Women's tennis welcomes Jose Gracia as associate head coach

[PonyPride]

From SMUMustangs.com:

Women's tennis welcomes Jose Gracia as associate head coach

DALLAS (SMU) – SMU women's tennis head coach Kelcy McKenna announced the appointment of Jose Gracia as the program's new associate head coach on Wednesday.

Gracia comes to Dallas after serving as the Director of Tennis at New Mexico Sports and Wellness at High Point in Albuquerque, New Mexico, since March of 2023.

Prior to his time in New Mexico, Gracia served four seasons as an assistant coach at three universities: Fresno State (2019-20), Tulsa (2021) and Oklahoma (2018-2019, 2020, 2021-22). In each of these roles, he worked as the primary player development coordinator by constructing individual training plans for each of the student-athletes and implemented aggressive recruiting campaigns as lead recruiting coordinator at each university.

In his most recent season at OU, Gracia helped guide the Sooners to a Big 12 regular-season title and their first conference title since 1994. Garcia and the Sooners finished runner-up at both the ITA National Team Indoor and the NCAA Team Championships in 2022, ending the year 33-2,17-0 at home. OU also earned eight top-10 wins and 14 top-25 victories in that season, and Gracia was named ITA Central Region Assistant Coach of the Year.

Before the 2021-22 season, Gracia spent one season as the assistant coach for the Tulsa women's tennis program. During his time at Tulsa, the team finished the season ranked in the top 45 of the ITA rankings, with three players listed in the ITA singles and doubles rankings. With the help of Gracia's guidance, the Golden Hurricane tallied two wins over Power Five programs and finished runner-up at the AAC Championships.

Prior to Tulsa, Gracia served as a volunteer assistant at Oklahoma from June 2018 to July 2019 and again from May 2020 to November 2020.

While at OU for the first time, the Sooners finished 17-9 in the 2019 season, tying for the 10th-most wins in program history. The team advanced to the second round of the NCAA Championships, making its 11th appearance at nationals and first since 2015. In addition to serving as the volunteer assistant, Gracia was the head professional at the OU Tennis Club.

Between his two initial stints in Norman, Gracia served as the women's assistant coach at Fresno State from 2019 to 2020.

Gracia has coached a total of five players to all-conference honors in his career, and three have earned bids to the NCAA singles and doubles championships.

Gracia had an impressive collegiate playing career at Florida State, earning 160 wins to place him tenth on the school's all-time singles list. Additionally, he ranks eighth on the doubles list with 80 victories. During his five years at FSU, Gracia helped lead the Seminoles to NCAA Championship appearances each year.

Gracia served as a tennis instructor at the Seminole High-Performance Center in Tallahassee, Florida, for two years while in college. He also spent four years at the Rick Macci Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Florida, as a high-performance coach.

In May 2018, Gracia earned his undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary social sciences from Florida State.