Arizona men's tennis coach Clancy Shields won his 182nd match as the UA's coach last week, surpassing the school record 181 set by the late Bill Wright over 19 seasons.
Arizona tennis head coach Clancy Shields talks to his team before the Wildcats faced Denver in the NCAA Tournament on May 2, 2025.
The UA tennis record book says nothing about the record of ex-Wildcat Hall of Fame coach Dave Snyder, 1958-72, who coached Arizona to eight Top 10 finishes and national prominence. I finally found Snyder's Arizona record in the 1972 files of the Austin American-Statesman when he was hired away from Tucson by the Longhorns.
It says he was 149-9-2 at Arizona, which is elite-level stuff and then some. However, Snyder corrected the newspaper article and said he did win 149 matches at Arizona, but lost 29, not nine. Snyder went on to win 696 matches in his Arizona/Texas days, second-highest in NCAA history. Shields is 182-76 at Arizona with four Sweet 16 appearances. Either way, he is on a Snyder-type trajectory.
