Exactly a week after announcing that Terp women’s tennis coach Martin Novak was resigning, the Athletics Department opened a search for a new men’s tennis coach as former coach Jim Laitta’s contract will not be renewed.
While Novak’s resignation could have been foreseen, it was an interesting move to remove Laitta five years after he got the men’s tennis program fully-funded.
Laitta has been with University of Maryland for 19 years, coaching both the men’s and women’s programs at one time. He has been the sole coach of the men’s team for the past eight years. Under Laitta’s leadership, both the Terps men’s and women’s tennis programs became fully-funded and even garnered national status.
Laitta started with the Terps in 1990 with no scholarship players on either team. Eight years later, he had the women’s tennis program with the complete eight scholarships and led the women’s team to their first NCAA appearance in program history.
On the men’s side, Laitta produced the first All-Americans the school has seen in more than 30 years with Boris Fetbroyt and Andrew Orban.
But Laitta fell into tough luck with a 6-39 ACC record the past four seasons with the men’s team. This season, the Terps were in multiple close matchups but failed to live up to preseason expectations. The Terps finished with a 7-14 overall record and were just 1-11 in the ACC.
“We appreciate Jim’s efforts, but we have decided to move our men’s tennis program in a new direction,” Kathy Worthington, senior associate director of athletics, said in a press release Thursday. “We’re not where we expect to be competitively, with very good facilities and scholarship support.”
One of Laitta’s complaints during the regular season was the difficulty of creating a competitive program at Maryland for various reasons, including location. The Terps currently play off-campus on Paint Branch Parkway at the Tennis Center at College Park, which has no affiliation with the university.
Laitta said that while the facility is in better shape than the courts they used to use (Outside of Cole Field House), being off-campus is detrimental to the team. The home matches this season rarely had more than 20 spectators, most of which were parents. Laitta said the poor student-fan support made for almost a neutral court atmosphere and has hurt recruiting.
The fully-funded status of the men’s tennis team scholarship wise might mean the Athletics Department expected more from the teams. I will hopefully have more information in the days to come.
Remember to check back at the blog for future updates as the search for two new tennis coaches continues.
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