Gordon Smith willed it into existence. One day, he’d suit up for Dan Magill as a Georgia Bulldog. He was sure of it.
Tennis first started as a hobby but quickly evolved into much more for the Rome, Georgia, native. A young Smith loved the sport and everything it represented, the mental fortitude it required and the physical demands of a long match. It began with a concrete wall and an old racket he borrowed from his father, as Smith spent countless hours of his childhood hitting at a nearby park.
As his athletic aspirations came into further focus, and as the self-described “skinniest kid you’ve ever seen” developed into a legitimate junior prospect, Smith could envision himself playing for the legendary coach Magill with match point in front of the home faithful at Henry Feild Stadium.
“When I started playing tennis seriously as a junior, I had one thought in mind: ‘Could I ever be good enough to play for Dan McGill in Athens, Georgia?‘
“For a Georgia kid, that’s a big dream. I said, ‘I need to be the best player in the state, I need to be one of the best players in the south and I’ve got to play for Coach Magill at Georgia. I never even considered anything else.”
He did just that, arriving to Athens in the fall of 1970 for his freshman year. His roommate was a young man named Manuel Diaz, Jr., from San Juan, Puerto Rico. The two became fast friends, doubles partners – and forever transformed Georgia men’s tennis.
The duo helped the Bulldogs to four consecutive SEC Championships and ushered the program into a new era. While Smith’s Georgia teams never won an NCAA Championship, he helped lay the foundation. Magill went on to deliver 13 SEC outdoor championship, eight indoor titles, five NCAA individual titles and two NCAA Team Championships (1985, 1987) across 34 seasons as head coach.
“Coach was great on strategy, but what he was really great on was, when you went out on the court, you wanted to win for him,” Smith recalls of the late Magill, “and you thought you were going to.
“It’s one of those things about coaching that you can’t quantify. It’s really kind of a magical thing. He just gave you that confidence. You were a better player when you played for him than you were before you came to Athens.”
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Decades later, the iconic Georgia trio of Smith, Diaz Jr. and Magill are all members of the ITA Men’s Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame, enshrined for their contributions to collegiate tennis and their place in Georgia tennis history.
Gordon Smith willed it into existence.