About Carol
As the Founding Head of ATA College Prep, Carol strives to develop a well-rounded student-athlete by encouraging individual thought, self-awareness, and personal responsibility through academic challenges, cultural and artistic experiences, and community service activities. Her focus is to inspire and mentor a love of learning by individualizing each student’s program according to personal goals, learning styles, strengths, and affinities, culminating in the best college choice – academically, athletically and culturally.
Before found ATA College Prep, she served for 15 years as the Founding Director of the Austin Area Home School Cooperative – bringing together hundreds of students and their families, organizing classes, and forming a community with a passion for learning. Carol continues to use a creative combination of resources to individualize programming, and counsels students and parents through the college and NCAA processes.
Carol is a USTA Texas player and committee member. She has two children: Hannah, an artist-musician who received her BA in Political Science, her MA in Music Business from NYU, and currently serves as the Director of Music and Events at Hotel Van Zandt. Josh, an ATA College Prep graduate, graduated from Notre Dame where he served as a team captain. He currently lives in Chicago, working in the FinTech industry and coaching tennis.
Her many other ‘children’ are teaching, dancing, acting, investing, studying and making the world a better place to live and play.
Carol holds degrees in Architecture and Environmental Design form Texas A&M University and Mind-Brain-Education from Johns Hopkins University.
You can reach Carol at carol.hagar@austintennisacademy.com
About Tommy
Tommy Collins joined the Austin Tennis Academy staff full time after serving two years as a part-time Academy coach while in college. The start of 2019 marked the beginning of his 10th year working full time at ATA. For eight of those, he has taught at ATA College Prep.
For the past 4 years, Tommy has served as the Humanities Lead at ATA College Prep, teaching MS and HS English, Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Journalism, World Religions, and serving as a writing tutor. He also works as the Digital Marketing Manager and an Academy coach during the summer months.
Outside of ATA, Tommy helps grow a local Austin tech company,MyTennisLessons.com– a service that pairs clients nationwide with a private tennis coach in the area. The business recently launchedFitnessTrainer.com– the same concept but for personal training.
Tommy graduated from St. Edward’s University in 2009 with a degree in Philosophy and a minor in Journalism. While at St. Edward’s, he worked as an Intern, Sports Editor and Editor-in-Chief of Hilltop Views, the St, Edward’s student newspaper.
Tommy was a four-year varsity letter winner as a college tennis player, compiling a career singles record of 46-22 and a career double record of 36-19. In high school, he played for Highland Park High School in Dallas, earning two team state championships while serving as team captain his senior year.
Click on the ATA Insights graphic just below to view ‘A Conversation With Tommy’ video.
Bryan Rutherford is ATA College Prep’s Math and Science Lead teacher, but he’s interested in everything and occasionally teaches just about anything. He has been teaching professionally since joining Teach for America in 2008, and has taught at ATA since 2011. In private life, Bryan writes encyclopedia articles for Wikipedia, plays board games with friends, and helps his wife to homeschool their two daughters.
Bryan believes in the value of making interdisciplinary connections among ideas and strives to use discussions in one subject to teach ideas from another. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Physics and a B.A in English from Rice University.
Click on the ATA Insights graphic just below to view ‘A Conversation With Bryan’ video.
ABOUT BRIAN
Coach Brian Notis serves as Director of Junior Academy, coordinates ATA’s Advanced Junior Team Tennis teams, as well as a dozen tournaments each year. He also serves as a math teacher at ATA College Prep. Coach Notis combines a passionate enthusiasm with a disciplined approach to fundamentals, creating an ideal environment for player development.
Respected throughout Texas as a premier coach, Coach Notis received the Capital Area Tennis Association’s Junior Coach of the Year award in 2004 and the USTA Texas Section’s Lloyd Sessions Educational Merit Award in 2008. He gives back to the game of tennis and our Texas juniors as a USTA Texas Section volunteer; serves on the Junior Tennis Council and is the Vice Chairman of the Junior Team Tennis Committee.
Coach Notis continues to compete on the court at a national level. Over the past two decades, Coach Notis has earned 28 USTA balls, including 6 gold ball national championships. He has coached several of his primary students to top 10 Texas and top 100 national rankings.
Accomplishments
- At Tyler Junior College, both the men’s and women’s squads each earned two NCAA National Championships under his three-year tenure and leadership
- Led the tennis team at Houston’s Clear Lake High School to a #5 state 5A ranking, including a win over 5A powerhouse Austin Westlake.
- Earned All-American honors all three years he played at University of Texas Tyler, with an NAIA team National Championship in 1994.
