Intercollegiate Tennis Association

Making Your Program Matter

Trey Morris was thrown into the deep end of his head coaching career when he signed on to be the assistant coach at Montana State and found out just weeks later that he was being promoted to interim head coach. Not only did Trey survive those first few months, he thrived, and the interim tag was removed.

Trey’s team currently holds a 7-1 record on the spring season. He has made his program a darling of the Montana State Athletic Department by engaging his community and caring deeply about his home match day product. His AD was recently quoted as saying his recent trip to one of Trey’s dual matches was one of the most entertaining sporting events he has been at in some time!

In this podcast we discuss how he adapted to the unexpected promotion early in his tenure at Montana State and how he is caught the attention of his community and Athletic Department.

Excelling as an Assistant Coach

Billy Pate and Damian Hume, the head men's coach and the assistant men's coach respectively at Princeton, join host Dave Mullins to discuss the in's and outs of the role of the assistant coach. Billy is entering his 27th year in college coaching and spent two of those years working under the legendary Bobby Bayliss at Notre Dame. Damian has served as an assistant coach at Boise State, Michigan State and is now in his 8th year as Billy's assistant at Princeton.

 

In this podcast they discuss the pathway to becoming a head coach; some mistakes assistant coaches can make; how assistant coaches can get more involved within their athletic departments and lots more helpful advice for assistant coaches.

Fighting For Olympic Sports

Many of you will have seen Arthur Bryant’s name mentioned in stories about reinstated college programs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Law Journal has twice named him one of the 100 most influential attorneys in America. Recently, he has led ground-breaking settlements at eight universities that announced they were eliminating women’s varsity intercollegiate athletic teams. He also led a historic settlement – the first Title IX victory for male student-athletes – with Clemson University, reinstating men’s track field and cross country in April, 2021.

In this podcast we discuss some possibilities as to why tennis was singled out for elimination during the early days of COVID-19; his advice for insulating your college tennis program from threats; what you should do if you were ever to be told that your program has been eliminated and some advice on leading high performing organizations.

Breaking The Mold

Somadi Druker has been the head men’s tennis coach at Queens College in New York since 2015. She has already claimed three East Coast Conference coach of the year honors by winning conference titles and taking her team to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division II Championships on several occasions. In this podcast we discuss why Somadi is an outlier in the world of college tennis, and college sports in general, as a woman coaching a men’s team; her advice to other woman coaches interested in coaching on the men’s side and how she stays involved and committed to many faucets of the tennis industry.

Always be Refining

Josh Goffi has been the head men's coach at the University of South Carolina since 2010. He also served as an assistant coach for the men's team at Duke from 2008-2010 and for the women's team at Arizona State from 2006-2008.

 

He was a successful player at Clemson and reached a career high ATP doubles ranking of 121 and a singles ranking of 488. In this podcast we discuss his father's influence on his coaching philosophy and gather his thoughts on recruiting, player development and intentionally managing your culture.

 

You can also find some additional tips from Josh about Player Development in Chapter 9 of the Coach Masterclass.

Positivity & Passion

Sujay Lama, the head women's coach at North Texas, has a fascinating background having lived in three continents and is fluent in four languages. He grew up in Nepal and earned a tennis scholarship to Luther College in 1988. Since then, he has coached some of the top WTA tour players at Grand Slam events, won National Championships as an assistant coach at Florida, and now has 23 years head coaching experience at the University of Illinois and North Texas.

In this podcast we discuss what he learned from several mentors within the tennis industry, his thoughts on international recruiting, advice for younger coaches and many other interesting topics.

Coaching the Modern Day Student-Athlete with Dr. Tiff Jones

Today I am joined by Dr. Tiff Jones, a certified mental performance consultant and founder of X-Factor Performance Consulting. As you will hear she is a former varsity soccer player and college coach, and specializes in mental skills training for athletes, teams, coaches and corporations. She works with a number of college tennis teams so is very familiar with our space. I think coaches will walk away from this conversation with lots of things to think about as we pack in a lot in a relatively short amount of time. 

College Tennis & the Tennis EcoSystem with Dave Fish & Steve Smith

Dave Fish and Steve Smith have worked tirelessly for many decades to make tennis more accessible to the masses. Dave Fish is the former head men's coach at Harvard winning 21 Ivy League titles during his 42 year tenure. After his retirement from college coaching he served as Director of Development for UTR. He was also inducted into the ITA Hall of Fame in 2019.

 

Steve Smith is the founder and co-director of GreatBase tennis and has spent almost 50 years studying the game of tennis, developing tennis players and educating coaches. He has worked as a tennis educator for families, federations, universities and associations in over 30 countries.

 

In this podcast we discuss many different matters, including what role college coaches play in the advancement of the sport of tennis and how coaches can become better teachers of the game to their teams and community members.

An Athletic Director's Perspective with Erica Perkins Jasper

Today, we’re talking with Erica Perkins Jasper, a leader in intercollegiate tennis, a successful Division I head coach, and distinguished student-athlete, who is now entering her third year as the Director of Athletics at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

In this episode, Dave and Erica chat about the pathway from student-athlete to head coach and head coach to director of athletics. In this interview, you’ll learn more about how you as a coach can improve your relationships with athletics administration and what athletic directors are looking for in a coach.

Grinding Your Way to the Top with Boomer Saia

Boomer Saia (pronounced CY-uh) has orchestrated one of the best turnarounds in college tennis since arriving at Iowa State.

In his three seasons leading the program, Saia has led the Cyclones to a 17-match home winning streak, a school-record four conference wins in 2021, the first Big 12 Conference Tournament win in school history, and the first NCAA Tournament berth in school history.

One of the nation’s brightest young coaches and an integral part of teams that have reached the Final Four at Vanderbilt and most recently the Elite Eight at Texas Tech, Saia was named Iowa State head coach on June 14, 2018, and the Cyclones have been on an upward trajectory ever since. The 2020-21 Cyclones rewrote the record books with a historic season.

Saia earned Big 12 Coach of the Year and Wilson ITA Central Region Coach of the Year honors after leading Iowa State to a 14-8 overall record and the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 2020-21. Iowa State went undefeated at home (8-0) for the second-straight season and finished the season ranked.

Saia possesses a great familiarity with the Big 12 Conference, having spent much of his professional career in the league. He has been on staff as an assistant at Oklahoma (2014-16) and also worked in a volunteer role at his alma mater Kansas (2010-14), where both programs ranked inside the top-35 during his tenure.