MIAMI SHORES, Fla. – George Samuel remembers it well.
It was four years into his tennis coaching career at Barry University when his players started asking about their next opponent. A match with Rollins loomed, and the Buccaneers – a little green to the college tennis landscape – wanted to know what they were getting into.
“Coach, are they any good?” a new crop of players asked him.
“Nah, it’s an average team,” Samuel said.
Little did they realize their coach was being coy about the Top-5 ranked Tars, who were the class of the Sunshine State Conference at the time. Sure enough, Samuel’s psychological tactics paid off as the Bucs pulled out a 5-4 win. One of Rollins’ best players approached the Bucs coach after the match, marveling over where he found these guys – players like Chris Lemhoff, who helped pull off the cornerstone upset.
“Then the respect started coming,” Samuel said. “People were saying, ‘Hey, Rollins got beat by Barry.’”
Before you knew it, the Buccaneers’ tennis program started to thrive. Soon the Bucs graced the national rankings for the first time in school history.
“That was just the beginning,” said Samuel, who took over the women’s program in 1990 before inheriting the men’s team a year later. “We started to get looked at from all the other programs.”
A few votes in the national poll mushroomed into a Top-20 ranking. Then a Top-15, and soon a Top-10. Samuel was the first Barry coach to have both the women’s and men’s teams ranked. Nowadays, the Buccaneers tennis program is regarded as a perennial national power with NCAA Division II National Championships to back it up – all of which have transpired under Samuel’s 25 years of service at Barry.
“When I first got the position, it was something very exciting for me, and something I really wanted to do,” Samuel said.
Never did he think he’d be celebrating silver anniversaries. In fact, when he first got into coaching after a collegiate playing career at Miami Dade College and East Tennessee State and then furthering his education, Samuel thought 10 years of coaching would be enough before he’d commit to teaching in the classroom.
Think again.
Entering the spring, Samuel brings with him a 451-125 record, two NCAA titles, five NCAA runner-up finishes, 11 SSC Championships titles, one league regular season crown, two Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Coach of the Year awards, six South Region Coach of the Year selections and a league-record 14 SSC Coach of the Year honors, including the last seven – all while coaching 40 All-Americans, 41 Scholar All-Americans, seven SSC Players of the Year and 95 All-SSC selections. He’s taken the Bucs to 20 straight NCAA Tournaments, with 18 trips to the site of the national finals. Oh yeah, his 2013 team went 29-0 to win the national championship, becoming the only team in any sport in school at Barry to go unbeaten.
That’s just with the men’s program.
His women’s teams went 308-122 in 18 seasons, with 17 trips to the NCAA Tournament. His women’s teams advanced to the site of the NCAA finals 14 times. He guided those teams to three SSC titles. Samuel coached 24 All-Americans, 26 Scholar All-Americans, while earning two South Region Coach of the Year honors and four SSC Coach of the Year awards.
“When we won that first SSC championship, it almost felt like winning a national championship,” Samuel said. “That was a landmark. It’s a very special event for me. It’s history for me. It’s exciting to bring something like that to Barry.”
Winning a league title only whetted his appetite. Samuel wasn’t satisfied. Not even if his original plan to coach for 10 years actually followed his self-authored script. To take it to another level would mean more pushing, more prodding and more psychology from a Miami-raised tennis enthusiast who obtained a doctoral degree from Southern Illinois-Carbondale.
“I started pushing them,” he said. “From that first time, when I got that first group of kids, it was getting them to believe.”
Getting his players to believe remains a big part of the job today. But Samuel isn’t one to settle for mediocrity. Three years ago he said his players weren’t here “just to have a good year.” The difference between good and great teams is a fine line, but the results are clear.
Samuel directed the Bucs men’s team to the national championship match four consecutive years from 2008 to 2011, winning it all in 2010. He’s taken Barry to seven NCAA Finals matches, including five in a six-year span – two of which ended with titles.
“You’re here to win a national championship,” Samuel tells his players year-in and year-out. “You guys need to work.”
It’s always been that way for Samuel’s players. That includes guys like Laurent Lamothe, who in 1993 became Barry’s first tennis All-American and now is the prime minister of Haiti. The same can be said for other Bucs tennis luminaries Herbert Bende, Christian Witt, Thomas Hipp, Patrick Rittenauer, Ales Svigel, Marco Mokrzycki and Max Wimmer.