- Held Managing Director at Faulkner Tennis Center in Tyler, Texas. He was also the Director of Junior Development at Westwood Country Club.
Coach Notis graduated from University of Texas at Tyler with a B.S. in Mathematics. He grew up in the Bronx, New York.
Click on the ATA Insights graphic just below to view ‘A Conversation With Brian’ video.
ABOUT LINDA
Linda should have been born in Texas, but the USAF decided she would be born in Arizona. She did eventually make her way to Texas, attending high school in San Antonio and then receiving B.A. degrees in English, Computer Science, and Mathematical Sciences from Rice University.
After a stint with IBM in Austin, Linda began pursuing her greatest passion – offspring. She and her husband (Bill) created three amazing human beings. These three amazing human beings then created Linda’s passion for teaching, and Linda and Bill decided to homeschool their offspring. Homeschooling led to teaching at the Austin Area Homeschool Cooperative which led, over time, to teaching here at ATA College Prep. Linda enjoys teaching mathematics, literature, grammar, theater, and history. She believes in the Oxford comma.
Although Linda has little innate athletic talent, she does enjoy lifting weights and punching bags with her little, red boxing gloves. Her offspring obviously inherited some recessive genes, and all became college varsity athletes – the girls both in crew and the boy in tennis (after some time here at ATA) – giving Linda some solid second-hand understanding of the athletic mind.
Linda also enjoys reading (my first love), cooking (and the corollary eating), and drama (both in and out of the theater). She is currently on the board of the Lakeway Players and directs a show about once a year.
Linda is not prone to philosophizing, believing that Coach Tommy has that sewn up, but if she did have a philosophy of teaching it would be:
1) The most valuable thing you can learn is how to teach yourself.
2) The most valuable thing you can teach is how to work.
Simple, but not easy.
ABOUT SHAELA
Shaela Rutherford has been offering art classes at ATA College Prep since 2016. She is trained as a ceramicist and has also worked as an art educator in fine arts museums. Shaela holds a B.F.A. from the University of Texas Permian Basin and a Masters in Art Education from the University of Texas at Austin.
ABOUT YANG
Yang Wang was born and raised in China, and has been living in Austin, Texas for 12 years. She has a Master’s degree in Geophysics from University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelor’s degree in Science from the University of Science and Technology of China.
Yang Wang is the director and owner of Westlake Chinese Academy, which was founded in 2014. She has developed a series of effective Chinese learning programs for American learners. During the summer, her school takes American teachers and students to China to teach local kids English and learn Chinese language in a fully immersive environment. Her school also brings Chinese students to the U.S. for cultural and language exchange winter camps and summer camps.
Yang Wang joined ATA College Prep in Spring, 2016. She has taught Geometry and has been teaching Chinese and PreCalculus. She sets high expectations for students in both math and Chinese classes. Her classes are well structured and goal oriented.
ABOUT RACHEL
Originally from Dallas, Texas, Rachel Belkin has been a teacher for most of her life, teaching and tutoring since she was in high school. Rachel loves learning, teaching, and helping others, and has a wide variety of interests and experiences. She double majored in Spanish and Psychology and minored in Business at the University of Texas at Austin.
Rachel enjoys traveling and has spent time living, working, and studying in a few different countries. After college, she had a variety of jobs including working at the Texas State Capitol and in the finance department at the Texas Rehabilitation Commission. She even explored film work by being an extra in some movies, commercials, and music videos.
After a couple of years in the “real world”, Rachel decided she wanted to be a teacher. She received a Master’s degree in Education and a teaching certificate from Texas State University.
She taught Math at West Ridge Middle School, but once she had her sons, Evan and Noah, she decided to stay at home and tutor part-time.
Rachel started teaching at ATA College Prep in the fall of 2017.
In addition to teaching and tutoring, Rachel is a blogger, influencer, and content creator. She writes about lifestyle topics on both her blog and as a freelance writer. She is a public speaker and has contributed online publications to HuffPost and Hometalk, and has been featured on Fox 7 Austin and CBS Austin.
ABOUT SARAH
From early on Sarah loved children and knew she wanted to be a teacher. Language always interested her, so she attended Texas State University where she earned a degree in English and a degree in Spanish with teaching certification. It was there she also met her husband, John. Her first teaching job was in Houston teaching Spanish, but she soon wanted to live abroad to truly learn and understand the Spanish culture. Living in Madrid, she became certified to teach English as a foreign language and worked at a language academy for a year.
After becoming engaged, she returned home to Austin, where she was born and raised, to get married and begin a new chapter. She worked in Leander Independent School District as an ELA teacher and was department chair of English, Pre-AP chair, and on the AVID committee.
