Unlikely power

Coach has birthed a dominant program at Illinois

Last year Rajeev Ram generally was regarded as the top high school tennis player in the country, and he faced a dilemma. Should he renounce his amateur status and try his hand on the ATP Tour? Or should he head to college, adding a year of seasoning to his game before pulling a Carmelo Anthony? Ram chose door No. 2 and then decided to join what, in his mind, was the nation's top collegiate program. The Carmel, Ind., native ended up at Stanford, right? Uh, not quite. USC? UCLA? Nope. Florida? Wrong again. Hint: Think north of the Mason-Dixon line and squarely in the Central time zone. Give up? Ram ventured to that unlikely tennis citadel of greater Champaign-Urbana, where he now plays for the University of Illinois.

To use the phrase of the day, there's been a radical regime change in college tennis. Illinois is the heavy favorite to win the 2003 NCAA team title. Seriously. So far this season, the Sub-Chicago Seven haven't merely been beating the opposition; they've been humiliating it. The Fighting Illini are 19-0, ranked No. 1 and brandish a combined match record of 114-9. Their closest encounter was a 4-2 win over Florida at the National Indoor Championships.

Arguably the most comprehensively dominating team since John McEnroe's 1978 Stanford club (or at least since the Cardinal's 1998 incarnation), Illinois boasts three players with top-10 NCAA singles rankings -- Amer Delic, Phil Stolt and Brian Wilson. What's more, seven different Illini singles players have been ranked in the top 100 this season. How deep is this team? Ram, a silky, versatile player who finished in the top 300 in the ATP Champions Race last year and who soon will be a credible pro, often plays in the fourth singles position for Illinois. Perhaps most remarkable: At a time when roughly 30 percent of college tennis scholarships go to players hailing from overseas, the only non-American on the team is Craig Tiley, a native South African. And he's the head coach.

College tennis may be 119 years old, but Northwestern coach Paul Toricelli might be onto something when he calls Illinois' renaissance the most dramatic turnaround in NCAA history. This is a program that not along ago was as easily mocked as Lou Henson's hairdo. Before winning the first of six straight (and counting) Big Ten titles in 1997, Illinois had gone more than 50 years without a conference crown. Just a decade ago the team was a woeful 4-23 and finished 11th in the Big Ten, behind powerhouses such as Iowa and Penn State.

Much of the credit for the program's dramatic ascent (call it a Champaign supernova) goes to Tiley. A former South African Davis Cup captain, Tiley came to Illinois in 1992 to pursue his graduate degree. To supplement his income, he gave tennis lessons for $10 an hour at the Atkins Tennis Center on campus. After the men's team slogged through another lousy season, the head coach skipped town in 1993 and Tiley was offered the job on an interim basis. During the offseason Tiley went to the athletic director and offered a meticulous, three-part plan outlining where he envisioned the program in three years (winning the Big Ten title), five years (competing on a national level and producing serviceable professional players) and 10 years (winning NCAA titles and producing "impact pros.") The A.D. was impressed and removed Tiley's interim tag. "I looked at it like a business," Tiley said. "We needed a blueprint."

Tiley is a classic tennis lifer who supplements his coaching income by running a $50,000 USTA Challenger, recording instructional videos and running a well-regarded camp. During summers he coaches pro players, including Wayne Ferreira and George Bastl. In fact, Bastl retained Tiley last summer to help improve his proficiency on grass. Under Tiley's tutelage, Bastl was a lucky loser and squeaked into Wimbledon's main draw, where he won his first match. Then, with Tiley cheering him on from the players' box, Bastl beat an American veteran with a decent track record at the All England -- a curly-haired guy named Pete Sampras. In the third round Bastl lost to David Nalbandian, who eventually made it to the final. "I'd say we were pretty successful," Tiley said. "It was a matter of working hard and believing he could do it."

The same principles inform Tiley's philosophy at Illinois. Confident that he can field a top team without manipulating NCAA rules and recruiting foreign players, Tiley is committed to winning with homegrown Americans. "I've been in rooms when foreign players [from other schools] have received checks," he says. "I've seen programs exploit all sorts of loopholes, bringing in 22-year-old freshmen and having guys play 'money tournaments' in their home countries during the summer. We're not going to cut corners like that. We think that with professional training, aggressive player development and instilling a real work ethic, we can succeed with American players. Even in a colder climate."

This meteorological disadvantage is the subject of countless jokes, but it isn't to be taken lightly. Even last week -- in April! -- the weather was so uncooperative that the Illini were practicing indoors. Champaign is not Coral Gables, it's not Palo Alto, it's not Tempe. And don't think that rival coaches in sunnier climes don't italicize as much in their recruitment.

Tiley, though, has used what he calls "the weather factor" to his advantage. First, he points out that the Illini only play 30 percent of their matches indoors, which, incidentally, is the same ratio as most pros. He is prevailing on the athletic department to add additional outdoor and indoor courts, upgrading the facility to the point that it will someday host the NCAA championships. He also helped turn Atkins into the Cameron Indoor Stadium of college tennis. At each match, the facility is standing room only (when was the last time that phrase surfaced in a sentence pertaining to college tennis?) as 800 fans cram into the place. This includes the Net Nuts, a group of rowdy students who can make life hell for the opposition. "The atmosphere is unbelievable," said Delic, a Jacksonville, Fla., native. "The campus and the community is really into it." (So much so that Tiley recently had to confer with the local fire marshal to determine the building's legal capacity.)

The knock on Illinois is that for all the team's success, it wilts in the outdoor heat. Indeed, the Illini have yet to get beyond the quarterfinals of the NCAA championships, which will be held this year in Athens, Ga. If the club can reverse this trend, it will cement Illinois' standing as the new college tennis powerhouse. And it will be the source of some warmth on campus next fall when the temperature inevitably starts to drop.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim covers tennis for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send a question to his Mailbag.

 

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