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Jamie Hunt was ranked as high as the No. 2 men's tennis recruit in the U.S. by TennisRecruiting.net when he signed with Georgia out of San Antonio, Texas, in 2006. Hunt was ranked as high as No. 26 in singles and #2 in doubles in the ITF rankings, won the U.S. Open Junior doubles title and remains the only junior player in history to win the Easter Bowl doubles titles in the 14s, 16s and 18s.

What followed was a college career that netted Hunt two NCAA team national titles with the Bulldogs and more than 200 singles and doubles victories. He was a winner of the ITA/Arthur Ashe Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship. He graduated in 2010 with a degree in sports management.

Today, Hunt is the associate head men's tennis coach at Vanderbilt. He jumped into college coaching just months after his senior season at Georgia.

TennisRecruiting.net caught up with Hunt recently and asked him to reflect on his former career as a player and his current career as a coach. Hunt talked about his clinching victory in the NCAA semifinals and his famous former teammate, John Isner. He also gave some advice about being recruited and explained what put him on the path to becoming a college tennis coach.

Questions and Answers

Tennis Recruiting (TR): When did you decide you wanted to be a coach?

Jamie Hunt (JH): My sophomore year was a big year for me. The coaches at Georgia played a huge role in my development as a person, and I thought how cool of a job would that be to help young men like that. So it was that sophomore year when I thought I'd love to be a college coach. I love college tennis. I think it's a hobby they pay me to do. You go out recruiting these young men, looking to put together a great team. You spend three hours every day with awesome 18- to 22-year-olds, helping guide their lives and making them better. It's pretty awesome.

TR: You went from college player to coach pretty quickly. How did you wind up at Vanderbilt?

JH: I finished my eligibility at Georgia in May, 2010. I still had some classes to take, and the plan was to volunteer for the men's team at Georgia that next year and look for a job the following summer. But Ian Duvenhage [Vanderbilt's head coach] called me that summer and asked if I was interested in joining his staff. I said, "Heck, yeah," and he hired me in August. I was able to work with my professors [at Georgia] and did an internship and a couple of online classes and graduated in December. So it was pretty quick.