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Lead Rebel Tennis into the Big Time.
That was the mission Dr. Larry Easley chose to accept when he was named Director of Tennis at UNLV a dozen years ago.
Armed with a glorious facility, ideal playing conditions and an experienced staff, Easley set out to draw some of the finest young tennis talent to Las Vegas and move the program to the highest level of the collegiate game.
During his duty in the desert, Easley has coached the best players in school history, the men’s team has transformed from an also-ran into three-time conference champion and the women’s squad has entrenched itself in the national rankings. Then there was the spring of 1997 -- a magical run in Los Angeles that forever put UNLV in the record books with the legendary programs while producing two NCAA championship trophies.
“Some coaches can go 40 or 50 years without winning a national championship and we got two on the same day, so it was real special,” Easley says. “It proved that UNLV can produce a champion.”
More firsts came in 1998-99 when a UNLV men’s doubles team won the program’s first Clay Court Championship and in turn earned the school’s first No. 1 ITA ranking.
It is clear that, after a quarter-century of fielding a team, the Big Time is here for UNLV.
“We have the education, the facilities, the staff, the schedule and the support systems,” Easley says. “They are all pieces in the pie for building and sustaining a top college program. There are not many schools that have both a strong men’s and women’s team but we’ve moved toward that all at once.”
Easley knows about building a national contender. In his three seasons at Long Beach State he guided the 49ers from obscurity to the nation’s No. 2 team ranking in 1987. He produced four All-Americans in three years and his final season was highlighted by victories over no less than six top-20 teams, including No. 1 Stanford.
The 1986 Big West Coach of the Year left the college game in 1988 to enter the business side of sports. He worked from 1988 to 1991 as membership and finance chairman of the Atlanta Sports Council in Alpharetta, Ga., a division of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce that was involved in Atlanta’s successful bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.
Easley, however, is a coach first and foremost. Before heading to Long Beach he spent six years as the head professional at the Jack Kramer Club in Palos Verdes, Calif., developing more than 40 students who were nationally ranked, including five junior champions. The former mentor of one of the world’s top players in Pete Sampras, Easley yearned to get back into coaching and in September 1991 he became the fifth man to lead the Rebel tennis program.
At UNLV, Easley inherited a team that finished fifth in the Big West Conference Tournament. In 1992, the Rebels moved up to fourth in the league and then finished second behind UC Irvine before ripping off three straight title runs over those same perennially powerful Anteaters before heading in the Western Athletic Conference in 1996.
With two national championships to its credit, tennis is making noise at a school more famous for fast breaks than service breaks.
“We’ve proven that you can do big things while playing at UNLV,” Easley, who is the longest-tenured tennis coach in school history, says. “I see no reason why we can’t work toward a team national championship as well.”
Committed to the game that has been his life, Easley also takes pride in working closely with the local tennis community. He is a member of the United States Tennis Association and spends time with the Nevada Tennis Association and the Youth Foundation. Easley also served in 1999 as chairman of the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Tennis Committee, is the current chair of Region Seven’s Ranking Committee and has served on the advisory committee of such national tennis equipment manufacturers as Prince and Wilson.
A native of Bakersfield, Calif., Easley is a 1970 graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a bachelor’s degree in history before serving in the U.S. Army until 1972. He received his master’s degree in educational administration from UNLV in 1993 and was awarded his doctorate from the school in December 1998 after successfully defending his dissertation in education administration. He has taught a graduate class at the school titled Administration of Athletic Programs, as well as an undergraduate course dealing with the history of physical education.
Easley is married to the former Diana Viani. The couple has two daughters, Tina (21) and Lisa (19).
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