College Feature
Dynasty Building - NAIA Style - at Georgia Gwinnett College
by Rick Limpert, 5 August 2015
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The word "dynasty" isn't thrown around loosely in sports.
There were the Boston Celtics that won 16 NBA titles from 1956-86, the Green Bay Packers of the 1960s, UCLA men's basketball winning 10 NCAA titles in a 12-year span and various Major League baseball teams dominating that sport for maybe a decade at a time.
So one would maybe hesitate a little in using the word "dynasty" to describe an upstart tennis program at an NAIA school in the suburbs of Atlanta.
No way.
"(Building) a dynasty is our goal," stated Georgia Gwinnett College head men's and women's tennis coach, Chase Hodges. "I'm not afraid to say the word."
Hodges delivered GGC its first-ever national titles in any sport with both the Men's and Women's NAIA National Championship titles back in 2014, and his men repeated in dominating fashion in May, 2015.
The Grizzly men's squad is just the second-ever to make it through the entire national tournament without surrendering an individual match, along with the 2006 team from Auburn-Montgomery. GGC is also the first to win back-to-back crowns since AUM won three in a row from 2006-08.
Hodges says it all has happened so quickly.
"We've won three national championships, and the program is brand new. "When I came to GGC on July 1, 2012, I remember sitting in my office, and I didn't have one player, tennis balls or even a schedule to look at."
Hodges said that even though his teams weren't eligible for postseason play in the 2012-13 season, they used that year to get everything in line.
"2013-14 was the season where we could win the National Championships, and we won the men's and women's both in year one. That has never been done in college sports."
