Douglas County Post-Gazette

Bo Hansen- 10 years old, ranked #2 in Nebraska 12U doubles, begins entrepreneuring in Elkhorn/Gretna with his dad, coach, and best friend. "Bo qualified for 12U at age 7 and he's been joining me on tennis lessons ever since," said dad. 38 year old Marcus Hansen was #1 at UNO and graduated in 2009. "I met my wife at UNO, we have a 4 year old girl Mattie who one night wanted to help Bo learn how to string, 3 hours later we have half of one racket done. He finished it, and was late for bed." Hansen Lessons has 18 five star reviews on Google and the Omaha Blackshirts has a decent following on Instagram. The Blackshirts are a travel select tennis team coached by Marcus Hansen. They have competed in Cincinatti, Miami, New York City, Des Moines, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Denver. When Bo was in 2nd grade he was practicing with seniors in high school like Thomas Pate from Westside. "I won a few matches with 7 year old Bo as my partner," Pate said. "Marcus cares, he wants to win and you can tell he's trying to be the coach he needed when he was younger. Tennis is fun and he won't let you forget that." 4th grader Bo Hansen competed with and against 18 year old boys and girls in Kearney last month. For the second year in a row he finished 3rd at the Cornhusker State Games, in 10U golf. The next weekend he won CSG tennis 14U doubles. He also plays travel baseball with Gretna and basketball in Yutan 2-3 times a week. He does all of that without a cell phone, although he does have an apple watch with a phone number. "Thomas has been like an older brother to me. My dad is my best friend, who yells when I'm missing in the net too much," Bo said. "My favorite tennis memories are with Thomas and my family- Cincinatti especially." "I'm trying to do what Earl and Tiger Woods did, just in 3 sports, plus basketball. Bo asked how expensive all this was, I told him- a lot," Hansen said. "He asked if he was old enough to help me string, and I said yes. 20 minutes later he got on Amazon and made business cards. $40 for a racquet restringing which is recommended yearly if you barely ever play. Text him." Bo can restring all tennis racquets. "My 19 gage poly string gets super spin and I need to restring it around four times a year so it's what I normally recommend," Bo said. "My dad uses natural gut which is very expensive and you can't leave it on the ground because our dog Nala will eat it, it's happened before."