Men's Tennis writer Asher Young sat down for an interview with Coach Mike Fried to discuss how he got here, and where the programs are going.

After taking the unusual route of becoming the head coach of both the men’s and women’s tennis teams, Mike Fried has begun to build up what looks to be one of the strongest programs in the NESCAC. For the first time in the program’s history, Fried brought recruiting classes for both the men’s and women’s teams, which were top-three ranked nationally. In light of the end of this fall’s tennis season, Fried answered some questions about his path to Wesleyan and the process of creating a successful program.

 

The Argus: Where did you grow up and how did you initially become involved with tennis?

Mike Fried: I grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, which is famous for Vassar College and that’s about it. I started playing tennis when I was probably seven or eight, particularly in the summertime. I used to get dropped off at tennis courts and stay there all day and play until my dad would come by on the way home from work. He would also play with me for a little while before going home. I got really into it at a really young age, probably too young. I started playing tournament tennis around 10 or 11 and did it pretty competitively, nationally and internationally, through the 14, 16, and 18 [and under] age groups. I played tennis when I was at Brown and played pretty unsuccessful tennis for a year or two on the professional tour after college, and as I was kind of winding that down, I ran part of the program for a couple of the bigger junior tennis academies in south Florida.

Then, through a tennis-related introduction, I went completely in the other direction and went to work in finance on and off Wall Street for the next 15 years or so. A few years ago, the business that I was working for started a smaller company, and the niche we were working in was changing pretty rapidly. So around the time that we were going to have to evolve with that niche and reinvent ourselves was the same time that I really started to miss tennis again, sincerely, for the first time in a long time. Through one thing or another, I started playing a little bit of tennis again myself for the first time, and started working with some of the very good juniors in New England. That led me to come up here and begin to volunteer a bit with the teams here, and I kind of fell in love with the school and working with kids at this age and this potential tennis level. A couple years later, strangely enough, here I am, and I’m happy to be here.

 

A: When you were at Brown and figuring out life past college, did you think about coaching a college team as something you might do?

MF: You know, I always did think at some point I’d love to coach college tennis, and ironically enough I never really thought that coaching junior tennis at a younger age, or coaching tennis at any level or location other than collegiately, as very attractive. I loved the idea of coaching a college team in theory all along. At the time, I thought the concept of doing that and potentially teaching college classes in one of the fields that I studied would be really attractive. But that was when I was young and naïve and didn’t realize that it takes 90 hours a week to coach the tennis teams, and certainly just as much to teach any classes, so it didn’t pan out that way.

 

A: How does coaching a tennis team like Wesleyan’s compare to the individual coaching you’ve done in the past?

MF: The similarity is that what I was doing long ago at these academies was working with very high-achieving, high-goal-setting types of kids, and we’re looking to do the same thing here. So the difference, and the reason I was never really attracted to the academy setting or the junior setting, is that I really think to be a part of that in a team setting is exponentially more rewarding for the kids, and for me. Here, you have the ability to create a culture that maximizes what I think is the coolest part of college tennis: a very, very individual sport in a team setting. That’s what gets me most excited about coaching college tennis.

 

A: As you moved through the Wesleyan tennis programs, starting as a volunteer coach for the women’s team and becoming the head coach for both the men’s and women’s teams, what types of responsibilities came with each jump up in the system?

MF: On a volunteer basis, it was just when my time allowed me to come up and work with the teams, and I loved it, but it was largely intermittent. Coming in more formally as the assistant coach of both teams, it really allowed me to get a better sense of not only the types of kids that Wesleyan was attracting in terms of student-athletes and students as a whole, but also the types of kids that the other NESCAC schools and the top-ranked Division III programs were attracting. That really paved the way for me when I did take over the head-coaching role by giving me a better sense of how I was going to recruit. The answer to that, which is the same with most of these other schools we’re competing with and trying to join the ranks of, is the foundation of a tremendous educational opportunity with the balance of top national tennis in a really cool setting at Wesleyan. That’s what distinguishes us from most other places: just the feel, the setting, and the types of people here. The full immersion into the recruiting side of things was the biggest transition from a volunteer position to head coach.

 

A: How does the double duty of coaching teams affect your recruiting?

MF: On the one hand, it’s a huge challenge, and one that our premier competition isn’t faced with exactly. It’s considerably more work, for sure, and it has me travelling in the summertime a lot more than most people. At the same time, I love that challenge. It does get a little rough sometimes, but at the end of it, I can’t imagine not doing it for both programs. There are such distinct subtleties in both coaching and in the recruiting process for the men and women, and I think the differences are cool. I’m excited to try and do something that we’ve never done here before, which is trying to produce top-level national tennis teams.

 

A: Just about every Wesleyan athletic team has become far more competitive over the last several years. Where in your program does that growing competitiveness come from?

MF: [Athletic Director] Mike Whalen has really been the catalyst for that whole process. He hired me, and one of the things that actually excited me about coming to Wesleyan was his presence. He was very excited about the idea of creating top-caliber national tennis teams here, and it’s his enthusiasm and support of the program that’s really the backbone of what we’re trying to do. It certainly mimics my own, and he’s a cool guy to have in your corner.

 

A: As far as your coaching methods go, do you think they draw from your personal playing style at all?

MF: Absolutely. Most of my coaching now comes from understanding the perspective of having gone through it at every level, taking all the things I did well and the many more things I didn’t do as well as I could’ve. This is in terms of everything: in terms of comprehensiveness of training, off-court training, nutrition, sports psychology, and just trying to apply everything that I loved from my own college tennis experience. And at the same time, it’s about trying to bring to the table everything I wish had either been available to me [during my career], or that I had the ability to take advantage of at the time and didn’t.

 

A: How did your college experience compare to the type of experience your players are getting now? Are there significant differences between the Division I tennis you played and the Division III level that you’re coaching now?

MF: I think, truth be told, our teams right now would play very competitively with my college team. So that distinction between D-I and D-III is one of the cool things that’s rapidly disappeared in the last 10 years or so. Top-level Division III tennis is easily competitive with anything outside top-50 national Division I tennis, and that used to be a bigger gap for sure. As for the experience itself, we’re doing more here in terms of that comprehensiveness with strength training, off-court conditioning work, and flexibility and injury-prevention stuff. We work with an outside nutritionist and a sports psychologist that I bring in, so I think we do as much if not more so than a huge portion of the Division I teams, just in terms of what we’re trying to make available with regard to resources and information.