Conner Kennedy Blends In At Farmington High School

FARMINGTON — Farmington tennis coach Denver Holt made it easy for Conner Kennedy to choose when considering tranfering to either Farmington or Fayetteville.

Kennedy transferred from Nixa, Mo., in 2017 and considered both schools.

“It was Farmington or Fayetteville and (I) had got in contact with Coach Holt here at Farmington and tried to get in contact with the coaches at Fayetteville,” Kennedy said. “They just didn’t seem interested in wanting me to go into their school or playing for them. Coach (Holt) was just open arms. He wanted me to come here and be a great athlete, but also academics-wise being an amazing student.”

At the time Kennedy wasn’t exactly setting the tennis world on fire.

He was starting his fourth year of tennis after a terrible freshman year of football.

“I thought I should probably find another sport to do and tennis was one of those,” Kennedy said.

At Nixa, Kennedy was ranked No. 35 out of 37 boys on the roster with tennis played in the spring. Then his dad lost his job and found a job in Fayetteville and told the family they were moving.

“After that I was like I was going to make myself a better tennis player,” Kennedy said. “In our apartment, which we had been living in to find a house, I would be in my room and throw some headphones on and have a racquet and go through the motions of my forehand, my backhands, my serves, stuff like that and I think that’s one of the things that has got me to where I am now.”

Looking back, Kennedy sees his progression to Farmington’s No. 1 boys singles player as amazing. During his sophomore year he came in and played pretty good and then kind of slumped and in his words, “went down and played some doubles for the Cardinal JV team.”

In the midst of the struggle, Kennedy never lost his desire to improve, recalling throughout that season he wanted to make sure that he played and didn’t get bumped down.

“I didn’t want to stay level or go down, I wanted to continue to rise as a player and (my) junior year I think I did a pretty good job of doing that,” Kennedy said. “Just this year I need to continue to rise and rise and rise.”

That work ethic pleased Holt, who said Kennedy has shown tremendous growth.

“We got him at a good time for him to come in and not so much physically. He’s a physically strong kid, but mentally we got him at a good time,” Holt said. “I can only imagine how much or where he would be had he stayed at Nixa cause I don’t think it would have been any different. We’re very fortunate that we got him at the time that we did for him to be wanting to mentally grow and wanting to work hard.”

Holt makes no bones about the spot in which Kennedy postured himself through development of his tennis game.

“That young man, everything that you see from him, is based off of work that he’s done in practice or that he’s done on his own,” Holt said. “To my knowledge, he has not had a pro trainer like some kids do, and I have quite a few kids like that. I have Noah Disheroon, Gavin Pennington, and then I have some that maybe seen some for a few days a week for a short amount of time. But, to my knowledge, that young man has not had a professional trainer at any point. So everything you see is all the work he’s put in.”

Kennedy enjoys Farmington and isn’t looking back over his shoulder.

“There’s nothing I really miss. The team here is almost like the team there in Nixa,” Kennedy said. “It’s pretty open arms. Everybody’s nice, nobody’s mad at each other. We’re all here to work together and be a team. The only thing I miss is those Nixa jackets that we had when it was cold, but that’s about it.”

Kennedy