Reprinted with permission from the ITA
TEMPE, Ariz. – Hope International's Jamie Sanchez is soon to embark on his 50th season as a college tennis head coach. After four decades as the head coach of Loyola Marymount's women's tennis team, Sanchez now leads the Hope International men's and women's programs, a position that has reaffirmed his love for the game and student-athlete development.
In this Q&A, Sanchez details his early involvement in tennis, his mindset on helping where he can and what still motivates him in his 50th season.
"I'm most proud about the fact that I feel like I'm a very good representation that learning is ultimately the one thing that can make a difference."
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When were you first introduced to tennis as a kid, and why did it resonate with you then?
There's two of us in my family, my brother and I, and he's two and a half years younger than I am. At the time, my sport was American football. He didn't have a sport, so he decided, with a little influence from my dad and because of Pancho Gonzales, that he'd go into tennis. I decided to go to the rec classes that he was gonna start at in tennis. This was my summer before my senior year in high school. Once we had lessons, we were always out on the courts. We jumped on people's courts and challenged them, even though we were like beginners, two young guys, whatever. I really enjoyed it to the point where I decided I'd go out for the high school team my senior year and I did. My high school was Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose. It was an all-boys school and I made the team. I got to play third doubles. We were the conference champs and immediately had success as a team. Individually, my record may not have been great, but one of the things it did – and this is the thing about the sport of tennis – is it caught fire. I loved it.
So, lo and behold, I played high school tennis and then I was going to continue with football. I went to Loyola University, which is currently Loyola Marymount University, and they had football so I decided to play football there for four years but then I also decided I was going to play tennis. I played tennis all four years in college at Loyola and that's kind of where I really got involved and started to learn from as many influences as possible. I went through college playing tennis and loving it.
How did you know you wanted to coach?
My goal going to college was to be a school teacher. In truth, I had my heart set on coaching elementary school and younger kids, because I really enjoyed that aspect. There were qualities of me that I wanted to share and wanted to give back. I started to teach more tennis. I started a program in El Segundo that was essentially a tennis center for all ages of kids, adults, and whatnot. I did that for like 20 years and I actually got involved in the teaching aspects. It really fueled me more because instead of it being in a classroom with math, English, those kinds of things, it was in tennis. My oldest daughter is a special ed teacher. My ex-wife was a school teacher and an administrator in education. The whole family was in that environment.
When you started teaching and coaching at LMU, how did you get involved coaching other sports? You were involved in a lot with a number of programs on campus.
I was so fortunate. I say this now looking back, but I don't know how I did this. I was part-time as a tennis coach at LMU, but I kept being involved in other things that were on campus. I would say, 'Hey, if positions open up and you need someone to fill it, I'm available.' It didn't matter if the opportunity was an area where I might not have total background and information about it, but I knew I could do certain things and then would learn on my way. I'll say this – I've never played soccer and I took over the position as the head coach [at LMU] because they couldn't find one. The process of them hiring one took a little longer. I was the head men's soccer coach for three months. I stayed on as the assistant once that person was hired, but I take pride in the fact that I was in charge of the team for a short period of time. It wasn't my pathway, but I enjoyed it. I loved it. Some of these positions at LMU actually became a joint connection with being the tennis coach and became a full-time position. So, it actually helped the university at the time.
That kind of mindset of always raising your hand where there's an opportunity. Have you always been that way?
I have. I graduated from Loyola University in English literature. I loved to read, I loved to learn different things. Once I started to read something, I had to read everything I could about it, because I didn't feel like I got a true picture of it. That's kind of the way I went about things too, is that I delved into it. I thought, I'm gonna commit to this and do it. I guess the difficulties that occur is as you do that, if you have other responsibilities, how do you manage those things? You organize things to do it in the manner in which for it to be completed based on your expectation as well as whoever is supervising and in charge of that area.
In 2006, LMU named its tennis court after you. What did that mean to you?
That was a surprise. When I played at Loyola, there were only two tennis courts. We played at the park up the street where there were eight to ten courts. Because I was there for so long, we went from two to then adding four with lights. Originally it was supposed to be a tennis center with four more courts with lights, so six courts. But as we progressed to that, there wasn't enough funding. They only did three more courts, so there were five courts. We had a five-court tennis center for a while. We finally got to a point where we wanted to add one court in the semi-stadium court as it exists today so they're all in a row. We added the sixth court finally and the lights and the scoreboard. At the time through all this fundraising, a number of the alums actually got together and decided to name courts. I didn't know that they were doing that and it was something that was actually brought to my attention as we got closer to the completion. They put my name on the sixth court. That was amazing. When those kinds of things happen and you're not really aware of them, it's kind of a – I mean, you just can't explain it. It's just an emotional feeling you feel in regards to those ties.
What led you to Hope International?
