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Under Sam Paul's direction, the North Carolina men's tennis program continues to achieve new and more significant milestones every year on the collegiate tennis landscape. Despite losing four starters to graduation from his 2006 NCAA Sweet 16 squad, Sam Paul's 2007 team earned its highest ever national ranking at No. 5 for two weeks in the ITA poll and began the season 20-0 for UNC's best start to season since 1965, 42 years earlier. In the last two seasons combined, Carolina and Georgia have been the last remaining undefeated teams in the country each year Over the past two seasons Carolina's only non-conference loss came against Ohio State in the 2006 NCAA Sweet Sixteen. After guiding his team to a school-record 11 overall ACC wins in 2007, Sam Paul was named 2007 Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year. That was the fifth time overall and fourth time in the last seven years that Paul has earned this honor which annually is voted upon by his peers. Paul's teams have finished among the top three in the final ACC regular season standings in 14 of his 18 years at UNC as an assistant coach and the head coach. During the 2007 season, Carolina was ranked in the nation's top 10 for six consecutive weeks, a school record. North Carolina posted its fourth highest-ranked road win in school history on March 28, 2007 when the Tar Heels defeated No. 7 Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C. Paul's 2007 team also had 13 wins over 11 different teams that were selected for the NCAA Tournament. Carolina played in the nation's toughest conference, finishing second in the league in the ACC regular season and in the ACC Tournament. Carolina also earned an NCAA first and second host site for the third time in four years. UNC went 9-1 on the road last year, with its only loss coming at No. 2 Virginia. Paul's teams have enjoyed consistent success in the Mideast Region. Carolina has defeated South Carolina four straight years and has wins over higher-ranked VCU teams in each of the last three years. Paul's teams have also defeated Clemson in four of the last five meetings. Under Paul's direction, North Carolina completed a 13-year run as the only school to host the ITA Mideast Region Indoor Championships in the fall of 2006. In the fall of 2007, Paul coached his No. 1 doubles team of Chris Kearney and Taylor Fogleman to the ITA Mideast Regional doubles championship and the semifinals of the ITA Indoor Nationals. Carolina teams under Paul's tutelage have always been distinguished by their sportsmanship and leadership. In 2006, Raian 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 team to receive the inaugural ITA National Team Sportsmanship Award. With the parity present in men's college tennis, Sam Paul's career achievements at North Carolina are significant. He has 237 career victories at UNC and is the ACC's third active winningest coach with a 84-37 regular season record. He has coached six first-team All-American and four players who have achived singles rankings in the top 500 in the world. Paul also served as Don Johnson's traveling coach when he ascended to No. 1 in the ATP Doubles Rankings. Four of Paul's recent All-Americans -- Nick Monroe, Tripp Phillips, Brad Pomeroy and Raian Luchici continue to play on the ATP Tour. A recent addition to the membership of the 200-victory club, Paul begins his 15th year as head coach at North Carolina in 2007-08 and his 19th season at Carolina overall. A five-time Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year selection, four-time intercollegiate Tennis Association Mideast Region Coach of the Year and four-time ITA National Coach of the Year finalist, Paul also begins his 17th overall year as a collegiate head coach with an outstanding 237-115 dual-match record at Carolina and a 84-37 ACC regular-season dual match record. North Carolina's tradition of excellence in men's tennis has continued under Paul, who ranks as the fourth winningest coach in ACC history in dual match wins in his career and is second in UNC history in that category behind only Don Skakle. The 47-year-old native of Lancaster, S.C., has been uniting the winning reputation of UNC men's tennis with his adroit skills for coaching and recruiting since he was named the head coach by UNC Athletic Director John Swofford in April 1993, making North Carolina one of the most respected programs in the nation. 