Bio

Vilis Cakans was a 1969 graduate of UW-Oshkosh who excelled in tennis. He was born in Latvia and first came to the United States at age 9.

Cakans attended Milwaukee Riverside High School and earned a total of six varsity letters in three sports. Cakans, who won the city high school doubles title in 1961, qualified for state competition in swimming and tennis.

Following graduation, Cakans attended UW-Milwaukee for one year before transferring to UW-Oshkosh. In his first year of athletic competition at UW-Oshkosh (1967), Cakans won the WSUC No. 1 singles title and helped the Titans to a share of the league championship. Cakans advanced to national competition that season and finished eighth in singles at the NAIA Championships.

Cakans repeated as conference champion the following year and again helped UW-Oshkosh to the league title. At the NAIA Championships, Cakans advanced to the semifinals in singles and led UW-Oshkosh to a third-place finish. During Cakans’s two years at UW-Oshkosh, he never lost a singles match to a WSUC opponent.

For the past 11 years Cakans has been employed by Marquette University as men's tennis coach and assistant director of the Halfaer Recreation Center. He also has been actively involved with the Milwaukee Tennis Classic and fund-raisers for cystic fibrosis.