Lewis-Clark State College Athletics

Kai Fong is the most successful tennis coach in the history of Lewis-Clark State College and the Warriors have benefited from his leadership and guidance for more than a quarter century.

The 2026 season will be his 38th year at the helm. Fong restarted the women’s program in 1989 after it had been a club sport for three years, and then took over the men’s program the following year.

Following the 2023 season, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) announced that both men's and women's team had been named to the All-Academic Teams, and 15 players were named ITA Scholar-Athletes. Ten men and five women earned the ITA honor. In 2023, Bonolo Molefe was voted the ITA NAIA Arthur Ashe Leadership and Sportsmanship Award Winner and Austin Swing was honored with the same award in 2025. Fong and assistant coach Bonolo Arroyo Valenzuela earned ITA West Region Coach of the Year honors in 2025.

In 2024 the Lewis-Clark State College's men's and women's tennis teams were recognized by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association as Regional winners for their outstanding contributions to the community. The Warrior women and men were honored as the West recipients of the ITA Community Service Awards.
 
Coach Fong’s credentials are impressive. He’s led the men’s team to 23 appearances at the NAIA national tournament, including 14 since 2000, when the team format began. The men’s team has won 13 regional titles, including seven straight from 2000-06.  The women have qualified 22 times, including 16 appearances since 2000. The women’s team won 10 consecutive regional titles from 1997-2006. The NAIA changed the national qualifying format in 2007, eliminating regional play.

Fong has been named the NAIA Region I Coach of the Year  four times (1990, ’92, ’95, and 2001), and was the 2006 Wilson ITA NAIA Coach of the Year. He has made 12 trips to the ITA National Small College Championships and had a women’s doubles team win the NAIA portion in 2002.

Despite filling much of his regular season schedules with trips to play NCAA Division I opponents, Fong has a career record of 365-365 (.500) with the women’s program, and a 392-332 (.541) mark on the men’s side.

He has coached 34 NAIA All-Americans (18 women and 16 men), 93 Scholar-Athletes (43 women and 25 men), 16 NAIA All-Academic Teams (nine women and eight men), eight ITA/NAIA Arthur Ashe Jr. Award winners (four men and four women, two ITA/NAIA Player to Watch Award winners (both women), 14 CSC Academic All-District honorees (six men and eight women), and two ITA/NAIA Senior Players of the Year (both women).

Fong attended the New Mexico Military Institute for a semester in 1979 and then transferred to Arizona Western College in Yuma to play soccer. He then transferred to the University of Idaho in 1980 and was an ITA Scholar-Athlete in 1982. He received the UI Alumni Award for Outstanding Senior in PE in 1983. He graduated that year with a Bachelor of Science degree in Secondary Physical Education, and earned his Master’s degree in Sports and Recreation Management at UI in 1985.

Fong then worked as a tennis teaching professional at John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch in Carmel Valley, Calif., for a year before serving as a physical education instructor at the Institute Technology of Malaysia in Shah Alam, Malaysia the following year. In 1987, he went back to being a tennis teaching professional at the Rain Tree Club of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and then became head tennis coach and the facility manager of the LCSC Indoor Tennis Center in 1988.

He has been active in tennis organizations and served in a variety of roles at LCSC. In 2004, Fong received the USTA/ITA National Campus Recreation Award. He is serving on the ITA Small College Operating Committee and the NAIA Tennis Coaches Association. He has served at the NAIA Region I Tennis Chairperson since 1998, has been a regional ranker for the NAIA polls since 2000, and served on the NAIA National Awards Committee from 1998-2004.

At LCSC, Fong received the President’s Award for Excellence in Diversity and Cross Cultural Understanding in 2002, and also received the LCSC International Club’s Enlightenment Award that same year.

Fong and his late wife, Judy, have two daughters, Mei and Kim.