Under head coach Sam Paul's direction, the University of North Carolina men's tennis program continues to achieve significant milestones as he is now in his third decade of service to the University's athletic program.
After achieving his 300th dual match victory at UNC during the 2010-11 season, Paul begins his 19th year as head coach and his 23rd season at Carolina overall. A five-time Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year selection, four-time Intercollegiate Tennis Association regional coach of the year and four-time ITA national coach of the year finalist, Paul also begins his 21st overall year as a collegiate head coach, including two years at Richmond prior to coming to UNC.
North Carolina's tradition of excellence in men's tennis dating back to the early stages of the 20th Century, has only continued under Paul, who ranks fourth in regular-season ACC dual match wins all-time and is second in UNC history in that category behind only Don Skakle.
The native of Lancaster, S.C., has continued the winning reputation of UNC men's tennis through his skill as a coach and recruiter since then UNC Athletic Director and current ACC Commissioner John Swofford named him as head coach in April 1993.
Paul is the winningest active coach in the ACC and is the fourth winningest coach in league history with his 309 overall wins and his 113 ACC regular-season victories. Paul achieved his 300th victory on March 20, 2011 when the Tar Heels defeated Wake Forest 4-3 in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Paul's players at Carolina have achieved at every level. Since he became an assistant coach at UNC in 1989, the Tar Heels have had players earn first-team All-America honors 19 times.
Many players under Paul's tutelage have gone on to tremendous success on the professional level. Five players tutored by Paul have ascended to the Top 500 of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) singles rankings. Don Johnson, captain of the 1990 ACC championship team and a former UNC assistant coach under Paul, won the 2001 Wimbledon doubles championship and is the former No. 1-ranked doubles player in the world. Paul's former players have reached the semifinals of every Grad Slam event, won 25 ATP events and over 35 Challengers.
During his tenure as the head and assistant coach at North Carolina, the Tar Heels have won seven ACC championships, including the 1990, 1992 and 2002 tournament titles and the 1991, 1992, 1996 and 2004 regular-season championships. The Tar Heels have earned NCAA Tournament bids 19 of the past 20 seasons and the Heels have advanced to the national tournament in 17 of the 18 years in which Paul has been the head coach.
The Tar Heels have been at their best over the past eight seasons. During that time span, UNC have hosted NCAA Tournaments first and second rounds four times, finished the season ranked in the Top 20 nationally six times and advanced to the NCAA Round of 16 in 2006 and 2008. During those eight seasons, Carolina has finished in the Top 4 of the ACC regular season standings all but two times. Carolina is 160-57 over the past eight years, a winning percentage of .737. Carolina is 57-25 in ACC regular season matches since 2003-04, a winning rate of .695.
Three times in the last five seasons Carolina has set a school record for ACC regular season wins, garnering nine victories in 2007, 2008 and 2011. In 2007, Paul led the Tar Heels to a 20-0 record to start the season, attaining the highest national ranking in school history in the ITA poll at No. 5. Paul's 2006 team tied a school record for most overall wins in a season at 25-5. That tied the school mark, which was also 25-5, set by the 1992 NCAA quarterfinalist team on which Paul served as an assistant.
Individually, Paul has guided a host of Tar Heel players to conference, regional and national accolades. UNC players have earned All-ACC accolades 52 times since his first season as an assistant coach in 1989-90. Over the last eight years, UNC players have earned first-team All-America honors 10 times, the most recent being Jose Hernandez in 2011.
From 2008-10, Carolina was one of only two schools in the country to have a doubles team earn All-America accolades three consecutive years. UNC had back-to-back NCAA Tournament semifinalists in doubles with Taylor Fogleman and Clay Donato going that far in 2009 and Donato teaming up with Stefan Hardy in 2010. In 2006, Raian Luchici and Brad Pomeroy ascended to the No. 1 doubles ranking for the first time in school history.
Twice since the 2000 season, Paul has mentored student-athletes who have won the Patterson Medal as Carolina's outstanding senior student-athlete -- Tripp Phillips in 2000 and Nick Monroe in 2004. Prior to those two selections, no Carolina tennis player had won the award in half a century. Phillips returned to campus six years ago as the assistant coach for the Tar Heels.
Including ACC Tournament play, the 2007 team had the most victories in a single season in school history against ACC opponents with 11 wins. Paul has also coached the Tar Heels to their two best road wins in school history when they won at No. 2 Georgia on April 2, 1994 and at No. 3 Texas on March 8, 2011.
