Staff & Jobs

Shelby provides leadership for youth pursuing competitive tennis in Cities Academy performance pathway lessons. Shelby loves connecting with youth and helping them progress in their game. She has a lot of experience with the game of tennis and also serves as an assistant coach with the University of St. Thomas Women’s Tennis team.

Kyle has worked at ICT since 2011. He has helped coordinate ICT’s Women’s Daytime League and coaches many adult and junior programs. He formerly served as Head Coach at Woodbury and Winona Cotter High Schools and captained the Winona State Men’s Tennis Team for three years.

Alex Exsted is a certified USPTA tennis professional with over 10 years of tennis-playing experience. He started playing tennis around 9 at InnerCity Tennis’ Super Saturday program. At age 14, Alex won the national NJTL Arthur Ashe Essay award. He has been ranked as high as #2 in the Northern section and top 150 Nationally for the 18 and under USTA boys division. Alex played Division I tennis at the University of Northern Colorado. Alex has two siblings, Isabelle and Max, who also play tennis.

Please contact Alex directly regarding 8U, 10U, and 12U advanced City Academy youth tennis classes.

Spencer Jones is a member of our High Performance coaching staff. Jones brings enthusiasm, leadership and extensive experience to add to ICT’s already strong team of coaches. Jones’ professional coaching experience began at InnerCity Tennis, where he served as a tennis instructor for 5 years from 2006-2011. He served as High Performance Coordinator at Lifetime Bloomington-South for 8 years and as Head Coach of Lakeville South High School boys team for 3 years. His coaching experience also includes leading 17 USTA Junior Team Tennis teams to win their Sectional Championship titles and coaching 1 JTT team to win the 2018 18U Intermediate National Championships.

Jones’ experience also includes serving as Tournament Director of the Bill Van Lieshout Tennis Classic in Oshkosh, WI, which has raised over $100,000 for public tennis courts in Oshkosh since 2011. A top singles and doubles player for the Hamline Pipers in the 1990s, Jones will continue to serve as Hamline University’s head coach of men’s and women’s tennis.

Jones, a native of Oshkosh, Wis., played number one singles for Hamline University and captained the team for three seasons before graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Political Science in 1997. He later earned his MA and PhD in Government/Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Jones has remained an active adult player, claiming multiple USTA sectional titles in 4.5 adult play, including several national championship appearances.

Grahamm was born and raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. After graduating from St. Louis Park High School his passion for tennis led him to Gustavus Adolphus, where he competed for 4 years on the tennis team. Grahamm earned a degree in Political Science; he also minored in Spanish and is fluent in Spanish. His passion for tennis propelled him to seek a job teaching the game he loves.

Dylan Kelly became a full time employee at InnerCity Tennis in 2015, working part time at the tennis desk and part time as a coach in the Cities Academy program. He started at ICT as a junior coach in the Summer Tennis in the Parks program in 2008 and was promoted to a coordinator position in the summer 2013. Dylan has had an extensive background in tournament play and played four years Division 3 tennis at the College of St. Scholastica. He has coached Southwest Activities Council (SWAC) Minneapolis park and recreation tennis program for seven years and two years at Benilde St. Margaret’s High School as the girls JV coach. He’s a USPTA certified professional and enjoys working with individuals of all abilities.

Chris learned to play tennis as an adolescent in his hometown of Louisville, KY and played all four years of high school. After playing on and off for several years, Chris now competes in a men’s league at ICT, and a rec. league in Minneapolis.

In addition to conducting youth programs each day, Dilcia coordinates scheduling with all of ICT’s Community Outreach programs, registration of our Super Saturday program and the hiring of our Summer Tennis in the Parks instructors each year.

Dilcia, a Minneapolis South High School graduate, began playing tennis in ICT’s Summer Tennis in the Parks Program in the 1990s. “Dil” is now an Elite USPTA pro (ten years plus) and regional tester for aspiring pros. In the fall of 2014, Dil coached the Washburn High School JV Girls team.

David began teaching at ICT through its Super Saturday and Summer in the Parks programs. Combining his love of teaching kids and his enthusiasm for the game, he is excited to give back to the same community where he learned to play tennis. He also played 5 years of varsity tennis for Minneapolis Washburn and coached the Minneapolis South junior varsity team from 2006-2012.

Scott is a dedicated and highly qualified tennis professional with a passion for helping players of all levels achieve their goals. He is a USTA High-Performance Coach graduate, GPTCA (ATP/WTA), former USTA Zonal National Champion Coach, Southern and Mid-Atlantic USTA Development Coach, Southern Davis, and Fed Cup Champion Coach, more than a decade as USTA National Workshop Clinician (with a focus on the 10 & Under initiative), and many other USTA tournaments and cups. Scott brings extensive experience to coaching, including developing junior players for college scholarships and championships and working with WTA/ATP players, NCAA D1 champions, and All-Americans.

Scott’s own impressive playing career, highlighted by holding the career victory record at D1 Virginia Commonwealth University and competing in professional tournaments both nationally and internationally, provides him with a unique understanding of the game. He leverages this experience to offer effective and personalized instruction. Beyond his professional achievements, Scott values family and community. He enjoys spending time with his wife, Anastasia, an assistant tennis coach at the University of Minnesota, their son, Myko, and is incredibly proud of his three older sons Bradley, Hunter and Chase and their accomplishments.

Scott is currently working on his Masters in Sports Performance Fitness, MTPS and Sports Psychology. Scott enjoys helping players of all ages and abilities and remembers how much of a lifetime sport tennis is when working with a different 85+ player for a recent stretch as Director of Tennis at the Naples Grande Beach Resort in 2021.

Over the past 20 years Raheem has worked with Columbia Heights, Robbinsdale, and Bloomington Public Schools in roles that blend student support, cultural competence development, and sports, with the Blaisdell YMCA as their sports director, and most recently with Liberty Packaging in their human resource department with a focus on training and culture. He has deep lived experience in the communities that ICT works with, has coached basketball for over a decade ranging from 2nd grade AAU to Varsity level at Robbinsdale Cooper. His experience goes well beyond his professional roles in developing initiatives to support kids and families.

More important than any of the above is Raheem’s passion about the impact he wants to have on the world.

He enjoys time with his family and his pitbull pup Melo.

“I am grateful for all that tennis has given me”.

Bill is a former University of Minnesota Gopher tennis player and has taught tennis for many years. He loves to play the game and his favorite tennis experience was winning the USTA Northern Section father-son championship with his father and a generation later with his son.

John Wheaton joined InnerCity Tennis in 2014 as Associate Director, serving mainly as the director of facilities and tennis programming at the tennis center. In 2015, he took over as Executive Director, overseeing all business operations and programming for ICT.

John began his professional career as an Account Executive in the Tennis Division of International Management Group (IMG), where he coached and managed pro tennis players and directed professional tennis events. While at IMG, John also served as Associate Director of the world-renowned IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where he worked closely with its founder and ICT Board member, Nick Bollettieri.

John formerly owned and directed the Wheaton Tennis Academy, taught as a Professor of Humanities at Crown College, and worked as an independent academic consultant. He earned a BA from the University of Minnesota, where he played on the men’s varsity tennis team, and a JD from the Pepperdine University School of Law. He also served as Director of Tennis at Wayzata Country Club for years. John lives in Deephaven with his wife and four children.