Coach of the Year: Dave Fish ’72

This was the kind of season that just sort of drew you in.

Even Harvard men’s tennis coach Dave Fish ’72, whom senior Chris Chiou described as “more of your quiet leader,” had to yield to the excitement of a season which nearly culminated in a stunning upset of No. 1 Illinois.

“Dave is a very quiet person,” said junior Jonathan Chu, “and he doesn’t say a lot. He doesn’t show a lot of emotion. But you know what he means and you know what his intentions are.”

“[But] just towards the end of the season,” Chu added, “he started to become more emotional, and he would react more. He would be more energetic, and he seemed to be having as much fun as we were—not that he wasn’t having fun before when he wasn’t showing as much emotion.”

And why not? This year was, after all, nothing short of spectacular.

The Crimson went 17-6 in the spring—21-6 overall for the year—and was a perfect 7-0 in conference play, winning the Ivy title. The team won its first two matches in NCAA Tournament play, and despite losing 4-3 in the Sweet 16 to the Fighting Illini, No. 21 Harvard nearly mounted one of the great shockers in recent history.

This should come as no great surprise to any follower of Crimson tennis, for Fish has produced consistently impressive results. Entering this, his 28th season, he had accumulated an overall record of 437-185 and an astounding 209-23 in Eastern Intercollegiate Tennis Association (EITA)/Ivy play. In only two years under Fish’s reign has the Crimson lost more than two EITA/Ivy contests, and the squad has gone undefeated in the conference 14 times.

And of course, Fish had much to work with this year. The lineup included two solid co-captains in Cliff Nguyen and David Lingman, the latter of whom ended the season as the No. 36 singles player in the country.

The squad also boasted three other seniors—Chiou, George Turner and Mark Riddell—each of whom made significant contributions to the season.

Fish called the group “a landmark class,” one which will be sorely missed next year. But there will surely be others—Fish has enjoyed such success that the school continually attracts strong young players who might otherwise avoid the relatively tennis-weak Ivy League.

“He’s built a great team here,” offered Chiou, who then added that Fish “does all of the little things right, and he makes sure that we’re a classy team.”

“He just expects so much out of us—and we know that—and that makes us more responsible and [we] perform better for him. We expect more out of ourselves because of what he expects of us.”

Sophomore Brandon Chiu agreed, explaining that Fish’s reputation springs from the fact that “he really knows what’s going on, and he’s very knowledgeable.”

Twenty-eight seasons will certainly bring coaching knowledge, but Fish brings something more to the Harvard courts—a unique empathy which connects him to his pupils like few others.

After January’s Harvard Winter Invitation, just before the spring’s first dual match, the Crimson’s doubles teams appeared rusty coming off of the prolonged exam break. Fish said, though, that he was “quite pleased.”

“I think it’s always really tough to come out of exams at Harvard,” he explained, adding that the tests often leave students “ground down to their knees.”

“[After] two weeks of really intense, hard mental labor,” Fish said, “[if] your team can muster 80 percent of [its] mental and physical resources during this time, that’s a victory. [Harvard] is a grind. They all put in their time, and they try to keep their hand in while they’re doing what they came here for.”

Spoken by one who lived it.

And Fish’s lack of concern proved fair—the Crimson would go on to open its spring season by winning five of the first six doubles points.

Lingman indicated that the coach made decisions with that same sagacity throughout the season, pointing specifically to a lineup Fish kept relatively stable despite an excess of talent with which to fill it.

The consistency kept the players confident during the more challenging stretches, the co-captain explained.

But most of all, this year seemed fun. The players were smiling, and so was Fish.

After a tight 4-3 win at Minnesota early in the season, Fish praised his team.

“It was very representative of the kind of character we have on the team this year,” he said. “You can’t win matches like that without people who are all interested in working in the same direction.”

And they couldn’t have all worked in the same direction without somebody at the helm, guiding them along the way.

“He brought out the best in us this year,” Chu said, “and I hope that we brought out the best in him.”

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.