Among the awards won by Paul's players have been ITA National Senior Player of the Year, Arthur Ashe Sportsmanship Award, ITA National Player To Watch, ITA Rookie of the Year, ITA Team Sportsmanship Award and ITA Scholar-Athlete Award.
Paul has mentored 11 first-team All-Americas in his tenure as head coach since 1993-94 to 14 All-America awards, including a trio of two-time first-team All Americas: David Caldwell (two-time All-America), Brint Morrow, Tripp Phillips, Nick Monroe, Raian Luchici, Brad Pomeroy, Taylor Fogleman (two-time All America), Chris Kearney, Clay Donato (two-time All-America), Stefan Hardy and Jose Hernandez have been so honored by the ITA. Paul also coached Bryan Jones, Chris Mumford, Ronald Thornqvist (two-time All-America) and Daryl Wyatt to first-team All-America honors during his assistant coaching years at Carolina from 1989-93 under Allen Morris.
With the parity present in men's collegiate tennis, Paul's career achievements at North Carolina are significant. He has 309 career victories at UNC and is the ACC's No. 1 winningest active coach with a 113-49 regular season dual match record. The Tar Heels have finished among the top three in the final ACC regular season standings in 17 of the 22 years Paul has been the assistant or head coach at UNC.
The Tar Heels had another outstanding season under Paul's tutelage in 2010-11 as the team finished 16-8 overall and 9-2 in the ACC. Carolina started the season 3-4 but rallied to win 13 of its last 17 matches en route to finishing in a tie for second in the ACC standings. UNC was seeded No. 16 in the NCAA Tournament and finished 18th in the final ITA poll. Three Tar Heels -- Jose Hernandez, Brennan Boyajian and Stefan Hardy -- were named All-ACC and Hernandez was tapped for All-America honors. Carolina had a quintet of Top 25 wins, including victories over No. 3 Texas and No. 10 Duke.
Carolina teams under Paul's tutelage have been distinguished by their sportsmanship and leadership. In 2006, Luchici was named the ITA National Senior Player of the Year. In 2003, Nick Monroe was named the Arthur Ashe Mideast Region Sportsmanship Award winner and a year later Monore received the ITA National Jon Van Nostrand Memorial Award. Paul's 2005 North Carolina team was the first NCAA Division I men's team to receive the inaugural ITA National Team Sportsmanship Award.
While UNC has experienced tremendous success on the court, Tar Heel tennis teams under Coach Paul also excel in the classroom. The UNC men's tennis team had the highest composite grade point average of any men's athletic team at Carolina during the 2003-04 school year and again during the 2004-05 school year. Eight Tar Heel players of the 14 on the squad in 2005-06 were named to the ACC Academic Honor Roll. Eight of the 15 players on the 2006-07 squad were tapped for ACC Academic Honor Roll accolades. In 2007-08, seniors Benjamin Carlotti and Will Plyler were named to the ACC All-Academic Team.
Paul has tutored four players at North Carolina who have been ranked in the Top 500 in the world in men's singles -- Don Johnson (UNC class of '90), David Caldwell (UNC Class of '96), Tripp Phillips (UNC Class of '00) and Nick Monroe (UNC Class of '04).
Paul became the only ACC coach to coach a player ranked No. 1 in the world in the ATP men's doubles rankings when he acted as personal coach for UNC alumnus Don Johnson during his magnificent runs in doubles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open during the late 1990s and early years of the 2000s. Paul coached Johnson to a pair of Grand Slam titles and an appearance on the U.S. Davis Cup Team.
Paul took over the reins as head coach in May 1993 after assisting head coach Allen Morris from 1989-93. In 2002, Paul directed his Tar Heels to a 19-6 dual match record and the ACC Tournament championship, the 25th in school history. Carolina has been invited to the NCAA Tournament 17 of the past 18 seasons while Paul has been head coach in Chapel Hill; only once in Paul's tenure have the Tar Heels failed to make the NCAA Tournament field in 1999. Under Paul's guidance, the Tar Heels hosted NCAA regionals in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Paul has repeatedly been rewarded for his coaching ability as he was selected the ACC Coach of the Year in 1996, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2007.
After serving as the Director of Tennis and the head men's and women's tennis coaches at the University of Richmond for two years from 1987-89, Paul came to Chapel Hill in September 1989. At the University of Richmond, he won honors as the Colonial Athletic Association's (CAA) Women's Tennis Coach of the Year in both 1988 and 1989. His women went 11-11 in his first year at the helm, finishing third in the CAA. The Spiders improved to 14-7 in 1989, which was good for second place in the CAA. The 1989 team was also ranked in the Mideast region's Top 10. On the men's side, Paul led the Spiders to a 12-9 mark and third-place CAA league finish in his second year while working with a non-scholarship men's program at Richmond.
