University of Georgia Athletics
‘There’s No Way I’d Do This Anywhere Else’
April 06, 2026 | Men's Tennis, Women's Tennis, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Of the nine players on the Georgia men's tennis team in the spring of 2010, a third of them — Jamie Hunt, Drake Bernstein and Will Reynolds — are coaching at their alma mater.
"I tell people: I'm either coaching at Georgia, or I'm not coaching," said Reynolds, an assistant coach with the top-ranked Bulldogs women's team under Bernstein, and a former volunteer assistant with the men's program when Manuel Diaz was the head coach and Hunt was the associate head coach.
Hunt is now in his second year as the men's coach, having replaced the legendary Diaz, who will be inducted into the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame on May 17 (along with Hunt's former teammate John Isner). Hunt was a key part of Georgia's 2007 and '08 NCAA title teams, and after he graduated in 2010, he was hired as an assistant coach at Vanderbilt.
The following spring, Hunt was coaching against the Bulldogs when Georgia played at Vandy on March 11, 2011.
"I kicked his ass!" Bernstein said with a big laugh during an interview alongside his two former teammates. "We played them, and he spends three years with me, and you can't even figure out how to beat me."
Bernstein added: "It was a night match, and I remember seeing Jamie run across my court, and I was like, What's going on? Part of me thinks Jamie probably wants me to do well."
That night in Nashville, a 6-1 Georgia win, Bernstein was playing No. 4 singles and defeated Bryant Salcedo, 6-1, 6-4. For Hunt, who wound up coaching at Vandy for seven years before Diaz brought him back to Athens as his assistant, that first match against the Bulldogs was strange.
"It was a super weird match, because you spend four years here at Georgia, and then you find yourself coaching against your team," Hunt said. "I remember early on in doubles, when Georgia won a point or something, I had to tell myself, Wait, you're cheering for the wrong team. It was really weird."
As a freshman, Hunt helped the Georgia men go undefeated in 2007, winning the NCAA title in Athens. The following year, the Bulldogs became the first team since Stanford in 1998-99 to win back-to-back NCAA crowns.
In the spring of 2010, when Hunt was a senior, Bernstein a junior, and Reynolds a freshman, Georgia again hosted the NCAAs, and the Bulldogs reached the semifinals before falling to Tennessee. In that match, Hunt played No. 3 singles, Bernstein was at No. 4, and Reynolds played at No. 6.
"We had a great finish to the season, playing the NCAAs at home. It was incredible, as it always is," Hunt said. "We beat Florida (in the round of 16), after losing to them twice in the regular season."
"That was a season where, start to finish, that group was a really tight group," Bernstein said. "We went through a lot, had changes throughout the year, and by the end of it, we were a small group but playing really hard for each other. ... We definitely made the most of what we had."
Being a freshman on the 2010 team, Reynolds said you could feel "this expectation of success" throughout the program.
"Drake had been on an NCAA championship team, and Jamie had been on two, so it was almost like, we're supposed to be here (deep in the NCAA tournament)," he said. "I had these guys to look up to, so it was a cool, cool experience."
The following season, Hunt was coaching at Vandy.
"I had an idea that I wanted to coach," Hunt said. "The impact that Manny and (assistant coach Will Glenn) had on me, really through my first three years, was a lot. Not only as a player, but personally. I just felt like I grew up so much, and I became a better person.
"I loved college tennis so much, and through coaching, I saw the opportunity to positively impact 18-22-year-olds. I was like, Are you kidding? This would be the greatest job in the world."
Bernstein began his coaching career at a club in Las Vegas before quickly realizing that he wanted to be a college coach. His first collegiate job was as an assistant with the Alabama women's team in 2012. In 2013, Bernstein came back to Athens as legendary women's coach Jeff Wallace's assistant.
"Manny and Will were able to let me see another side of tennis and what the big picture was all about," Bernstein said. "I loved tennis, and I knew I wanted to stay in tennis, but I don't think in a million years I thought that I could come back to Georgia one day and do it. ...
"If you would have told me that things would shake out the way they have, and we'd be sitting here today all together, it would be hard to imagine back then."
For Reynolds, he served as the women's team's graduate manager while working on his Master's degree. His coaching career began at the club level, as Director of Junior Tennis at Athletic Club Alabama in Huntsville, working under former Georgia All-American Eddie Jacques. He then came back to Athens to work at the Beck Tennis Academy.
