Coach's Corner
The 2025-26 season is Chuck Kriese's 13th season at The Citadel and 46th as a Division I Head Coach. One of the winningest coaches in Division I men's tennis history, Kriese's has amassed 756 career wins, which is good for Top 10 all-time in Division I Men's Tennis.
The 2020 season marked the seventh year for Chuck Kriese as the head coach at The Citadel. In his over 40 years with the sport, he has become one of the most renowned names in the tennis world wide and boasts over 700 career victories as a collegiate head coach (735).
A native of Indianapolis, Indiana, Kriese is a member of the National Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame, the South Carolina Tennis Hall of Fame, the Indiana High School Tennis Athletic Hall of Fame, the Clemson University Athletic Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Tech Athletic Hall of Fame and the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame.
His reputation has made his "Total Tennis Training" camps and teaching programs popular destinations for young players looking to improve their games. He has conducted youth clinics and coaching seminars in 16 countries on four continents, emphasizing teaching, motivation, leadership and coaching techniques. He has been a regular teacher and clinician throughout the U.S. for his entire career.
In addition to his work on the court, Kriese has authored six books, including
Coaching Tennis, which is considered one of the most comprehensive tennis and coaching books ever written and is ranked the No. 3 Best-Selling Tennis Coach Book of All-Time, as ranked by
BookAuthority.org.
BookAuthority.org is featured on CNN, Forbes and Inc. He has appeared on ESPN's instructional series
Play Your Best Tennis, hosts a weekly radio show on American Tennis and is a highly sought after lecturer.
Kriese also emphasizes values beyond tennis. He created "Serve it Back", a three-tier mentoring program designed to help youngsters learn how to plan their own career in tennis and in life while learning to help others.
It has been estimated that over 14,000 junior players have trained under his programs, hundreds have received college scholarships and many have continued on as professional players and coaches. Forty-six of his former pupils have appeared in the ATP world rankings with nine cracking the top 100.
Since taking over the helm of the Bulldogs' program prior to the Spring 2014 season, the Bulldogs have been on an upward climb, claiming more victories in 2017 than any season in the previous 10 years. Kriese is confident in the Bulldogs’ continued success in the coming years.
Prior to coming to The Citadel, Kriese spent the majority of his career as the head coach at Clemson University from 1975-2008. He retired in 2008 as the winningest coach in Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) history with 685 wins. During his illustrious career in Clemson, he led the Tigers to 11 ACC titles and seven berths in the "Elite Eight" while producing 38 All-Americans. He was the first tennis coach to win a national coach of the year honor for the Tigers and his accomplishments led to him earning two more such honors.
In 2008, Kriese was appointed the technical director for the Southeast Asia Tennis Federation, where he conducted coaching courses and trained many of the top players from that part of the world. He coached the highest-ranked player in Thai and Asian history and 2008 ITF junior world champion who became the first Asian player in history to win the Wimbledon Girls' singles title. In 2009, Kriese coached her to the Wimbledon singles and doubles junior titles.
Kriese has also been the coach of the U.S. Junior Davis Cup team. In all, he has been the coach of players who have won five grand slam junior titles and four other grand slam finalists.
Kriese previously served as the senior director of coaching and competition at the prestigious Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., since March 2010 and has dedicated more than three decades to shaping successful tennis careers on the collegiate and international levels.
Kriese earned his undergraduate and master's degrees from Tennessee Tech University where he was an all-conference tennis player and then started his career as an assistant coach. He is married to former Claire Cummings Williams of Charleston and is the proud father of six children and two grandchildren.
Chuck Kriese Coaching Activity: Winningest Coach in ACC History, Top 10 in NCAA Career Wins, 3-Time National Coach of the Year, 11 ACC Championships, U.S. Junior Davis Cup Coach, U.S. Sunshine Cup Coach, 38 All-American Players, Coach of 4 National Senior Players of the Year, 7 NCAA Elite 8 Finishes, 13 Years as a Top 10 Division One Team
