Coaching Connection

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt tennis is built on success and great coaching. The women’s program is one of just three at Vandy with a national championship. Combined, the programs have produced four NCAA finalists and four SEC Tournament championship titles. And despite losing all-time great head coaches Geoff Macdonald and Ian Duvenhage in recent years, Vanderbilt has reloaded from the top down. Former players Scott Brown and Aleke Tsoubanos now lead the Commodores, but both bring a bond to their programs that has set the table for success now and in the future.

“Scott and I both grew up in St. Louis, we both played tennis there and were developed as players there,” Tsoubanos said.

“We are both diehard Cardinals fans; that must be included,” Brown interjected.

“We didn’t have the same coaches, but we crossed paths a lot at tournaments,” Tsoubanos continued. “I was a year ahead of Scott, so I came [to Vanderbilt] in the fall of 2000. Scott came in the next year with one of my teammates and another St. Louis native, Annie Menees. I think Scott and I’s relationship really developed more fully in college, in those three years of overlap. Our teams supported each other very well, and I had a lot of friends on the men’s team. It was the same thing for Scott on the women’s team. I think us encouraging one another and being happy for the success that we each saw in our years in college was really cool.”

Brown attended high school at Parkway West on the west side of St. Louis, just 4.7 miles away from Tsoubanos at Parkway Central High School. “We went to rival high schools,” Tsoubanos said. “Gosh, they hated each other.” With similar upbringings, it comes as no surprise that both Brown and Tsoubanos ended up at Vanderbilt in nearly the same way.

“We had coaches in each program at the time that were very good in Geoff and Ken Flach, who was another St. Louis native,” Tsoubanos said. “[Scott and I] both put a high value on academics of the school, but also, you’re playing in the SEC. And in terms of the tennis, there really isn’t another conference that can beat that. At least for me, I can say that combination was way ahead of any other school I visited. Vanderbilt just stood out; it was an easy decision for me.”

“What we tell recruits now is actually the reasons that I came here,” Brown said. “I had a mixed bag of schools to choose from, and I realized that I had a gut feeling about Vanderbilt. Like Aleke, it was an easy decision for me. I got along with the men’s team really well, the women’s team had a really fun, welcoming and supportive environment. I believed in the future of both programs despite Vanderbilt being the lowest ranked school I was considering.”

Each of their playing careers for the Commodores foreshadowed the success they would eventually have as coaches. Tsoubanos earned All-American honors three times in her four years and was a first-team All-NCAA selection and first-team All-SEC selection in both singles and doubles. She was inducted into the Vanderbilt Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015. Tsoubanos holds four active records: most consecutive doubles match wins along with partner Kelly Schmandt (15), highest career doubles winning percentage (82%), most career doubles victories (119) and a single-season record 32 doubles victories with Sarah Riske (2003) and Schmandt (2004).

Brown played for Vanderbilt from 2001-2005, helping the Dores to an SEC Tournament championship in his sophomore year and to the SEC quarterfinals as a junior. The team followed the 2003 conference title as NCAA finalists days after, falling to Illinois 4-3 in the championship match. Brown finished as a four-year letterwinner and a three-time All-SEC selection, qualifying for the NCAA Doubles Championships each of his last three seasons while competing in the NCAA Singles Championships as a senior. Brown still ranks No. 2 in school history with 82 doubles victories and is No. 5 with 162 combined wins in singles and doubles play.

“When we were both here, the programs were very successful, and that came down to both teams supporting each other,” Brown said. “We all got along and hung out with each other off the court. We had this ‘all in it together’ type of mentality.”

“It never felt like two separate programs,” Tsoubanos added. “We felt like one entity: Vanderbilt tennis.”

Despite practically identical journeys, Tsoubanos, and then Brown a year later, graduated going their separate ways. Tsoubanos extended her playing career into the pros, reaching as high as No. 126 on the International Tennis Federation circuit en route to four professional doubles titles. Brown jumped into coaching right away.

“We took different paths after graduation; I played for a little bit after graduating before getting into coaching,” Tsoubanos said. “Scott had several coaching stops but continued to be involved in tennis. To find our way back to the place that we both loved being student-athletes at and build our programs here is really special and unique.”

“Part of the reason in me deciding to come back to Vanderbilt 20 years later as a coach, the fact that Aleke was here, that was a factor in my decision,” Brown said. “As opposed to someone else I didn’t know, I knew I could trust and work together with her. Now that we’re both back under the same roof again, it is starting to get that same feel as when we played. We want each other to be the best we possibly can be. I would love for our programs to win an NCAA Championship at the same time. That would be the dream. And we still think of both sides as more of one team than two separate teams.”

Tsoubanos eventually followed suit and converted to coaching, returning to Vanderbilt in 2008. She began working as an assistant coach under Macdonald, who became Vanderbilt’s longest-tenured coach by the end of his career. Macdonald earned SEC Coach of the Year honors five times, as well as the 2015 Wilson/ITA Coach of the Year award. During Tsoubanos’ time as an assistant, she helped guide the Dores to three SEC Tournament titles, back-to-back regular-season titles in 2017 and 2018, four straight trips to the Final Four, a national championship title in 2015 and a national championship appearance in 2018. Vanderbilt went 99-22 from 2015-18 while finishing no lower than second in the SEC and fifth in the nation. And since Tsoubanos’ coaching start in 2008, the Commodores have yet to finish outside No. 30 in the final Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) team rankings.

