Head Coach – Patrick Diegan 

Coach Patrick is now in his 6th season as our Boy’s Tennis coach. He has coached his team to 5 out of 5 District finals and won 3 of them. He has taken numerous players to the State Championships. His coaching style focuses on building solid fundamentals, discipline and mental toughness. Patrick is a British qualified tennis coach and teaching professional with 43 years of experience in playing and coaching tennis internationally. He is a PTR and USPTA Elite Professional. He has worked as the Director of Tennis and Head Teaching Professional at various clubs and academies and since 2010 has been a lead coach at the St. John’s Tennis Academy where he works alongside his wife, Heather Diegan.

His coaching career includes extensive international teaching assignments, in the UK, Spain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and the US. He has also been deeply involved in community tennis development. With his wife, he has helped grow junior team tennis programming and volunteer initiatives, earning recognition from USTA Florida for their contribution to the sport and community tennis events.

As a player Patrick competed at competitive levels across different surfaces internationally including outdoor hard courts, grass, indoor hard, carpet and clay. Patrick played No. 1 doubles for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and represented the Emirate at the prestigious  ‘Gulf invitational’ held in Muscat, Oman in the mid 1990s. Here he competed against former ATP ranked and Davis Cup professionals.  After coming to the States Patrick achieved 2 USTA Florida top ten rankings In Men’s 35s and 30s. He won the PTR international men’s 55s event at Hilton Head in 2017.
Patrick is also a best selling Tennis author with his ‘Coaching and Learning Tennis Basics’ book series. The books have all been best sellers in tennis coaching book categories across multiple sites.

Head Coach – Jeralyn Forcier

Creekside High School is pleased to announce that Jeralyn Forcier will be returning as the Knights Girls Tennis Team’s head coach for the second year. Coach Jeralyn previously served as the assistant head coach to Estela De Paula for the previous two seasons.

Coach Jeralyn comes from a lengthy background in athletics, coaching tennis, and various youth sports in the area.  She grew up playing tennis in her hometown of Woodstock, Illinois, and began participating in USTA Florida tournaments in 2006. She made it to Nationals in 2014 as a doubles player. 

As a coach this past season, she was very proud of the 32 varsity and junior varsity players. The team won the District Championship and advanced to the Regional Semifinals, with two team members qualifying for the State Tournament.

She worked for the St. Johns County School District from 2020 to 2024 as well as had all 3 of her children graduate from CHS.

As an active member of her community, Coach Jeralyn strives to build high-character, well-rounded athletes through mental toughness, physical strength, and leadership opportunities.  One aspect she feels passionate about is community service, and she aims to incorporate it into the players’ schedules through volunteer service, such as with Field of Dreams and Tennis Is For Everyone.