Palomino coach credits mentors for career successes
Jaime B. Donjuan has experienced tremendous success as a coach and instructor of kinesiology at Laredo Community College.
And
he credits it all to the caring mentors who have touched his life.
“I owe my success to the great mentors that have had a special influence in my life, including Dr. Sara Carrasco and coach Troy Van Brunt at LCC,” Donjuan said. “My tennis coaches during my junior years also played an important part in shaping my life.”
Donjuan just finished his ninth season at LCC with a two-time No. 1 national men’s tennis team and a No. 5 national women’s tennis team in Division I junior college.
In addition to coaching the Palomino men’s and women’s tennis teams, Donjuan teaches tennis, and he has taught weight training, power walking and racquetball at the college.
In the fall of 2005, he took an additional task at LCC as the assistant athletic director.
The native Texan, who took over the tennis team in 1997, has had the privilege to coach a No. 1 nationally ranked doubles team, two No. 1 singles players, more than 20 All-Americans and three ITA regional winners.
Under his guidance, the LCC Tennis Program hosted the ITA Regional tournament in 1999 and 2000 and the NJCAA regional tournament this year.
He was honored as Region XIV Men's Tennis Coach of the Year in 2000, ITA Wilson Coach of the Year in 2004 and the Max Grubbs Coach of the Year in 2005 and 2006. He also has received the LCC President's Excellence Award in 2000, 2005 and 2006.
During the 2002 season he was awarded the Hershel Stevens Coaching Award at the Men's national tournament.
Also in fall 2003, Donjuan was selected the first Texas Sectional Winner of the Campus Recreation Award by the United States Tennis Association/Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
Donjuan's main goal is to maintain the college's prestigious tennis reputation and to keep the national title at LCC.
A 1995 graduate of Laredo Community College, where he played college tennis, and a 1997 graduate of Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Donjuan holds a bachelor of arts degree.
Donjuan is rated "professional" under the Professional Tennis Registry and has completed Sports Science, Level 1.
He is married to Griselda Donjuan. They have a two-year-old son, Domenic, and a puppy, Cookie, a congratulatory gift given to Donjuan by LCC employees after winning the college’s first national title in 2005.
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