Sarah loves working with children and teaching language in creative ways. She is passionate about helping kids understand how to use their own voices by listening to others’ through literature, music, art, and poetry. After working in public schools for 11 years, Sarah decided to stay home with her babies. The fulfillment of teaching soon called to Sarah, and she returned to the classroom at ATACP in the fall of 2017.
Sarah is married to John Schoenmakers, who has been a tennis coach at ATA for the past 12 years. They have 3 children: Jacob, Adam, and Catherine. ATA has been like a second home, and you can often find any of the Schoenmakers clan at ATA running around, playing tennis, and enjoying life. Sarah loves to cook, sew, and spend time with her family doing anything outside.
Born and raised in Austin, Hannah Hagar has spent most of her time making music. She started writing and performing as a kid at various fundraisers and local city events before eventually meeting producer and engineer, David Murray (City of Austin Economic Development Department, Music & Entertainment Division). She recorded for over four years in Murray’s central Austin studio; and with the help of Austin legends like Roscoe Beck and Brannen Temple, in 2008, Hagar released her debut album, Portraits.
Over the next decade, Hannah continued to write, record, and perform under her own name, as well as with other artists including Reed Turner, Joanna Barbera, and Emily Wolfe. Through touring, she found a passion for the off-stage as well – artist and tour management, event production and talent buying, and sync licensing and brand activations. Hannah has since worked with a number of organizations including New York University (event production), Sony Sync Shop (sync licensing), and Havas (music production).
She is currently the Director of Music & Social Programming at the Hotel Van Zandt and Geraldine’s. When she is not at work, Hannah teaches songwriting and guitar at ATA College Prep, and enjoys going on adventures with her girlfriend, Haley — traveling to new cities, states, countries; exploring new restaurants, recipes, wines, cocktails; boating, boot camps, camping, climbing, seeing live music and theatre.
Hagar holds a B.A. in Political Science from St. Edward’s University, and an M.A. in Music Business from New York University.
ABOUT ANA
Ana Bosada was born and raised in Mexico City, and being native from there makes her very proud to teach her language and her culture. She likes to take advantage of her personal experience in order to implement her teaching methods. Ana started teaching Spanish at ATA College Prep in the fall of 2018.
She has always been very passionate about health and fitness. Ana played tennis at College at Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM) and also taught tennis at Carmel Valley Tennis Camp in California where she was also in charge of Marketing and the Administration of the Wilson sponsorship.
After college, Ana started working at Banco Santander Mexicano in the International Corporate Banking departments where she was selected for the program “Formation for Future Directors” and was transferred to Madrid, Spain for a special training in Global Business. After Madrid, she moved to Chile and Venezuela and worked as a Cash Management Executive, specializing on treasury flow and was responsible of the relation with Financial Officers of Major Chilean and Venezuelan Corporations at Banco Santander.
From Chile, Ana returned to Mexico City to work with Citibank, International Corporate Finance until 2007. That same year, Ana and her family decided to start a new life in Austin, Texas. After a couple of months being in Austin, she started working part time at SureScore Educational Consulting Firm and The Circle C Child Development Center teaching Spanish.
Ana owns Veritas Translators, a small firm dedicated to do translations. She holds degrees in International Relations and Foreign Trade and International Business.
Personal accomplishments: Ana has competed in several triathlons and marathons; she completed the full Ironman distance in 2017. Ana still plays tennis as a hobby.
ABOUT GENEVIEVE
Genevieve started teaching at ATA College Prep in the fall of 2018. She is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin with a B.S in Communication Studies. Genevieve is passionate about providing children with the proper tools to communicate effectively in their personal, educational and business relationships throughout their lives, and strongly believes mastering the art of communication is mastering the language of true leadership.
Genevieve was born and raised in Georgetown, Texas. She now resides in downtown Austin with her beau, Jay, and two pets Zoey, a cat, and Hutch, a Golden Retriever.
ABOUT HEATHER
Heather started teaching at ATA College Prep in the fall of 2018. She is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a B.S. in Secondary Science Education.
After college, Heather taught Biology and Anatomy and Physiology in the Arlington Independent School District. When she moved out of state, her love for Science took her into the pharmaceutical industry. After many years in the industry, she was looking for the right opportunity to get back into the classroom, and moved back to Texas in June 2017. Heather started tutoring at ATA College Prep the following spring, and currently teaches the Biology and Life Science courses.
Heather lives in Lakeway with her husband, Philip, and daughter, Vivienne.
ABOUT APRIL
April lives in Bee Cave with her husband, Jon, and daughter, Kenna, who attends ATA College Prep.