of the season. He is light-hearted and finds a way to balance fun and the demands of coaching. But the fire of competition is still alive in his soul.

“Kent is a source of untapped knowledge (for the team) ,” said DeHeart, who said he will remain in contact with Kinnear long after he has finished his own professional career. “Kent is going to be involved in tennis his whole life, in one way or another.”