From 2019-21, Reynolds worked as the women's tennis Program Specialist, coordinating travel and a million other logistical things, and then spent two years as a volunteer assistant under Diaz and Hunt. When Bernstein took over as the women's head coach after Wallace's retirement in 2023, Reynolds joined his former teammate as an assistant coach.
"It was while I was in grad school that I started thinking about coaching, but I didn't want to go the college route, because I just kind of assumed I'm going to have to jump around a lot to different jobs and schools," Reynolds said. "I got married right out of college, so I didn't want to move around with, potentially, a family. After we settled in Huntsville, we realized that Athens was where we wanted to be."
Athens and the University of Georgia are why all three of them are here. None of them has any desire to be coaching anywhere else.
"I was talking with my wife, Cassidy, the other night, and we were saying how it's just amazing the fortune we've had, of how many great people you get to meet along the way, and how many people this Georgia community, whether it's a tennis community, whether it's an athletic community, whether it's just Athens, you can't quantify the quality and depth of the relationships we've developed around Athens," Bernstein said.
"I feel really fortunate for that, and because of that, when we come into work, we know that we're representing a small portion of that. We want to put something out there that our community is proud of."
Since Bernstein took over as head coach, the Georgia women, a perennial power for decades under Wallace, have shared one SEC regular-season title, won two SEC tournaments, won two ITA National Team Indoor Championships, and reached the finals of two NCAA tournaments, winning the title in 2025.
"I think it's the greatest place to play or coach college tennis in the country," Bernstein said. "There's no way I'd do this anywhere else. I'd rather find a way to pitch in to what makes Georgia so great than to go coach somewhere else. It's a pretty straightforward one for me — it's the best place in the world to do it."
Hunt, whose 12th-ranked Bulldogs wrap up their regular season at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex this week with matches against No. 13 South Carolina on Friday and No. 19 Auburn on Sunday, said Athens "is home forever."
"I'm not coaching anywhere else," he said. "If I get out of college, then I'm staying here. We love it so much. The people are just amazing. When you bring in recruits, you start going around and meeting all the support staff, and you see so many people that have been here for so many years. You get a sense of the loyalty and love for UGA."
Along with the men's matches at the Magill this weekend, the Georgia women, who play at Alabama on Thursday, host Mississippi State on Saturday.
Staff Writer
Of the nine players on the Georgia men's tennis team in the spring of 2010, a third of them — Jamie Hunt, Drake Bernstein and Will Reynolds — are coaching at their alma mater.
"I tell people: I'm either coaching at Georgia, or I'm not coaching," said Reynolds, an assistant coach with the top-ranked Bulldogs women's team under Bernstein, and a former volunteer assistant with the men's program when Manuel Diaz was the head coach and Hunt was the associate head coach.
Hunt is now in his second year as the men's coach, having replaced the legendary Diaz, who will be inducted into the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame on May 17 (along with Hunt's former teammate John Isner). Hunt was a key part of Georgia's 2007 and '08 NCAA title teams, and after he graduated in 2010, he was hired as an assistant coach at Vanderbilt.
The following spring, Hunt was coaching against the Bulldogs when Georgia played at Vandy on March 11, 2011.
"I kicked his ass!" Bernstein said with a big laugh during an interview alongside his two former teammates. "We played them, and he spends three years with me, and you can't even figure out how to beat me."
Bernstein added: "It was a night match, and I remember seeing Jamie run across my court, and I was like, What's going on? Part of me thinks Jamie probably wants me to do well."
That night in Nashville, a 6-1 Georgia win, Bernstein was playing No. 4 singles and defeated Bryant Salcedo, 6-1, 6-4. For Hunt, who wound up coaching at Vandy for seven years before Diaz brought him back to Athens as his assistant, that first match against the Bulldogs was strange.
"It was a super weird match, because you spend four years here at Georgia, and then you find yourself coaching against your team," Hunt said. "I remember early on in doubles, when Georgia won a point or something, I had to tell myself, Wait, you're cheering for the wrong team. It was really weird."
As a freshman, Hunt helped the Georgia men go undefeated in 2007, winning the NCAA title in Athens. The following year, the Bulldogs became the first team since Stanford in 1998-99 to win back-to-back NCAA crowns.
In the spring of 2010, when Hunt was a senior, Bernstein a junior, and Reynolds a freshman, Georgia again hosted the NCAAs, and the Bulldogs reached the semifinals before falling to Tennessee. In that match, Hunt played No. 3 singles, Bernstein was at No. 4, and Reynolds played at No. 6.
