One School, One Job — 800 Wins
March 05, 2023 | Women's Tennis, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
As she held one of her grandchildren in her arms Sunday, a beaming Sabina Wallace remembered the days when her own children were toddlers running around the Dan Magill Tennis Complex while her husband, Jeff, was on the court coaching during Georgia women's tennis matches.
Where has the time gone? A lot of it was spent at those very courts, cheering on the Bulldogs to yet another victory.
With a 4-0 win over Missouri on Sunday — clinched with an emphatic forehand winner on match point by Anastasiia Lopata at No. 4 singles — the sixth-ranked Bulldogs earned their seventh victory of the season. For Jeff Wallace, it was, most importantly, Georgia's second SEC win in as many matches.
It was also career win No. 800 for the former Bulldog from Portland, Ore., who found and made a home in Athens back in the 1980s.
"You kind of start, you get your first job, you're excited and you want to build something that's special. You take over team that had never had a national ranking and had a losing record the year before, and you go, Well, this is an opportunity to build something special in one of the greatest college towns in America," Wallace said. "It's an amazing place and I pinch myself that I've only had one job and have been able to stay here this long. It's been a heck of a ride."
Wallace isn't one to want to seek out the spotlight, but he smiled and accepted a lot of hugs Sunday. The biggest came from Sabina, their grown children, Brittany and Jarryd, and their families. He's "Papa Wally" to the grandkids.
"It is very, very special, and it's super exciting," Wallace said shortly after getting a commemorative plaque for the occasion from J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics Josh Brooks.
There also were a lot of hugs and high-fives from his players, associate head coach Drake Bernstein, volunteer assistant Grant Esposito, and lots of UGA staff members on hand for the event.
"You never really ever want it to be about you. It's about the University of Georgia, it's about the athletic department, women's tennis, and it's mostly about all of these great players that have come through this program," Wallace said.
"You can't do anything without them — that's the starting point. I've been so blessed to have so many awesome assistant coaches, none better than Drake. It's always a team effort when you accomplish anything, and so my mind just immediately went to all of the great players and how it all first started."
There is Wallace, hired as the Georgia women's coach after the 1985 season, with 800 wins. And there is former Indiana coach Lin Loring, with 846 in 44 seasons. That's the entire list of women's tennis coaches that have reached 800 wins.
"Great guy, great coach, and he did it a long, long time," Wallace said of Loring. "I'm excited to be in that company with him."
Back in the fall, Wallace was on hand when Loring was inducted into the ITA Women's Hall of Fame alongside former Georgia great Lisa Spain Short, the program's first NCAA singles champion in 1984. Wallace will no doubt join Loring and Short in the Hall of Fame one day.
How about another 800? Jeff and Sabina both laughed at that silly question.
The end of his extraordinary career may not be here yet, but it's a lot closer than the beginning. When you're the winningest active coach in your sport, two things are likely true: You've been doing it a long time, and you're really good at what you do.
Yes and yes for Jeff Wallace, who began his collegiate playing career at Utah. He played in Athens during the NCAAs while still a Ute and liked it so much that he transferred to Georgia in 1981, for his final two collegiate seasons. The man has been here ever since.
"It was always a dream to be able to play at a school like this, and then to be able to coach at your alma mater, that's super special in itself," Wallace said. "For me, I feel super fortunate that I've spent my whole career here at this school that I absolutely love."
Hired in 1985, Wallace's first season was in 1986, when he took a team that went 16-20 the year before and led them to a 20-9 record, just missing out on the NCAA tournament, which had a field of just 16 at the time. The following spring, in 1987, Wallace's Bulldogs went 26-5, made the program's first NCAAs and advanced all the way to the finals.
Georgia finished that 1987 season ranked No. 6, the first of nine straight years of being in the top 10 of the final rankings. In that run was 1994, when Georgia hosted the NCAAs for the first time and marched all the way to the program's first NCAA team title. Georgia won it again in 2000, and has also won four ITA National Indoor team championships, mostly recently in 2019.
"It's so incredible and it's such an honor to be on the team that's a part of 800, as it was for the players that were there for 700 or 600," said fifth-year player Meg Kowalski after Sunday's match. "He's so deserving of all this, and he's really built this program. To see him continuing to reach milestones like this is so amazing."
Only twice in Wallace's career have the Bulldogs lost double-digit matches in a season. They have lost five or fewer matches an astounding 25 times.
"I think that a big piece of what he does is he looks at all scenarios and he plays everything out really well," said Bernstein, Wallace's right-hand man for more than a decade. "He weighs all the options in advance, so you don't get into the situations where you're having to figure out things on the fly. I think that allows for a lot more structure as the years play out and seasons play out and as the program plays out."
The players change, the game and equipment have surely changed, but the results for Wallace's teams, they don't change much. It's wins upon wins upon wins. Over the past 20-plus years, Georgia women's tennis may be the most consistently excellent program in the athletic department. Starting with 2000, the Bulldogs have finished the season ranked in the top 10 19 times, and it likely would have been 20 if the 2020 season wasn't canceled due to the pandemic.
That kind of success and consistency doesn't happen by accident, without a ton of work and organizational excellence from top to bottom. And that's the program Wallace has built, a national powerhouse for nearly 40 years.
Back in 1986, Georgia's first match with Wallace as the head coach was a lopsided loss to Clemson. That was followed by six straight wins, the first a 6-3 win over Wisconsin. And 794 more have followed for one of the greatest coaches in Georgia athletics and collegiate tennis history.
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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