Tim Gray played a key role, both as a player and a coach, in the Shoremen’s meteoric rise to national prominence in tennis. As a senior in 1986, playing No. 2 singles and No. 2 doubles for Hall of Fame coach Fred Wyman, Tim captained the first Washington College men’s team to earn a bid to the NCAA Division III national tennis tournament. Eighteen years later, as head coach at his alma mater, he brought the NCAA cham-pionship trophy to Chestertown.
Tim has a track record of being a winner everywhere he has coached. But he hit the big time in June of 2005 when he landed the job as head women’s coach at Division I Auburn. This past spring, he steered Auburn to an upset of then-No. 1 Georgia. The Tigers finished 14-10, shared the Southeast Conference West Division crown with LSU, and earned a bid (their first since 2002) to the national tournament.
Tim came to Washington College as a player in 1984, transferring from the University of Maryland. Two years later, when he was a senior, the Shoremen were playing in their first NCAA Division III national tourna-ment. Tim was nationally ranked in singles, which is uncommon for any team’s No. 2 player. He boasted a winning percentage of .700 in singles and doubles, and won a Middle Atlantic Conference doubles championship.
After testing the coaching waters at Widener, Tim returned to Chester-town in 1991 to coach the men and the women. Over the next four years, while compiling a 71-14 record on the men’s side, he took the Shoremen to the NCAA tournament four times—winning a national championship in 1994, after knocking off No. 1 University of California-Santa Cruz in the semifinals, and finishing second in 1995.
Washington won a second national championship in 1997 with players that Tim had recruited. By that time, however, Tim was the head men’s coach at Florida Southern College in Lakeland. He took a FSC program that had been reinstated in 1995, after being dropped in 1985, to seven consecu-tive NCAA Division II post-season appearances. Just three years after his arrival, Tim led FSC to a third-place finish nationally in 1998.
A two-time Sunshine State Conference Coach of the Year, Tim directed Florida Southern to a pair of conference titles. The Mocs won their first-ever league crown in 2000 and again in 2002.
After seven seasons, and a 103-54 record at Florida Southern, Tim moved on to coach the women at Division I Eastern Michigan University, where he compiled a 39-19 record in three years. Twice, he led the Eagles to the finals of the Mid-American Conference Championships.
Tim already has turned around the program at Auburn, which had lost 25 Southeastern Conference matches in a row before defeating Mississippi State, 6-1, on March 9. The Tigers finished 5-4 in the SEC this spring.
Washington College considers it an honor and a privilege to induct Tim Gray into its Athletic Hall of Fame on this sixth day of October, 2007.
