TEN QUESTIONS WITH...

In March, you earned your 100th dual meet victory as the UB men’s tennis head coach when your team posted a 4-3 win over South Carolina-Aiken. What did reaching that milestone mean to you?
Well, I guess milestones are probably only meant for people that have been around for ages – and I guess I have. I’ve been coaching at UB since the early 80s, when I began as an assistant men’s tennis coach. It is a nice point to reach, but my overall objective is not worrying about my win-loss record. What I worry about is whether or not I am providing the guys on my team with quality coaching. Probably the best measurement that I have is when I get a phone call from a former athlete who updates me on how he is doing.

That road trip also included two matches against teams in Florida. How far in advance do you go about scheduling and planning those types of matches?
Well, things are a little bit different for our team than most others. Because when we can on the road, we camp as a team – preferring not to sleep in hotels. Because of that, there is a little more preparation in terms of checking out campgrounds and getting all of our gear to that location.

You are the coordinator of UB’s Outdoor Pursuits program. How do you tie in what you do for that program – camping out as an example – with your approach as head coach of the men’s tennis team?
Several years ago when we were traveling to a match in Vermont, I had a notion to expose our guys to the elements of the outdoors and segue the survival theme into tennis. Out of that one trip, it became an annual tradition for us when we traveled to a match in the Northeast. At the end of last year, our captains and the entire team agreed to camp out for all of our matches this year.

When we competed at the Dartmouth Invitational this year, Army was also at the event. They could not believe that we were sleeping in tents. Later on in the season, the head coach at Harvard – whom I had never spoken to previously – approached me about coming up and doing a team-building seminar for his team.

In what ways do you feel that camping out on the road benefits your team?
The outdoors offers a great opportunity for student-athletes to reflect, talk and bond with one another. I really believe that what we do parlays into survival on the court. The other benefit is that we are asleep earlier and up at the crack of dawn – hotels can be a tremendous distraction in terms of getting sleep and we don’t have to deal with that.

Following your team’s Saturday match at Toledo, you will have faced all five of your Mid-American Conference opponents. What does that enable you to do in preparation for the MAC Championships at the end of April, where you will match-up against one of the teams that you already squared off against this season?
Obviously, the biggest advantage is the fact that there is more of a comfort zone for the players. After each meet during the season, we always analyze the individual matches. The way that the MAC Championships are formatted, you have that opportunity to learn from the first time you faced a specific opponent.

There are five players from outside of the United States on your team’s roster. How do you successfully recruit athletes from foreign countries?
The power of the Internet is a wonderful thing and a great tool for recruiting. Also having coached for a number of years, I have developed contacts that help in the recruiting process.

It is interesting, because once you find an athlete from one part of the world, word spreads from them to their friends, who then also become interested in your university. Indonesia has been a wonderful partner for Buffalo tennis – and even for the entire University, as well. I think that has helped us to establish a great relationship with Indonesia.

Most recently, Yules Hadisubroto came from Jakarta, Indonesia. I believe that he was truly comfortable coming to a university halfway across the world, because there were people he knew from back home at UB.

How do you go about evaluating your team –pairing them up with a doubles partner in particular?
I actually use off-the-court means at times – obviously on-the-court play is an important facet – to evaluate doubles success. Doubles play relies heavily on communication, so that type of evaluation can be useful.

This year, Rock and Roll (juniors Randy Rocchio and Nick Zieziula) – who are probably one of the winningest doubles tandems in UB history – came to me and offered to split themselves up for the benefit of the team. So that is something we are currently doing, enabling us more strength in the long run in terms of winning the team doubles point.

In your bio within the men’s tennis media guide, you state that “UB’s tennis program should serve not only the student-athletes, but also be an ambassador to the greater community.” Can you expand upon what you mean with that statement?
Tennis in the Western New York community has fallen by the wayside in terms of the number of indoor facilities, for example. Yet there still is a strong base of support for tennis in this area.

I do not feel there is a sport that is better suited to serve a community than tennis. For example, a few years back, Buffalo tennis was strongly involved with a fund-raising program that raised over $90,000 for Child and Family Services. There are not many other sports that have that type of connection and can do that. The professionals in this area – doctors, attorneys, chief executive and financial officers to name a few – that have been a part of UB’s tennis history are numerous.

How we can currently give back to the community are through organizations such as the University Tennis Club, which is a community-based program that offers use of the tennis venue. It enables the community to be connected to the University.

This weekend, the United States faces Sweden in the quarterfinals of the Davis Cup. The Davis Cup finale however, does not take place until December. Do you feel that changes should be made to the Davis Cup schedule or any other aspect of the event in order to improve its popularity? What are your feelings on professional tennis on the whole?
We’ve had UB athletes on some Davis Cup teams – Wadie Kawar represented Jordan and Elie Mohosseb played for Israel. Also, a lot of our MAC opponents play in the Davis Cup. Much of the reasoning for that time frame is to allow athletes to go to school and to accommodate the professionals, as well.

But in general, I think the days of quiet tennis are over. I feel that music should be blasting and people should be screaming, making the sport more of a spectator sport. I would like to see the sport of tennis not change the rules, but change its temperament. The solution to doing that is actually making more events like the Davis Cup, where fans are making a lot of noise.

There are other innovative changes that could be looked at. For instance, I once played in a league where free substitutions were allowed. So when one team would bring in a big server, the other would counter with a return specialist. The idea is that the stuffy game of tennis can be improved upon and made more exciting.

In particular, what types of changes do you feel could be made to the collegiate game?
I would even consider some day where men’s tennis merges with the women’s game and creates a co-ed collegiate sport. Tennis is about the only sport where you could do something like that. I have actually had discussions with other teams about coming to Buffalo to play alternative formats like that one.

In light of the fact that over 200 men’s tennis programs have been dropped from colleges in the last 20 years, I think men’s tennis programs also need to do as much marketing and promoting of the sport as it can.

-The "10 Questions with…" feature is compiled by Geoff Nason.