I retired from tennis at LMU [in 2015] and went into administration for two years. That was my plan. I wanted to be a coach that had administrative background to where I could step in and then help the other coaches. When I stopped coaching tennis, I became an administrator in the athletic department and I was in charge of tickets because I had that background. I was in charge of all the tennis camps. I also then supported all the athletic programs and any fundraising efforts they had. That was my job for two years. After those two years, Marymount California University, which is the sister school of Loyola Marymount, merged. They went from Marymount College to Marymount California University and it became a four-year school. In doing that, they dropped all their athletic programs. In the last part of the two years I was at LMU, they reached out to me and said, 'Would you be interested in coming and being in charge of both programs? We want to bring them back. We want to bring back tennis.' And in truth, I jumped at the chance. I took the job. So I was at Marymount for five years. The dilemma there was that the pandemic started right after. They actually stopped athletics for one year prior to the final year where they actually closed down, which was unfortunate. It was kind of devastating. I thought, maybe this is a sign it's time for me to retire. Then, the position opened at Hope. It was a late transition. I think it was like October or November and something occurred where the coach was leaving and it opened up. I thought, Well, shoot, I'll apply. This connects with my youth because growing up, our family lived in Buena Park. Buena Park's five, 10 minutes away from Fullerton. My brother still lives in Fullerton. I actually played a lot of tennis at the Fullerton Tennis Center, which is the site for Hope International. I'm just down the street from the elementary school I went to, which is not 10 minutes away. I was very comfortable with the area. I took it as kind of a sign, like, Well, this might fit. I was a little concerned because with a job in Southern Cal, when it opens up, everybody that's involved with this sport, they hit it. I think I was very fortunate that they actually selected me. It was a unique situation, too. I started with the team in January [2022]. I met the team once before they all left for Christmas vacation. The next time I saw them, two weeks later, we started our season. So, I inherited the teams, and it's an NAIA school, so I'm coaching both teams, which I did a little bit at Loyola, but that isn't necessarily the path with NCAA schools. I'm still doing it now.
What do you like about the NAIA game?
The most noticeable thing about the NAIA is it does offer opportunities that are a little more extensive. In the NAIA, you can go have a profession of your own and come back at 28, 30 years old and if you haven't played any or used eligibility up, you can come in and complete that eligibility. In fact, one of the players that just graduated, I think he's 28. It's a very specific niche. It doesn't fit everyone. Hope is a small Christian school, great Christian attributes here. There's an opportunity for players to join a program, but it's not the highest level and it's actually those that may not get an opportunity anywhere else. Instead of sitting on the bench, they can come here and play in California, which is very competitive with the schedule that we have here.
Your career is built off of helping people, serving people, chipping in where you can. Where does that come from?
I think probably from qualities from my mom, who was a hairdresser. She worked a lot of hours, but always had time for us to do certain things that we were interested in. She seemed to always be involved with other people and what they were doing. She believed that knowledge is power. Your education is what established you as a standard and when you are in that situation, you can help so many people in many different ways. My dad was a truck driver and he had the quality of interacting with people so much. Along with that, I would have to say it's also an element of my culture, which is Hispanic, because it's so family oriented. Family just doesn't need mom, dad and the kids. It's the uncles, aunts and the cousins, too. At six years old, we moved to Buena Park, but it wasn't just my mom and my dad and me that moved. My uncles, my aunts, their kids, everybody moved to Buena Park. We could walk four blocks and I could visit my uncle and my nieces and my cousins. It was always about loving and giving and sharing and those kinds of things. So, I guess that's part of it.
After all these years, what still challenges you and motivates you as a head coach?
Getting to know the individuals I'm involved with, them getting to know me and actually learning something about becoming their own selves and being more empowered to do things the right way. It's always a challenge because I'm not wanting them to be like me, I just want to share information with them. What really comes down to it is whether they're learning something new about themselves. In tennis, like all sports, there's elements of camaraderie, communication, and all those kinds of things. I'll also say this – I have a daughter who's starting high school this year. She's going to play tennis on the high school team here. Here's another thing that we're allowed to do in the NAIA – I can be around high school players. So, now, I'm volunteering to help the high school team. I can arrange my schedule so I can get there in the afternoon and put a little bit of time with the team and connect with that generation.
In terms of the best win or most memorable match from your time as a head coach. What immediately comes to mind?
At LMU we had a very good program. When we finally went to Division I, we were ranked a number of times, and this was primarily when I was the women's coach. In the West Coast Conference, which still exists today, if you were to look at the school that dominates the conference in regards to wins overall, it's Pepperdine. The year before we won the conference championships, we went to the finals and lost.
We won the conference the year after we were in the finals and lost. Pepperdine was ranked in the 20s at this time, which was the 2002 season. The week before we ended our regular season, we played Pepperdine in our last match. They killed us, 6-1. We go into the conference tournament and we go through the first round and then the second round and we're in the finals again with Pepperdine. We were ranked in the 50s, they were in the 20s. I found out later that the captain of our team that year, the night before the finals, she held a meeting they never told me about and said, 'We need to show up at the highest level that we can. No matter what happens, we're going to be playing our best tennis we've ever played.' It wasn't easy. We lost the doubles point in a close set. We could have won it, but then we pulled out singles matches in three sets and we win the conference tournament. That's probably the biggest win. That team, by the way, was inducted into our LMU Hall of Fame recently.
In your decades of involvement, how have you seen college tennis grow and develop?
Ultimately, I think that college tennis has really become a true stage in which players at a high level can step into the pros. I mean, right now, if you look at all the Grand Slams, they're really emphasizing how many Americans are in contention. Not only that, but then how many of them came from college. It has aspired to that level. It really has aspired in regards to the transition and the development, so the stage is set at the highest level in tennis. The growth and transition in tennis has broadened. It's such a great sport.
As you reflect on 50 years in college tennis, what are you most proud of?
I'm most proud about the fact that I feel like I'm a very good representation that learning is ultimately the one thing that can make a difference. Knowledge is power. I really, really believe that you can make a difference. You make a difference in the individuals that you're involved in if it's not just family, it's not just friends, it's not just businesses. Obviously, in something that you love, in my case being a coach, in tennis, I can feel like I have felt that impact. Those individuals then, if they just take a fraction of some of the things that I'm sharing with them, it'll be a catalyst for them to be even bigger and better in regards to what they're doing. I enjoy that connection.
Could you ever have imagined that you'd spend 50 years doing this?
No, because like I said, I had a plan where I was going to retire and those kinds of things. I really feel like I've been blessed because there were so many things that I enjoyed. I don't know how all this happened. All I know is that I'm enjoying it. I don't think I would change anything. It's a student-centered approach, where it's the other individual that becomes the forefront in regards to what you do and why you do it.
