Sam Winterbotham (born 1 October 1973) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English ...

college

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball c ...

coach and former college player. He was the

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other Coach (sport), coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manage ...

of the

Tennessee Volunteers men's tennis The Tennessee Volunteer men's tennis team represents the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville, TN. The program has appeared in 31 NCAA Tournaments. Additionally, the Vols have won 9 SEC Championships, 4 SEC Tournaments, and finished as nation ...

team of the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

. Winterbotham was previously an assistant coach for the

Baylor Bears The Baylor Bears are the athletic teams that represent Baylor University. The teams participate in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as one of only two private school members of the Big 12 Conference. Prior to jo ...

where he helped guide the team to the 2004 national title with the team that he had previously recruited. His first stint as a head coach came in 2002 when he became the head coach for the

Colorado Buffaloes The Colorado Buffaloes are the athletic teams that represent the University of Colorado. The university sponsors 17 varsity sports teams. Both the men's and women's teams are called the Buffaloes (Buffs for short) or, rarely, the Golden Buffaloes ...

men's tennis team.

Playing career

He attended

Oklahoma Christian University Oklahoma Christian University (OC) is a private Christian university in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was founded in 1950 by members of the Churches of Christ. History Oklahoma Christian University, originally named Central Christian College ...

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, an ...

, Oklahoma, where he was a four-year NAIA All-American and was ranked No. 1 nationally. In 1997 he won top honors as the NAIA Rolex national singles champion. During his time at OCU Winterbotham was also named the 1999 Sooner Athletic Conference Player of the Year in soccer, where he was named to the All-Region first team and honorable mention All-America team. In 2007 Winterbotham was inducted into the Oklahoma Christian Athletic Hall of Fame. He said it took him only one semester at OCU for him to know he wanted to get into coaching tennis.

Coaching career

Baylor Assistant Coach (1999-2002)

Winterbotham was an assistant coach at Baylor from 1999 to 2002 where he managed to help turn the Bears into a national powerhouse. His global recruiting efforts played an instrumental part in Baylor's 2004 NCAA title.

Colorado Head Coach (2002-06)

In 2002, Winterbotham earned his first head coaching job when he was hired to coach

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

and was tasked with transforming the program into a competitor in the

Big 12 The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its f ...

. During his time at Colorado, the team improved steadily every year. During the spring 2006 season, he guided the team to its first 20-win season since 1997, its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1988 and a final ITA ranking of No. 23 which was a school record. Despite this success, the men's tennis program was cut following the season because of athletic department budgetary reasons.

Tennessee Head Coach (2006-2017)

Winterbotham joined the

Tennessee Volunteers The Tennessee Volunteers and Lady Volunteers are the 20 male and female varsity intercollegiate athletics programs that represent the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Volunteers compete in Division I of the National Collegi ...

in 2006 and quickly guided the Vols back to national prominence. He became the first coach in program history to capture back-to-back SEC regular-season titles when the Vols won in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, the Vols broke the school record for shutouts with 16, swept the SEC regular season and conference titles and reached the NCAA team final for the third time in program history. Every season at Tennessee, he has been assisted by former top 30 ATP professional

Chris Woodruff Chris Woodruff (born January 3, 1973) is an American former professional tennis player and current head coach at the University of Tennessee. He won the 1997 Canada Masters, reached the quarterfinals of the 2000 Australian Open and attained a c ...

. Volunteer assistant coaches have included Milos Popovic, Christopher Williams, Ben Rogers and Ben Testerman. So far, Winterbotham has accumulated a 178-60 overall record at UT, the most wins for a Tennessee coach in his first seven seasons. That record includes a 64–26 record in the Southeastern Conference, including a 21-1 SEC record from 2010 to 2011. While at Tennessee, Winterbotham has had 16 All-America and 24 All-SEC selections Three of his players have reached the No. 1 national college singles ranking during their careers:

John-Patrick Smith John-Patrick Tracey "JP" Smith (born 24 January 1989) is an Australian professional tennis player who competes mainly on the ATP Challenger Tour, both in singles and doubles. He attended the University of Tennessee from 2007 through 2011 where ...

(2010),

Rhyne Williams Robert Rhyne Williams (born March 22, 1991) is an American tennis player. He has not played on the ATP Tour since 2018 and is currently a tennis coach at the University of Tennessee. Williams first played on the professional circuit in 2006, b ...

(2011) and

Mikelis Libietis Latvian mythology is the collection of myths that have emerged throughout the history of Latvia, sometimes being elaborated upon by successive generations, and at other times being rejected and replaced by other explanatory narratives. These myt ...

(2013). Three doubles teams have also earned the top national ranking He was voted the 2013 National Coach of the Year by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association for his team's consistent top-10 performances and player development during his first seven seasons. The 2013 Vols reached the NCAA quarterfinals and ended the year ranked sixth nationally, while featuring Libietis at the top of the lineup. In 2014, Winterbotham coached his first NCAA champions. Mikelis Libietis and Hunter Reese won the 2014 NCAA doubles title, beating Ohio State's Peter Kobelt and Kevin Metka 7-6 (4), 6-7 (3), 7-6 (6) in the final. Prior to this breakthrough, Winterbotham had coached four NCAA individual finalists: 2008 NCAA Singles –

; 2009 and 2010 NCAA Doubles – Smith and Davey Sandgren; and 2011 NCAA Singles –

. On 4 May 2017, it was announced that Winterbotham was being relieved of his duties as head coach at the University of Tennessee.

References