“Geoff was here nearly 30 years, and I was with him for 14 of those,” Tsoubanos said. “I played under him for another four. So, we spent 18 years in total together, and I learned a ton from him. The shift in the program’s success was pretty directly correlated to his start at Vanderbilt. […] Those are big shoes to fill. But you have to take each year one year at a time. It’s a new group every year with student-athletes and staff. And there’s always going to be a pressure that we put on ourselves just because we love this place so much and we want to continue to see the programs be successful. That is my motivation.”

Brown found his way to Virginia as a volunteer assistant in 2010, aiding the Cavaliers until 2015. In that time, Virginia won NCAA titles in 2013 and 2015, including victories in the 2013 NCAA Doubles Championships and the 2015 NCAA Singles Championships. He eventually returned as a full-time staff member in 2017, working his way to associate head coach in 2019. Brown’s second stint with the Cavaliers saw the same success; he helped lead the program to back-to-back national championships in 2022 and 2023 while claiming four ACC Tournament championships along the way. Brown was named the ITA Atlantic Region Assistant Coach of the Year twice and was also named the ITA National Assistant Coach of the Year in 2022.

“My situation is a bit different because I came to here after coaching in other places,” Brown said. “Yet, Coach Duvenhage has been so supportive in the months since I’ve been here. He came to nearly every match last season, and he still checks in with me about the team here and there. I am taking my experiences that I had from coaching at Virginia, but also inheriting the culture Ian left for me, and he left us so many great things. Most importantly, he left me with great student-athletes. I inherited good kids with good values, and that was important for setting the foundation, to try and build a culture off of that. I brought a lot of what I learned from Virginia, but there were ingredients already here for success. It’s been a great transition, which is also because of the fact that Aleke and I not only replaced two incredible coaches, but two incredible people.”

And despite the tall task in filling the footsteps of two historic Commodore coaches, Brown and Tsoubanos have certainly lived up to the challenge. In the Tsoubanos head coaching era, Vanderbilt has made at least the second round of each NCAA tournament, with the Dores making an NCAA Super Regional run last season. And in Brown’s opening season, Vanderbilt earned its most wins since 2019 while also securing its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2019. One of Brown’s first recruits, Danil Panarin, earned the program’s first solo SEC Freshman of the Year award last season.

“We are competitive and we want to win,” Tsoubanos said. “We want these kids to get to have the same experiences as we did here when we were student-athletes. At the end of the day, it’s about the athlete’s experience here, but you’re still striving to win and compete at the highest level in the SEC, which is getting tougher by the year. That’s the challenge, that’s what we signed up for. It’s what we’ve chosen to do because we love this place and we love what we do.”

“As coaches, we try to reinvent ourselves every year,” Brown said. “We have to evolve. We are always learning, always trying to grow. We are never perfect, but we’re trying to get one step closer to that each year. I think that’s really important.”

Although both coaches have created success at each phase of their careers, the two also acknowledged the support at Vanderbilt that enables their coaching to blossom.

“I think the support starts at the top with Candice [Storey Lee].” Tsoubanos said. “She has recognized the importance of having great people to surround us, and not just us as a coaching staff. We have academic support, our training staff, nutrition staff, sport psychology. I think it’s about recognizing at the top that these things are important, to both our coaches and student-athletes, while finding ways in whatever we need to support them. […] Candice has confirmed the message of being the best student-athlete experience in the country by surrounding our kids with the best people to do just that. Our staff works really hard for these kids. We are very fortunate to have the people working for us that we do.”

“She is probably the best athletic director in the country,” Brown echoed. “I remember the theme of family consistently coming up in my job interview with her. And that’s kind of what it’s like here; we’re all one big family. There is no ego, it’s just: ‘What we can do to service the players?’ It’s a really fun and good group of people to be around. And it goes along with every other aspect of our athletic department.”

The effects from the top-down investment into athletics have already been seen in recent months, from football’s takedown of No. 1 Alabama, to soccer’s NCAA tournament heroics and men’s and women’s basketball producing historic seasons to remember. With athletic success comes more exposure; Brown and Tsoubanos recognize that Vanderbilt athletics is continuing to generate a bigger outreach.

“Our brand is more than what it’s ever been,” Brown said. “Before my recruiting visit, I didn’t know what Vanderbilt was, where it was, what it was about, anything. The only reason I ended up visiting was because I grew up knowing Coach Flach and his family, and then I fell in love with it. But the brand is continuing to change. And now recruits see what we’re doing and where we are: the word is spreading.”

“You’re seeing an investment in athletics that we’ve never done before,” Tsoubanos said. “I don’t see that happening with someone leading the department that isn’t Candice Lee, who is black and gold through and through, and knows this place better than anyone. We’ve already done so much and it’s just getting started, who knows where we will end up. The success of our other sports is so neat to see. To see the volume of people coming out and talking about Vanderbilt, it’s special.”

The pieces have seemingly come into place and Vanderbilt eyes its return to the top of collegiate tennis. The programs have opened the 2024-25 spring season a combined 11-3 as SEC play approaches. With the combination of Brown and Tsoubanos leading the way, the Commodores are certainly always a contender.

“It starts with a vision and a commitment, and that’s what we’ve built here.” Tsoubanos said. “Coming here from Virginia, it was immediately apparent Vanderbilt had every necessary resource to be successful,” Brown concluded. “We have all the ingredients; it’s like we’re sitting on a gold mine. Everything here is set up for success, and that’s all started at the top. Now we just have to go get it.”