WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Geoff Young has been named the head coach of Purdue Men's Tennis, vice president and director of intercollegiate athletics Mike Bobinski announced Wednesday. Young becomes the 10th coach in the 109-year history of the program.
"We are excited to introduce Geoff Young as our head coach for Purdue Men's Tennis," said Bobinski. "Through the search process, it became evident that Geoff possessed an ideal combination of high character, belief in the values important to us at Purdue, and years of successful head coaching experience. Throughout his coaching career he has displayed a commitment to recruiting quality student-athletes and developing them into first-class students, highly successful competitors and contributing members of the community. Purdue Athletics extends a warm welcome to Geoff Young, his wife, Dana, and their children as they join the Boilermaker Family."
A proven champion and recruiter, Young arrives in West Lafayette with 22 years of head coaching experience, including 15 at the helm at Minnesota. Young has a career record of 289-227 with 16 winning seasons and 10 NCAA Tournament appearances.
In addition to significant on-court success, Young's squads have excelled in the classroom, earning 17 ITA All-Academic Team honors and 61 ITA Scholar-Athlete nods.
"I'm very grateful to Mike Bobinski and Ken Halpin and everyone on the search committee for taking the time to get to know me and my vision for this program," Young said. "It feels like a great fit for me and Purdue. This department has everything I value in a tennis program. I want to continue coaching, and I feel like I have a lot to contribute with the years I have left. I'm excited to take advantage of this opportunity and help take this program to places it hasn't been before."
Prior to spending the 2022 campaign on staff at UCF, Young took Minnesota men's tennis to historic and sustained heights during his tenure in the Twin Cities. The Golden Gophers went 209-150 under Young with a 90-62 mark in Big Ten play. Twenty-one Golden Gophers were named First Team All-Big Ten during his 15-year tenure.
Reaching the postseason 10 times in his first 13 seasons, Young guided the Golden Gophers to five NCAA Tournament Second Round appearances and one Sweet 16. Five singles players and one doubles team earned spots in the NCAA Tournament under Young's tutelage.
Minnesota appeared in the final ITA team rankings 12 times, including No. 21 at the end of the 2014-15 campaign that saw the Golden Gophers lift the Big Ten title for the first time since 1995. Young also led 20 singles players and 13 doubles tandems to final rankings by the ITA. His teams were ranked in the Top 25 nationally in 36 different polls.
Young mentored a trio of All-Americans during his time at Minnesota, as well as 25 All-Big Ten honorees, including the 2012 Big Ten Freshman of the Year and 2015 Big Ten Player of the Year Leandro Toledo, and 61 Academic All-Big Ten laurels.
Young was twice named the ITA Central Region Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2015 and maintained a perfect APR.
Young captured his 200th victory as the head coach of Minnesota's men's tennis team in 2020, making him just the third Gopher men's tennis coach to eclipse 200 career wins with the team.
Minnesota reached the NCAA Tournament four of his final five seasons, with the only exception being the 2020 campaign that was cut short in March.
He recorded his 200th career victory when the Gophers took down Middle Tennessee State in 2017. The team finished ranked No. 39 while cracking the Top 25 once after defeating Oregon. The team earned the ITA Central Region Community Service Award.
The 2014-15 Gophers made a 10-win improvement from the season before and finished ranked 21st in the nation. They did not lose a single match at home and went 10-1 in Big Ten play to share the conference title for the first time since 1995. Young was named the ITA Central Region and Big Ten Coach of the Year. All seven players on the 2015 squad earned Academic All-Big Ten honors.
He won his 100th match on Feb. 22, 2009, against Binghamton and his 150th match on March 3, 2012, at Virginia Tech.
Off the court, Young has instilled a high academic standard, as his squads led all teams in grade-point average at Minnesota nine different seasons in the Twin Cities. Three of his rosters were also honored for having the most community service hours at Minnesota.
Young transitioned to UCF after Minnesota elected to disband the men's tennis program after the 2021 season.
Prior to going to Minnesota, Young spent six seasons as head coach at the University of Denver. During his tenure with the Pioneers, Young posted a 71-68 overall record. In his final season in 2005-06, he led Denver to a 13-9 record and then a program-best fourth-place finish in the Sun Belt Conference and a No. 66 national ranking.
While at Denver, he worked with the Pioneers' all-time winningest player, Magnus Ramfelt, who totaled 71 singles wins from 1998-2002. He also coached Adam Holmstrom, who set a single-season school record with 28 singles wins in 2005-06. Holmstrom also became the first Pioneers' player to qualify for the NCAA Championships in his rookie season.
Young served as the head women's tennis coach at Denver during the 1999-2000 season and during the fall of 2000. In his one season, the Pioneers finished 9-8 in Denver's second season at the NCAA Division I level. Prior to his stint at Denver, Young served as an assistant men's coach at the University of Alabama for three seasons.
A two-time All-Big Ten player at Northwestern, Young was the team's co-captain during his senior season in 1994 and collected 83 singles victories. He graduated from Northwestern in 1994 with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology.
A Marion, Ohio, native, Young was also a successful junior tennis player. He was ranked No. 1 in singles in the Midwest region 18-and-under division in 1989 and No. 1 in doubles in 1990.
Young is married to the former Dana Peterson, a four-time letterwinner with the Gopher women's tennis team from 1993-96 and an assistant coach at Minnesota from 1997-99. Dana was also the head women's tennis coach at Denver for six seasons.
Their three children are all tennis standouts in their own right. Gavin was tabbed the Big Ten Freshman of the Year, ITA Midwest Rookie of the Year and Big Ten Fall Singles Champion as a freshman in 2021-22 at Michigan. His daughter Karin garnered All-Pac-12 honors in 2021-22 as a freshman at Oregon with the highest singles winning percentage on the team. His youngest, Zan, is also an aspiring tennis player.