Caribou girls’ tennis coach John Habeeb talks about 400 victories

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) - Caribou tennis coach John Habeeb recently reached another milestone. Habeeb who has been coaching for over 30 years picked up his 400th career win as coach of the Caribou girls.

John Habeeb:” 400 wins in any sport would be a good milestone for any coach. I am proud to do it for Caribou High School. I have enjoyed coaching all these years and I think one of the things is you don’t get 400 wins right away. You have to work at it, and you work hard every year. For the most part the kids have earned those 400 wins for me. I am very gratified that the kids that I work with helped me reach a milestone in my career.”

Habeeb coached both the boys and girls teams for almost 30 years he started with the boys in 1988 and started with the girls shortly after that. He said that Caribou has been a tennis factory for years starting at the recreation level and continuing to high school

Habeeb:” I started coaching in 1991 and we started off very successful. We just built up a really good program at the recreation level and transferred that to the High School level. That is where the wins came from the dedicated ladies that I have been fortunate to coach.”

The Veteran Coach has been to 18 girls’ regional finals winning 11 titles and four states. On the boys’ side he went to the regionals 11 times with two regional and two state title. Here is a stat that is most impressive. the girls’ team had a 14 year regular season winning streak from 1992 to 2005.

Habeeb:” I think that our girls are aware they are a good tennis school. We get a lot of credit for how well our teams have played over the years. I am proud of the reputation that they have all earned. Some of the girls on this year’s team have no idea who the girls were 30 years ago, but a lot of times I say they are just the same girls with different names.”

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