During Paul's four years as the Carolina assistant, UNC was 82-29 overall in dual matches, 26-3 in ACC regular-season dual matches and 10-2 in ACC Tournament dual matches. In those four years, UNC won ACC Tournament titles in 1990 and 1992, were the ACC Tournament runners-up in 1991 and 1993 while winning the conference's regular-season championships in 1991 and 1992. All four teams Paul worked with as an assistant were ranked in the Top 25 in the nation by the ITA.
During his tenure, the Tar Heels have also had remarkable success in ITA Grand Slam events. In 1993, former UNC men's assistant coach and two-time All-America selection Ronald Thornqvist won the ITA Indoors title in Minneapolis, Minn. In 2004, Geoff Boyd and Brad Pomeroy won the Mideast Region doubles championship and advanced to the quarterfinals of the national indoors. Brad Pomeroy and Raian Luchici reached the finals of the 2005 All-American Championships and the semifinals of the 2005 ITA National Indoors and earned the No. 1 collegiate ranking in doubles in the 2006 preseason in the process. The duo ended the season as All-America selections, ranked No. 6 in the country. In the fall of 2008, Clay Donato and Taylor Fogleman reached the semifinals of the All-American Championships and the quarterfinals of the ITA Mideast Regional before withdrawing due to injury.
A 1983 graduate of Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C., with a Bachelor of Science degree in applied psychology, Paul also played tennis for the Blue Hose for two years. He has a 1981 Associate of Arts degree with a concentration in business from Anderson (S.C.) College, where he played tennis as a freshman and sophomore. In 2008, Paul received the Bob Waters Award from Presbyterian College given to distinguished alumni of the institution.
In addition to coaching at Richmond, Paul also served as an assistant coach for the tennis teams at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas for one year and at the University of South Carolina for three years. He took the job at South Carolina directly out of college in 1983 and then moved to Trinity for one year. Paul moved to Richmond in 1987 and UNC in 1989 and has remained in Chapel Hill ever since.
Paul is also beginning his 23rd year as camp director of the annual Carolina Tar Heel Tennis Camps.
Paul maintains his permanent residence in Chapel Hill, N.C. He married Rebecca Dirksen, a Dartmouth College alumna, on September 12, 2009. Dirksen works in the real estate field and also was an assistant women's tennis coach at UNC. The couple celebrated the birth of their first child, a daughter, Madeline Jane Paul, on January 22, 2011.
Head Coach Sam Paul
309-147 record at North Carolina
23nd season at UNC, 19th as head coach
Education:
Presbyterian College (1983, B.S. in Applied Psychology)
College Coaching:
• University of South Carolina, Assistant Coach, 1983-86
• Trinity University, Assistant Coach, 1986-87
• University of Richmond, Director of Tennis, Head Men's and Women's Tennis Coaches, 1987-89
• University of North Carolina, Assistant Coach, 1989-93; Head Coach, 1993-present Recognition:
• 1996 ACC Coach of the Year
• 1996 ITA Mideast Region Coach of the Year
• 1996 ITA National Coach of the Year Finalist
• 2000 ACC Coach of the Year
• 2000 ITA Mideast Region Coach of the Year
• 2000 ITA National Coach of the Year Finalist
• 2002 ACC Coach of the Year
• 2004 ACC Coach of the Year
• 2004 ITA Mideast Region Coach of the Year
• 2004 ITA National Coach of the Year Finalist
• 2007 ACC Coach of the Year
• 2007 ITA Mideast Region Coach of the Year
• 2007 ITA National Coach of the Year Finalist
Sam Paul Career Highlights
• Has the most overall head coaching wins of any active coach in the ACC and ranks fourth all-time in league history with 309 victories.
• Has coached 19 first team All-Americas during his tenure at UNC since 1989.
• His teams have set school records for ACC wins in a season (11 overall, 9 in regular season), highest in-season national team ranking (#5) and most overall wins in a season (25).
• Five-time ACC Coach of the Year honoree and four-time finalist for ITA National Coach of the Year honors.
• During his tenure, North Carolina has won seven ACC championships overall (1990, 1992, 2002 tournaments and the 1991, 1992, 1996, 2004 regular season titles).
• The Tar Heels under Paul have qualified for the NCAA tournament 16 of the last 17 years.
• Paul's players have been tabbed for All-ACC honors 52 times during his head and assisting coaching tenures at UNC.