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. Phillips returned to campus last year as the assistant coach for the Tar Heels. Paul has also mentored six first-team All-Americas in his tenure as head coach, including one two-time first-team All America. David Caldwell (two-time All-America), Brint Morrow, Tripp Phillips, Nick Monroe, Raian Luchici and Brad Pomeroy have been awarded the prestigious honor of All-America status. Paul coached Bryan Jones, Chris Mumford, Ronald Thornqvist and Daryl Wyatt to first-team All-America honors during his assistant coaching years at Carolina from 2000-03 under the head coaching aegis of Allen Morris. In 2006, Paul mentored Raian Luchici who became the first ITA National Senior Player of the Year in UNC history while playing on one of the best squads UNC fans have witnessed. The 2006 squad finished the season ranked No. 12 nationally. In the course of the season, the Tar Heels tied what was then the highest team ranking in ITA ratings history with a No. 8 rank, a ranking which was also reached by the 1992 squad. The 2006 team went 25-5 in dual matches and tied the record for the most wins in school history, which was also achieved by the 1992 team. Joining Luchici as an All-America honoree in 2006 was fellow senior Brad Pomeroy. Six Tar Heels won 20 or more singles matches during the course of the season. Besides their 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 last year's squad were tapped for ACC Academic Honor Roll accolades. 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 this decade. 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 being an assistant for coach Allen Morris for four years from 1989-1993. In 2002, Paul directed his Tar Heels to a 19-6 dual match record and the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship, the 25th in school history. Carolina has been invited to the NCAA Tournament 15 of the past 16 seasons while Paul has been an assistant coach and the head coach in Chapel Hill; only once in Paul's tenure have the Tar Heels failed to make the NCAA Tournament field and that came in the 1999 season. Paul has repeatedly been rewarded for his coaching ability as he was selected the Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year in 1996, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2007. The 1996 Tar Heels amassed a 21-5 overall record, went undefeated in the ACC regular season at 8-0 and saw five players complete individual 20-win seasons. Senior David Caldwell received ACC Player of the Year honors for the third consecutive season and won the No. 1 singles title for the third straight season -- both league firsts. The 2000 Tar Heels compiled an 18-6 mark, reached the NCAA Tournament regional final and had three players earn ACC flight championship honors. Senior Tripp Phillips earned All-America distinction as he advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals and won the Patterson Medal as UNC's outstanding senior athlete. In 2002, the Tar Heels had one of their best seasons in recent memory as UNC went 19-6 overall against a brutal schedule and won the ACC tournament title for the first time since 1992 with a stirring 4-3 championship match victory over Georgia Tech. In 2004, UNC surprised much of the college tennis world by rising from a No. 50 preseason ranking to share the ACC regular-season championship and earn the No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Tar Heels finished 23-5 overall and hosted an NCAA regional for the first time since the tournament field expanded to 64. Nick Monroe became the fourth NCAA singles quarterfinalist coach by Paul. 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 as Coach Allen Morris' assistant coach 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 Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season dual matches and 10-2 in ACC Tournament dual matches. Paul was an assistant for teams which won ACC Tournament titles in 1990 and 1992, were the ACC Tournament runnersup in 1991 and 1993 and won the conference's regular-season championships in 1991 and 1992. All four teams Paul worked with at Carolina as an assistant to Morris were ranked in the Top 25 in the nation by the ITA. The 1992 Carolina team reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament and the 1993 squad was in the NCAA Tournament Final 16. Since Paul took over as UNC's head coach the Tar Heels have made the NCAA Tournament field every year from 1994 through 2007 with the exception of 1999. Under Paul's guidance, the Tar Heels hosted NCAA regionals in 2004, 2006 and 2007. During his tenure, the Tar Heels have also had remarkable success in ITA Grand Slam events. A Carolina player has competed in the national singles indoor competition nine of the past 16 years, most recently Raian Luchici in 2005. 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. This past fall, Taylor Fogleman and Chris Kearney combined to the ITA Mideast Region indoor doubles championship and reach the semifinals of the national indoors. The tandem began the spring 2008 season ranked No. 3 in the nation. In addition to his collegiate coaching experience, Sam Paul has worked with numerous ATP Tour players including Nick Monroe, Don Johnson and Tripp Phillips, all of whom have chosen to train in Chapel Hill on a fulltime basis. A 1983 graduate of Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C. wih 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 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 USC 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 19th year as camp director of the annual Carolina Tar Heel Tennis Camps.
Sam Paul Career Highlights
Head Coach Sam Paul
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