Longtime tennis coach Eckenburg takes over as Rocklin AD

Dale Eckenburg first stepped foot on Rocklin High School's campus in 1998 after taking a job as a geography teacher. In those 26 years, he has become a staple in the athletics community at Rocklin and built one of the Sac-Joaquin Section's top boys and girls tennis programs. Most recently, Eckenburg coached the 2023 Rocklin girls tennis team to a Division I section championship appearance and while he will still be at the helm of the program this fall, he will add athletic director duties to his schedule. "The biggest change for me will be not teaching every day," Eckenburg says. "We have a great support staff here. Cindy York is amazing as our athletic secretary, and Jeff Harter is going to continue to help out and take on some responsibilities with some of the social media and advertising. I will always have resources to help me out." Eckenburg has been helping with the athletic office on campus at games but says there are plenty of new duties in his day-to-day routine now that he is the man in charge. "I've been involved for the last 20 years or so, so there are some things that aren't totally new but there's just those little things that come up like when the lights don't work in the gym or when someone asks specific questions about something," Eckenburg said. "There's a lot that I'm gonna find out. The biggest difference is those little things that I was involved with on a day-to-day basis that come into play now that I'm the AD." Eckenburg added there are several core values he has instilled in his tennis team over the years that he wants to expand to Rocklin athletics as a whole, hoping to improve on an already strong culture and sense of community. "I have some things that I've kept for our girls tennis and our boys tennis programs on the academic and community side," Eckenburg said. "I'm going to try to bring some of that to some programs that we can improve on to continue our success." He said he has seen tremendous support from the coaching staff on campus, which is making the transition easier for him. "We have a great coaching staff. We have coaches that have been here a long time, so I just want to support them and what they're doing and and and more support is something we can always be better at," Eckenburg said. "If we're successful on Tuesday afternoon, we're going to be successful on Friday night. Friday night is a term that we use for all of our sports, that's when the lights are bright."