Traci Green

In just a few seasons at Harvard, Traci Green has already organized one of the biggest turnarounds in program history and guided the Crimson to the Ivy League title.

Under her guidance, the Crimson completed the biggest turnaround in 35 years of Harvard women’s tennis. After finishing 2-17 and 2-5 in the Ivy League in 2008, Green led Harvard to a 13-8 overall record and a 6-1 finish in the Ivies to win the programs 18th Ivy League title in 2009.  In the process, Green became the first African-American coach at Harvard to win an Ivy League title. She coached five All-Ivy selections in 2009, including a unanimous player of the year, Beier Ko.

In her third season with the Crimson, the team finished with a 14-8 overall record and a 6-1 mark in Ivy League play, as Harvard earned an at-large bid to the 2010 NCAA Championships.  Hideko Tachibana was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year, while three other players earned All-Ivy honors. Harvard returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006.

Injuries and illness slowed the Crimson early in Green’s fourth season at the helm, but the team remained resilient under her guidance and finished with an even 9-9 record and No. 63 national ranking. Holly Cao played to a 22-3 record in singles, garnering first-team All-Ivy League honors and was selected as an alternate for the NCAA singles tournament. The young doubles pair of Tachibana and Norton were selected to the All-Ivy League doubles first-team as well following a stellar spring.

The Philadelphia native came to Harvard after three years as head coach at Temple, where she orchestrated a complete turnaround of a program that went 4-15 prior to her arrival. Her second season saw the Owls register their first winning record since the 1999-2000 campaign, while her 2006-07 team went 16-4 overall, 8-1 in the Atlantic 10 Conference and reached the championship match of the A-10 tournament. Temple was ranked as high as No. 85 in the NCAA/Intercollegiate Tennis Association ratings in 2007, marking the first time that the Owls had achieved a national rank. Her team defeated three nationally ranked opponents and saw five players achieve all-conference status. Green’s head coaching record at Temple was 34-28.

Before taking over as Temple’s head coach, Green spent two years as an assistant with the Owls, helping the program to the 2003 Atlantic 10 championship and the school’s first NCAA tournament appearance.

Green’s success as a coach follows a highly successful career as an undergraduate at the University of Florida. She was a member of the Gators’ 1998 NCAA championship team and was ranked as high as No. 5 nationally in doubles and No. 12 in singles during the 1999-2000 season. Her teams won two ITA national indoor championships (1997, 1999) and ranks among Florida’s career leaders in singles and doubles wins. Green was a three-time first-team All-Southeastern Conference selection in both singles and doubles.

In addition to her coaching, Green also served as an adjunct faculty member in the Temple University College of Education, where she taught courses in the department of kinesiology. She continues to serve as a tennis coordinator and is an advisory board member of the Black Women in Sport Foundation and is active with the USTA High Performance Coaching Program.

Green is a 2000 graduate of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications and a minor in education. She went on to earn a master’s degree in sports administration from Temple in 2004 and has begun work toward a doctorate in education administration.

Green is just the eighth person to serve as Harvard’s women’s tennis coach. She inherited a Crimson program that had won 17 Ivy League championships, before winning its 18th in 2009. She owns an overall career coaching record of 63-60.