SIUE Athletics Hall of Famer Bob Meyers will enter the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Women’s Tennis Collegiate Hall of Fame this fall.
Meyers will be among six Class of 2014 inductees. The enshrinement ceremony is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 15, at the College of William and Mary in Willamsburg, Va.
The other honorees will be Northwestern University’s Katrina Adams, USC’s Stacy Margolin (Potter), Cecelia Martinez from San Francisco State University, University of Texas coach Jeff Moore and Lindsay Morse (Bennett) of UC Irvine.
Meyers inaugurated the SIUE women’s tennis program in 1979 and coached the team for 10 seasons. He left SIUE on a high note with a fourth-consecutive NCAA Division II title. Under Meyers’ leadership, the Cougars won national titles from 1986 to 1989 with the final championship played at St. Louis’ Forest Park with SIUE as the host institution.
He coached 32 players to All-American status, including three singles titles and two doubles titles. While all four of his national championship teams are members of the SIUE Athletics hall of Fame, there are six players who also have been named to the Hall of Fame. They are Lilian Almedia, Portia (George) Morrow, Christina Bokelund, Elisabeth Calander, Joan Mahon-Finder, and Michelle (Wreen) Staroba.
Meyers was the NCAA Division II Coach of the Year for women’s tennis in 1983 and later earned the same honor for men’s tennis in 1988.
In addition to his coaching successes, Meyers served on the NCAA Men’s and Women’s National Tennis Committee and was co-chairman of the ITCA/NCAA Men’s National Rankings as well as the chair of the men’s NCAA Midwest Regional Committee.
Meyers earned both bachelor’s and master’s from SIUE in physical education (1971) and counselor education (1972), respectively