“Laurent Lamothe was the leader at that time,” Samuel said. “When we got Herbert Bende, then we jumped to a whole different level. He had such a professional preparation with extra training, extra stretching, extra cooling off. He used to make the other guys so impatient. They would be waiting for him at the vans, and say, ‘Coach, can’t we go? We’re hungry.’ I’d say, ‘No, just wait.’
“Christian Witt was an Armstrong (Atlantic) transfer as a master’s student. He was the ideal college tennis player that every coach would love to have on his team. Thomas Hipp, he’s the kind of guy who came in and who was a good player and proved himself. Marco and Max were just talented. I’ve had so many good players that it’s hard not to name them all. Every one of them has contributed to the success of the tennis program here.”
Samuel also holds high regard for many of Barry’s past and present administrators and staff. Dr. Jean Cerra, Barry’s former Athletic Director and Dean of the School of Human Performance and Leisure Sciences, offered Samuel a full-time position back when he was an adjunct professor and only four coaches occupied cubicles on the second floor of Thompson Hall. He’s thankful for the support of Dr. Eileen McDonough, the school’s Athletics Faculty Representative and Associate Vice President for Student Affairs, current Bucs Athletic Director Michael L. Covone and Associate Dean of HPLS Dr. Carl Cramer, who oversaw the athletic training program and started working at Barry when Samuel began coaching. Past school president Sister Jeanne O’Laughlin is another he won’t forget.
“Somehow, Mike Covone has tolerated me all these years,” Samuel quipped. “Sister Jeanne was very special. She liked Barry athletics. You could tell she was genuine about helping Barry with athletics.”
His assistant coaches have been instrumental, too. Bobby Cashman, now the head coach at Central Florida, Jens Gerlach, who played at West Florida and has coached in England and Switzerland, Chuck Willemborg, who won a national championship as a player at UCLA, Stefan Suter, who played at Pepperdine, Avi Kigel, Barry’s current head women’s coach, Hipp, now the Director of Tennis at Flagler, and longtime volunteer assistant Kern Pedersen all have been key to the Buccaneer tennis program’s success under Samuel.
“I’ve had some of the best assistants that any coach would want,” Samuel said. “I’ve even had volunteers that have been very important. That’s been a great joy, working with these guys.”
Understandably, when a journey ends in a title, everybody is happy.
“There was a time frame where we were like, ‘Are we ever going to win a national championship?’” Samuel confessed.
Then came the 2010 title match when, against then-power Valdosta State, the Buccaneers dropped two of the three doubles matches to the No. 1-ranked Blazers. All three pairs matches were decided by two games or less, including a 9-8 (10-8) verdict at the top flight. When VSU won at No. 2 singles to bump its lead to 3-1, things looked bleak. Barry’s 42nd-ranked Max Wimmer won in straight sets at No. 4 to give the Bucs their first singles point. After the Blazers won at the No. 1 spot to move within a match of clinching the title, the momentum shifted. Sergio Velez rebounded after not taking a game in the first set of his No. 6 singles match to win the next two sets, pulling the Bucs within 4-3. Emanuel Fraitzl won another three-set match at No. 3 to square the match at 4-4. That set the stage for Andrew Sharnov’s third-set tiebreaker victory to give Barry its first tennis national championship.
“It finally lifted a dark cloud over the tennis program,” Samuel said. “They wanted to win so badly. I just sat back and watched them after we finally won. I was just so happy to just watch their reaction. You could truly see how much they really wanted to win that. It was amazing. There was a mission there. And all those guys still keep in touch and share a special bond.”
In 2013, it was a magic all over again for Samuel and his team. From the beginning, he could see something special developing.
“Now we’ve been there and done it,” he thought. “My feelings were, ‘Don’t waste any time. This should be it. We can do it.’ I thought we had a darn good shot at taking it.”
Out the Bucs raced to a 5-0 start to the season. Then it was 10-Love. Then 15-Love. Then 20-Love.
“Then we’re in the regional and people were saying, ‘Damn, Barry’s undefeated,’” Samuel said. “Now all of a sudden we’re undefeated going into the national finals. That streak was phenomenal.’”
