Crane Creek Tennis Professionals
Lee Galway
Crane Creek Tennis Director
Lee has been our Tennis Director since 2017 and has 35 years of coaching experience. He is a USPTA Elite certified coach. In his coaching career, Lee has coached over 30 state champions, was the Boise State Men’s Assistant Coach and helped one of his students reach a WTA world ranking of #51. Lee is also a very accomplished player who came from New Zealand to play at Boise State and was the first Bronco player ever to compete at the NCAA Singles tournament and ITA National Indoors. After college he had a stint on the ITF circuit and was also a member of the Idaho Sneakers WTT team for 5 seasons. Lee was ranked #1 in Idaho singles and doubles for many years and in 2018 won the USTA National 50s Indoors Doubles title.
Mark Bettis
Head Tennis Professional
Coach Mark has over 30 years of tennis coaching experience. His background includes teaching beginners all the way to high performance junior players. As a PTR certified coach, Mark has a vast experienced with coaching USTA league teams as well as adult and Junior clinics. He loves teaching modern racquet techniques, on-court strategies, advanced footwork techniques, along with off-court fitness training specifically for tennis. He also has an extensive background with teaching mental training for tennis.
Katie Ware
Tennis Professional
Katie is a 5.0 NTRP rated player who played her division 1 college tennis at Idaho State University. At Idaho State, Katie was a four-year starter playing at the #3-6 singles positions and #1 doubles in her junior and senior seasons. She is a PTR certified tennis coach and in 2016, was named PTR Member of the Year. As the Eagle High School Head Coach, Katie led the Eagle Varsity Boys team to back-to-back state titles in 2018 and 2019. Katie has been on our tennis staff at Crane Creek since 2019. Katie works with all levels of players, from beginners to advanced.
Sam Wood
Tennis Professional
Coach Sam was born in Florida and rose up the junior tennis rankings finishing in the top 25 in all age divisions. He was a preferred walk-on at the University of Central Florida where he played for 2 seasons. Sam is a solid 5.0 player and uses his lefty game to frustrate opponents. He is certified by both the USPTA and PTR, having Elite certification in both. Sam been coaching for over 15 years and has a wealth of tennis experience. Sam has taught at clubs in Florida, Connecticut and now at Crane Creek in Idaho, where he has been a tennis pro for the past 5 years. Sam’s lessons and clinics are some of the best around and members love coming back for more.
Kristian Widen
Tennis Professional
Born and raised in Sweden, Kristian played high school tennis in Idaho as an exchange student, winning the Idaho State 5A Championship title in 1990. This led to a 4-year collegiate career at Boise State University. Widen began his professional coaching career at BSU as an assistant and was a member of the Idaho Sneakers World Team Tennis team. He returned to Sweden in 1999 and spent a decade working as a head coach, private coach, club pro, team scout and travel coach for the National Swedish Tennis Federation. Kristian traveled and instructed elite players competing in the Australian Open Junior Grand Slam, the European Junior Championships and multiple International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournaments. Widen served as a travel coach for players competing at the Stockholm Open, Wimbledon and Stella Artois Championships. He eventually returned back to the US and to the Boise State Tennis Coaching Staff, serving as the Women’s Assistant Coach and then as the Men’s Head Coach until 2022.
Greg Patton
Touring Coach
Coach Patton retired from collegiate coaching in 2018 after 40 years of Collegiate Coaching. Both his teams from UC Irvine and Boise State reached rankings as high as #2 in NCAA Division I. He was named NCAA Division I Coach of the Year at both UC Irvine and Boise State. He also served as USA Junior National Coach for the USA and presently is starting his 13th year as the USA National Collegiate Coach (whose USA team has won the International Team championships, 10 out of 12 years. He presently is fourth in the history of NCAA tennis with most victories (808). He also coached World Team Tennis (teams in Orange County, Boise, and St Louis) in which he was named WTT coach of the Year twice.