"We had a great finish to the season, playing the NCAAs at home. It was incredible, as it always is," Hunt said. "We beat Florida (in the round of 16), after losing to them twice in the regular season."
"That was a season where, start to finish, that group was a really tight group," Bernstein said. "We went through a lot, had changes throughout the year, and by the end of it, we were a small group but playing really hard for each other. ... We definitely made the most of what we had."
Being a freshman on the 2010 team, Reynolds said you could feel "this expectation of success" throughout the program.
"Drake had been on an NCAA championship team, and Jamie had been on two, so it was almost like, we're supposed to be here (deep in the NCAA tournament)," he said. "I had these guys to look up to, so it was a cool, cool experience."
The following season, Hunt was coaching at Vandy.
"I had an idea that I wanted to coach," Hunt said. "The impact that Manny and (assistant coach Will Glenn) had on me, really through my first three years, was a lot. Not only as a player, but personally. I just felt like I grew up so much, and I became a better person.
"I loved college tennis so much, and through coaching, I saw the opportunity to positively impact 18-22-year-olds. I was like, Are you kidding? This would be the greatest job in the world."
Bernstein began his coaching career at a club in Las Vegas before quickly realizing that he wanted to be a college coach. His first collegiate job was as an assistant with the Alabama women's team in 2012. In 2013, Bernstein came back to Athens as legendary women's coach Jeff Wallace's assistant.
"Manny and Will were able to let me see another side of tennis and what the big picture was all about," Bernstein said. "I loved tennis, and I knew I wanted to stay in tennis, but I don't think in a million years I thought that I could come back to Georgia one day and do it. ...
"If you would have told me that things would shake out the way they have, and we'd be sitting here today all together, it would be hard to imagine back then."
For Reynolds, he served as the women's team's graduate manager while working on his Master's degree. His coaching career began at the club level, as Director of Junior Tennis at Athletic Club Alabama in Huntsville, working under former Georgia All-American Eddie Jacques. He then came back to Athens to work at the Beck Tennis Academy.
From 2019-21, Reynolds worked as the women's tennis Program Specialist, coordinating travel and a million other logistical things, and then spent two years as a volunteer assistant under Diaz and Hunt. When Bernstein took over as the women's head coach after Wallace's retirement in 2023, Reynolds joined his former teammate as an assistant coach.
"It was while I was in grad school that I started thinking about coaching, but I didn't want to go the college route, because I just kind of assumed I'm going to have to jump around a lot to different jobs and schools," Reynolds said. "I got married right out of college, so I didn't want to move around with, potentially, a family. After we settled in Huntsville, we realized that Athens was where we wanted to be."
Athens and the University of Georgia are why all three of them are here. None of them has any desire to be coaching anywhere else.
"I was talking with my wife, Cassidy, the other night, and we were saying how it's just amazing the fortune we've had, of how many great people you get to meet along the way, and how many people this Georgia community, whether it's a tennis community, whether it's an athletic community, whether it's just Athens, you can't quantify the quality and depth of the relationships we've developed around Athens," Bernstein said.
"I feel really fortunate for that, and because of that, when we come into work, we know that we're representing a small portion of that. We want to put something out there that our community is proud of."
Since Bernstein took over as head coach, the Georgia women, a perennial power for decades under Wallace, have shared one SEC regular-season title, won two SEC tournaments, won two ITA National Team Indoor Championships, and reached the finals of two NCAA tournaments, winning the title in 2025.
"I think it's the greatest place to play or coach college tennis in the country," Bernstein said. "There's no way I'd do this anywhere else. I'd rather find a way to pitch in to what makes Georgia so great than to go coach somewhere else. It's a pretty straightforward one for me — it's the best place in the world to do it."
Hunt, whose 12th-ranked Bulldogs wrap up their regular season at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex this week with matches against No. 13 South Carolina on Friday and No. 19 Auburn on Sunday, said Athens "is home forever."
"I'm not coaching anywhere else," he said. "If I get out of college, then I'm staying here. We love it so much. The people are just amazing. When you bring in recruits, you start going around and meeting all the support staff, and you see so many people that have been here for so many years. You get a sense of the loyalty and love for UGA."
Along with the men's matches at the Magill this weekend, the Georgia women, who play at Alabama on Thursday, host Mississippi State on Saturday.
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.
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