COD Men’s Tennis: Fritz Coaching Career Ends on High Note

After 11 years with the College of the Desert Men's Tennis program, off-and-on since 1990, head coach Guy Fritz has decided to hang up the racket and retire on a high note, after winning his ninth title at the helm of the Roadrunners program. Previous state titles were earned during the following seasons: 2023, 2022, 2019, 2000, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1993, and 1992.

"Would have wrapped up my career with 5 straight State Titles," snorted Coach Fritz, "But the pandemic wiped that out. Best team I ever had, was in 2020."

Fritz, the son of a Las Vegas casino manager, graduated from Ed W. Clark High School in Las Vegas in 1968. He had an offer to play tennis and swim at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, but decided to take his talents to California Western University in the San Diego neighborhood of Point Loma. Fritz performed well on the tennis courts for the school, but when the opportunity to play in post season came around, CWS left him stranded. As a result, he jumped ship to San Diego City College, where Fritz played basketball for the Knights and dominated on the tennis courts, finishing top 3 in the State.

Reflecting on his fondest memories at Desert, Coach Fritz commented, "That first state championship was great (1992) and then to repeat (1993) was really nice, the next year. I think that my fondest memory was, we went to Ojai, (in 1993) I had both singles players in the finals, I had both doubles teams in the finals." Coach Fritz continued, "And the guy, that was on my state championship team from the year before, who went to UCLA on a full ride, Rodrigo Grilli, won the PAC-10 there. So here's a guy from COD, he wins the PAC-10 and my ex-wife won the Women's Open. Pretty good memory, we won pretty much every event."

After his sophomore year at City College, he had an offer to play basketball and tennis for the Red Raiders of Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, but decided to stay in America's Finest City and take an offer from the University of San Diego as a player/coach. With six scholarships to work with, in a pre-Title IX Athletics environment, Coach Fritz put together a 25-2 team, winning a NC2A Division 2 Championship. Finishing 12th in the Nation and securing a 1st team All-American honor in 1972.

After college, Fritz played professionally and then became a private touring coach, at one time becoming the highest payed coach in the world. "That's when I realized that I'm pretty good at this, I can do this," commented Fritz. Soon after, he headed out to the Valley, running the Cathedral Canyon Country Club and "one of the ex-players from COD, who I used to play doubles with, he came to me and said, 'would you be interested in coaching at College of the Desert?'" After some courting and negotiating, Fritz interviewed with then Athletic Director, John Marman, and got the head coaching job.

Coach Fritz had some kind words of remembrance for former College of the Desert Athletic Director and Board Trustee Marman. "I really, really liked, John, he actually kept me into coaching, where I would have probably moved on, but he was fun to work with. He died about 19 months ago or so and I still have a lot of fond memories of John. Yeah, he got things done, you needed something, he'd get it done and he was coming from an Athletic background and he understood what it took to win and stuff. It was a lot of fun to work with, a guy that comes from that background, comes from an Athletic background and knows what you need."

In wrapping up his overall thoughts about his time with the Roadrunners, Coach Fritz commented, "Well my time here was well spent. It's hard work, you know, putting a team together, I mean a winning team, anybody can just have a team and coach and go through the motions, but I wasn't like that, I wanted to win now. I didn't just want to finish third or fourth or fifth, so then it becomes difficult, but like I say, it's just time to move on."

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