Certainly, the title that followed wasn’t bad either, despite the ulcers the Bucs faithful started developing after doubles play. That’s because after No. 1 Barry swept pairs play – the top two flights decided by 9-8 tiebreakers – No. 2 Armstrong started erasing Samuel’s hope for a second national title. Armstrong, whom Barry knocked off, 5-4, in the regular season to snap the then-No. 1 Pirates’ 42-match win streak, won at No. 3 singles for its first point. After Barry’s Romain Costamagna won at No. 4 singles to record his first singles victory in over a month and give the Bucs a 4-1 lead, Armstrong did the unthinkable. The Pirates won at Nos. 6, 1 and 2 singles to square the match at 4-4. Meanwhile, things looked bleak at No. 5. That’s where Barry’s Leo Vivas found himself down 4-1 in the third set of a match tied 1-1. Somehow, Vivas rallied to win the next three games to knot it at 4-4. His opponent served the Pirates within a game of ending the Bucs bid for an unbeaten season. But Vivas served for a win in the 10th game of the final set, squaring things up at 5-5. After breaking his opponent’s serve to take a 6-5 lead, Vivas didn’t drop a point in his last serve to clinch the title and Barry’s first perfect season.
“I don’t know how many teams can go undefeated? There’s probably a few,” Samuel said. “For me, that was the highlight of my career.”
For 25 years, Samuel has carved out his share of highlights on the hard courts. His 759 victories between the women’s and men’s program validate that. One win led to another. One belief paved the way to the next.
“It just grows on you,” Samuel said. “It’s contagious. They may have to go through one year, two years to see how close they got, and they didn’t work hard enough and they didn’t quite do enough to come through on it. They’re going, ‘This is it. I’ve only got one more year. Let’s win this thing.’ It’s hard to get that out of somebody the first year, maybe even the second year sometimes. When you start to compete against another team, there’s a lot of university pride against another. Then they start to realize there is a pride here.”
Samuel has worn Barry pride for a quarter century. He’s seen the school change, cultivating a transformation in himself. A once-tiny Catholic school founded for women has risen to national heights in different ways, and Samuel has been around to witness a lot of it.
“I’ve seen this school grow by leaps and bounds since it first started,” Samuel said. “I can remember doing my own media guide when I first started. I sort of said, ‘I’ve got to promote this program.’ I had to find a way to put them out there and make the guys feel like they’re in a college tennis program because I had that experience. That’s where it all comes from. My tennis experience at East Tennessee State was fantastic. It was a super experience. I said, ‘These guys have to experience the same stuff, whoever I can guide through and be able to coach.’ But I never thought I’d go more than 10 years. Then before you know it, it’s already 25.
“Just watching Barry develop in all these stages was also exciting for me. I walk through here now and I can look at things that never existed. The courts weren’t even here when I first started. The offices were in Thompson Hall. There were four coaches to an office on the second floor. It was such a small budget that we had to work with back in those days.
“All of a sudden, it was slowly building. Then I think athletics started to recognize tennis, and I hate to say that. I don’t want to be negative. But all of a sudden it was like, ‘Gosh, our tennis team is at the nationals, man.’ When we got on the map, the attention was increased and everybody was like, ‘Tennis is there every year.’ It just got better and better, the support from the university, the support from athletics, HPLS as well. I’ve seen athletics just grow and grow.”
Over time, Samuel’s expectations never wavered. The sky has always been the limit.
“I’ve gotten used to what I expect from this program while I’ve been here,” he said. “Even though there’s times when you may not feel it’s going to be exactly as successful, you have to keep pushing, you got try to keep pushing to make the most successful year out of it. You’ve always got to be looking for those last-minute prospects that you might find. I’m never satisfied with the amount of guys that I have. If there’s a way to bring one more at the last minute if I think that person’s going to help, I’m going to continue to try to do that. I want to try to get the best I possibly can in the way I know how. I’ve always focused on the year now.”
Well, the year at hand is his 25th dry run, and he’ll take a No. 3 national ranking into the spring season. A quarter of a century at Barry has left him with his share of silver memories.
“Barry has been a very special place to me,” Samuel said. “It always was from the moment I first started here. I used to live within the area, only a couple of blocks from Barry, and I said to myself, ‘Some day, I’d like to work for Barry University. Then when I finished my degrees and my PhD, the opportunity fell into my lap, starting as the women’s tennis coach. And it’s been fantastic ever since.”