May 30, 2017 by admin
By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
(This article was originally published in 2017)
Legendary University of Georgia men’s tennis coach Dan Magill often referred to Henry Feild Stadium and University of Georgia Tennis Complex in Athens, Georgia as “The Mecca of College Tennis.”
The name I would like to give to this magical setting, now called the Dan Magill Tennis Complex, is “The St. Andrews of College Tennis” in reference to the legendary golf course in Scotland known as the home of golf.
I like this reference for two reasons.
St. Andrews is the home of golf, where the sport has been practiced since the 15th century and where the Open Championship has been played 29 times, more than any other course in the Open Rotation or “Rota”. Every hole on the course is steeped in history, and fans, media and players can recount events that occurred on nearly every hole on the course, from Bobby Jones to Jack Nicklaus to Tiger Woods.
Like St. Andrews, Henry Feild Stadium has hosted most of its respective events – 32 NCAA Championships in 2017. It is the “home” of college tennis. Before the University of Georgia hosted the NCAA Championships for the first time in 1972, the event barely had a fan base. However, due to Magill’s promotional skills, the 1972 NCAA Championships – for the first time ever – actually had crowds of fans, as thousands of fans surrounded the courts to watch the championship unfold. Like golf fans at St. Andrews, college tennis fans, media and players in Athens can immerse themselves in history on the courts in front of them, where Stanford’s John McEnroe won the NCAA singles title as a freshman in 1978, and where Georgia’s Mikael Pernfors won his back-to-back NCAA singles titles in 1984 and 1985, and where other famous or infamous games and events took place on other courts. Other collegiate tennis greats who won titles in Athens include Tim Mayotte in 1981, Alex O’Brien in 1992, Chris Woodruff in 1993, Bob Bryan and his twin brother Mike in 1998. People can remember all the great clashes that took place on almost every court in the complex.
There is some controversy over how often Georgia should host the NCAAs. This controversy famously erupted after the Bulldogs won their second NCAA championship in three years in 1987, defeating a seemingly unbeatable University of Southern California team that entered the semifinals against Georgia with a 31-0 record. Some called this upset the game-winner that prevented Georgia from being the permanent home of the NCAA Championships. Some shouted that home-field advantage was the reason Georgia was now a new powerhouse in the NCAAs and why they were able to beat a nearly unbeatable USC team. The Georgia women’s team won its first NCAA team title in 1994, also on its home courts in Athens.
The NCAAs then moved to other locations – first to Indian Wells, California in 1990, then to Notre Dame in 1994 and to UCLA in 1997, with Athens being the venue in between. Then College Station, Texas, hosted the event in 2002 and 2005, and then Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2004, 2008 and 2016. Georgia hosted the event about once every three years on average.
What coincided with Georgia hosting the NCAAs was the strong support from the crowd. More than 5,200 spectators (the seating capacity of the bleachers in the stadium’s top three seats) flocked to watch NCAA tennis, including last year. In fact, the more than 5,200 daily fans who watched the Georgia men’s team defeat USC and UCLA and lose to North Carolina in the semifinals in 2017 were actually more fans than have seen a single session of ATP World Tour professional men’s tennis at the “250” level in the United States in years.
The current controversy – if you want to call it that – is that the NCAA Tennis Committee recently awarded the next four sites for the NCAA Championships after next year’s event in Wake Forest and the University of Georgia are not on that list. It will be at least five years before Georgia next hosts the NCAAs.
In two of those six years – 2019 and 2021 – the tournament will be played at the new USTA National Campus in Orlando’s Lake Nona community, which is not a college campus per se but is the new home of the University of Central Florida tennis program and one of the greatest tennis facilities in the world. The USTA National Campus in Orlando absolutely deserves to be a site for the NCAAs, even considering Florida State is such a tennis hotbed. It’s amazing that the NCAAs haven’t been hosted in the state of Florida since the University of Florida last hosted the women’s event in 2003 and the men’s event at the University of Miami in 1966! Oklahoma State will host in 2020 and the University of Illinois will host in 2022.
Perhaps the only thing that has hurt Georgia is that they only have one indoor tennis court with four courts, which has a dramatic impact on the championship when it rains. This became clear in 2017 when weather disrupted the schedule and some games were not played until 90 minutes later on the indoor courts at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The final of the men’s team tournament had to be played indoors at the four-court Lindsey Hopkins Indoor Tennis Center. Regardless of whether it is a team tournament or an individual tournament, the NCAA Tennis Committee does not want the games to potentially end at 2 a.m. to ensure an effective and fair championship – and that has already happened in the past.
The University of Georgia’s athletic department is in the midst of upgrading several key facilities, including its highest-grossing sport – football. A new indoor practice facility has been created for the football team and new stadium renovations are also in the works at Sanford Stadium. The university’s basketball arena is also currently being modernized. In the pecking order for these athletic facility upgrades should soon be expanding the indoor center to at least six courts and possibly twelve indoor courts, as UGA athletic director and former Bulldog tennis letterman Greg McGarity recently indicated (NOTE: In 2024, Georgia dedicated a new indoor tennis facility that now has six courts.)
This brings me to the second reason why I call Athens, Georgia “The St. Andrews of College Tennis.”
Just as the site of golf’s Open Championship dictates that St. Andrews host the tournament every five years, the University of Georgia should host NCAA tennis every three years. Put it in the books. Now. Georgia, which hosts the NCAAs every three years, would give almost all top college players the opportunity to play an NCAA championship in “home college tennis.”
If you ask any former college player about their college tennis career, almost everyone who had the chance to play in Athens will rave about the tradition and beauty of the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. In fact, as the 2017 NCAAs ended in Athens, many coaches became nostalgic, wondering when they would have the chance to return to make more NCAA tennis memories.
“This will be the last time we’ll be here in at least five years, so we have to enjoy this environment,” Oklahoma coach Nick Crowell said after his two players, Andrew Harris and Spencer Papa, won the NCAA doubles title. “There aren’t many places like this in tennis. Hopefully Georgia gets the championship back. I think it deserves it.”
Ironically, USC men’s head coach Peter Smith has been perhaps the most vocal and passionate critic of Georgia not hosting the NCAAs until 2023.
“I have already expressed my displeasure with those in power,” he told Chip Towers of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “(Georgia) is the best place to host it and they should look at it. Atlanta is a great tennis community and Athens, Georgia, and UGA deserve the right to host it as often as possible. It’s just the best place, it has the best atmosphere, it has the best city and it has one of the best facilities in the country. It’s a shame.”
Randy Walker was an alternate member of the Georgia Bulldog men’s tennis team in 1988 and 1989 and was sports editor of the University of Georgia student newspaper The Red and Black in 1990 and 1991. A long-time spokesman for the USTA, the US Davis Cup team and the US Olympic team, he is the author of the books “On This Day In Tennis History” and “On This Day In Roger Federer History.”