Team History
The Florida Gators men's tennis team was started by head coach Dennis K. "Dutch" Stanley in 1932. In eight years leading the Gators' tennis program, Stanley compiled a team win-loss record of 54–12 (.818), still the best coaching record in the history of the program as measured by winning percentage. Stanley, who also served as the head coach of the Gators football and track teams, left the university in 1940, but later returned as the first dean of its College of Health and Human Performance.
The Gators have won eight Southeastern Conference team championships (1961, 1968, 1969, 1975, 1994, 2000, 2003, 2005).
They Gators men's tennis team has never won an NCAA national team championship, but advanced to the NCAA tournament semifinals in 2000 and 2005. In individual match play, Gators Mark Merklein and David Blair claimed the NCAA doubles championships in 1993. Merklein won the NCAA singles championship in 1994, losing just one set while defeating six tournament opponents. Gator Jeff Morrison claimed the NCAA singles championship in 1999, also losing only a single set on the way to the title.
Read more about this topic: Florida Gators Men's Tennis
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“I doubt if men ever made a trade of heroism. In the days of Achilles, even, they delighted in big barns, and perchance in pressed hay, and he who possessed the most valuable team was the best fellow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
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