The University of Idaho men’s tennis program went on an unprecedented run from 1966-73, claiming eight consecutive Big Sky Conference championships. But the fact that the team even had the opportunity to make such a run is almost as incredible as the dominance itself.
After winning the program’s first title in 1966, coach Dave Gunderson resigned from his post. With nobody to coach the team, Vandal athletic officials made the decision to cut the program before the fall of 1966.
However, Idaho assistant athletic director Ron Stephenson, who also coached Idaho wrestling during that era, refused to see one of the school’s most successful athletic programs discontinued.
“When I got there, Ron confided in me and said that they had decided to drop the program because they had nobody to coach it and they couldn’t pay anybody,” recalled Jeff Williams, Stephenson’s first tennis recruit. “He said, ‘Hell, we don’t win the Big Sky championship in anything very often. Heck, I’ll coach it.’ He had a pretty good career as an athlete and he loved coaching, so that’s what happened. That was a unique situation.”
With no tennis background, Stephenson relied on his business experience and familiarity with Idaho’s finances to maintain the high standard the program had set.
“Ron was responsible to make sure other sports didn’t go over their limits for how much they had for scholarships and those things, so he was able to bring in several players on scholarships that were unused from other sports,” Williams explained.
In what turned out to be preparation for his future role – although coaching never crossed his mind at the time – Williams helped offset Stephenson’s lack of tennis knowledge by developing practice plans for the team behind the scenes.
“He didn’t have the tennis background to do any coaching to get us better at that particular sport,” Williams said of Stephenson. “That’s another reason why it was pretty amazing, it seemed to be the people he recruited were people who wanted to play tennis and had a good skill level.”
As Steve Hembera, who played at Idaho from 1968-70, recalls, Stephenson’s strict conditioning regimen in addition to his recruiting abilities played a big role in Idaho’s dominance. With no tie-breakers during that era, marathon
matches were always a possibility, and at the end of the day, Vandal players outlasted their opponents more often than not.
“Ron got us in great shape during the winter and early spring prior to the season,” Hembera said. “We had a lot of three-set matches and many going beyond 6-4 or 7-5. We could pull out the close ones because we were in better shape than our opponents. I remember doing conditioning like the wrestling team and running countless laps on the second level of the old gym and running in the snow in the months prior to getting the snow off the courts.”
Hembera also credited Williams – his former doubles partner -- with much of the team’s success for his leadership skills and high-level playing ability.
“What a great peer leader; a real bulldog,” Hembera said of Williams. “He was the heart and soul of our team. I was lucky to have him as my doubles partner for those two years I was at Idaho.”
Stephenson’s unconventional tenure as tennis coach was a resounding success, earning four consecutive Big Sky championships and Big Sky Coach of the Year honors from 1967-70. His final team pieced together the best season in Idaho tennis history, going 23-1 overall with a 5-4 loss to Utah State the only blemish on the schedule in 1970. However, after he earned his MBA from Idaho in the spring of 1970, Stephenson resigned from Idaho.
Stephenson’s vacancy was quickly filled by Williams, who had exhausted his playing eligibility but remained at Idaho to work towards an MBA of his own.
“I was cheap and I needed a job,” Williams said. “I got paid a couple hundred dollars a year to be the tennis coach. It was a part-time thing and I did it to try to make ends meet.”
Despite his success as a player, Williams was feeling the pressure when he stepped into his new role.
“I was pretty concerned after he [Stephenson] left because we didn’t have someone to know what scholarships were available to redistribute to tennis,” Williams said.
Williams was able to maintain Idaho’s success, going a combined 55-16 (.775) during his first three years as head coach, boasting three more Big Sky championships. He was even able to parlay some of that success into added support from the athletic department.
“Once the program became successful we had more leverage to ask for some things,” he recalled. “We could get a little more money for travel and I’d get a little more money for equipment and things like that.”
Frans Hoogland, who played at Idaho for two years from 1970-72, remembers Williams as a great recruiter and teacher.
“A program definitely has to have a great recruiter,” Hoogland said of Idaho’s formula for success. “I came from Southern California. When you get into the Los Angeles area it’s a big city so I wanted to get back to a smaller city. We also had a good work ethic and a good work environment to get into a top rated position. You still have to work for it. I would say the coaches there were very good and improved our ability to play.”
Idaho’s string of championships ended with its eighth consecutive Big Sky title in 1973. When the streak was all said and done, 23 Vandal players captured 42 out of 54 possible Big Sky singles and doubles championships from 1966-73. Including Idaho’s eight consecutive team championships, the Vandals won 49 of 62 possible Big Sky tennis titles during the era. Idaho even added two more team and 16 more individual titles before the 70s were over.
Three coaches and a couple dozen players aided Idaho’s most dominant tennis era, but if it weren’t for a stubborn Vandal administrator-turned-coach who refused to abandon a winner, Idaho’s dynasty may have merely been a dream.
Roster of the 1966-1973 Vandals Big Sky Championship Tennis Teams
| Balbuton, Manuel |
Benson, Bill |
Bishop, Sterling |
Brunn, Bob |
| Carter, Tom |
Chandler, Vann |
Coy, Ray |
Denney, Doug |
| Emsiek, Gary |
Evans, Bill |
Ferrell, Jim |
Flynn, Jeff |
| Hamlin, Don |
Hembera, Steve |
Hessler, Larry |
Hoogland, Frans |
| Kauffman, John |
Kelner, Dan |
Leonard, Tom |
Morales, Richard |
| Newman, Frank |
Oates, Jeff |
Patch, Don |
Powell, Bob |
| Reis, Keith |
Rudd, Skip |
Schulman, Steve |
Sevall, Jim |
| Smith, Daryl |
Takahashi, Lee |
Walters, Darwin |
Williams, Jeff |
