-- David Biancamano

From courtside to classroom, Maria Malerba is a true mentor for JMU student-athletes. As head coach of the women's tennis team for 28 years, she has the longest tenure of any coach at JMU. She's also one of only 14 active Division I women's tennis coaches with more than 300 wins. Throughout her tenure the game itself has evolved from Chris Everts' winning elegance through the pioneering of Martina Navratilova to today's power hitters.

"Within college tennis, we've seen players who are now bigger, quicker and stronger than in the past," says Malerba. "Although the improvements in equipment have helped women hit the ball harder, their work off of the court is what has made the biggest difference in their game.

"Training is no longer limited to on-court practice. Many hours in the weight room, on the track and working on the mental side of the game separates a good college player from a great one," she adds. "All of our entering freshman realize this and for the most part have worked on all of these aspects prior to entering college. Twenty to 25 years ago, most entering freshman only had the actual on-court experience."

That group included Malerba, who 28 years ago at William & Mary wanted to be a physi-cal education teacher. After the Tribe's No. 2 singles player and captain graduated in 1976, she came to JMU for her master's in physical education and was promptly asked to serve as interim tennis coach. She juggled that with a graduate assistantship for two years, teaching three classes a semester. "I would teach, go to class, coach and then go back to class or teach another class. It was hectic," she says.

Besides all of these distractions, Malerba was just a year or two older than most of the women on the team. "While at William & Mary, I had competed against JMU the year before. We would go to tournaments in my first season as the JMU coach and other coaches thought that I was still playing for W&M," she laughs.

When she completed her assistantship, Malerba took over the women's tennis program full time and taught kinesiology classes. "This was going to be easy. After handling so much the previous two years, I thought that I could do anything," she says. "I went from not thinking about a future in coaching, to enjoying it and looking forward to it."

In addition to increased participation because of Title IX, Malerba says that the biggest change she's seen in women's college tennis is in the conditioning of female players. "There is more emphasis on the mental and physical aspects of the game as well as the nutritional side," she says. "Players are now coming into college with training in all of these areas. Twenty years ago, this was not the case. At that time weight training was not an integral part of the playing regimen, but today you can't be successful without it."

With coaching as her baseline game, Malerba also took her dream of teaching into the net. "You can take all the awards away from me because my greatest mark of respect as a head coach is that in 28 years of coaching all but one of my players has graduated," says Malerba. "Any good coach will tell you that when a player graduates from school, if you have helped mold them on and off the court, then you have done your job."

She's done it. JMU women's tennis players have been recognized as an Intercollegiate
Tennis Association All-Academic Team in
1997, 1998, 2000 and 2003. Four players have been named Academic All-America with 3.5 cumulative GPAs over the past three years.

Last season, Malerba's players and their families created a  scholarship fund in her honor. "We hope the Maria Malerba Scholarship Fund will continue the strong tradition of women's tennis and honor a wonderful person who has helped so many young women grow and mature," says Jan Grover, mother of player Michelle Grover ('03, '04M).  To contribute to the scholarship fund, call (540) 568-6527.