Aerobic Tennis
About the Author
Bill Wright grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and started to play tennis when he
was 12, and he’s been hooked ever since. Between tournaments and coaching,
he attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas. While getting his law
degree at Denver, he coached there and at Colorado State University. In 1960 he
was the Southwest Conference Doubles Champion and Inter-mountain Doubles
Champion. In 1963 he was ranked no. 44 in the United States in men’s singles.
In 1964 he was the coach and captain of the U.S. Junior Davis Cup Team.
Bill practiced law for five years in Los Angeles before returning to tennis
full-time as coach at the University of Illinois and director of tennis during the
summers at Vail, Colorado.
In 1974 he was ranked no. 7 in the U.S. in the 35-and-older category. That
same year he began coaching the men’s team at the University of California
at Berkeley and for six years his team was in the quarterfinals or higher in the
NCAA team championships. He became the vice president of the Intercollegiate
Tennis Association in 1976.
In 1978 the NCAA coaches picked him as Coach of the Year. In 1980 the
Cal Bears won the national indoor team championships and were runners-up
to Stanford in the NCAA championships. In 1982 Bill was named Coach of
the Year in the Pac-10 Conference. His coaching at Cal has produced seven
all-Americans, all of whom have since turned professional.
From 1987 to 2006, he was men’s tennis head coach at the University
of Arizona. He was named Region Eight Coach of the Year in 2003 and in
2005. In 2006, he was elected into the Intercollegiate Coach’s Hall of Fame,
as well as the Colorado Tennis Hall of Fame. During his 27 years as a coach,
he accumulated a 373–319 career record.
He and his wife, Bitsy, currently live in Tucson, Arizona.
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