Shannon Tully Position: Head Coach Experience: Eighth Season

Five-Time Horizon League Coach of the Year
(2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008)

Entering her eighth season as head women's tennis coach of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Shannon Tully continues to cultivate a program engrained in excellence at UIC.

Tully has set the bar high for a team that consistently moves on to NCAA postseason play. A five-time Horizon League Coach of the Year, Tully surpassed the century mark in career victories, closing out the 2008 season with 106 dual match wins to a mere 62 defeats during her seven-year tenure.

Tully has already made a huge mark on a program that has set the bar high in the Horizon League. In just seven years at the helm of the Flames, Tully has led the team to seven consecutive Horizon League titles and seven straight NCAA bids, the longest streaks under one coach during UIC's incredible championship run.

Under Tully, UIC has posted an undefeated dual match record in Horizon League play, going an incredible 70-0 against conference foes in seven seasons. UIC has the longest conference-only winning streak currently in the nation, and on April 19 of last season, the Flames reached their 100th straight win over a league rival with a 5-2 victory over Butler.

The squad enters the 2009 campaign with 103 straight match wins over league opponents, a streak dating back to the 1996 season.

All in all, Tully has coached five Horizon League Player of the Year selections and four league Newcomer of the Year winners, with sophomore Ilinca Cristescu earning both honors in 2008. Her athletes have also earned 25 All-Horizon League honors. Tully also coached the school's first-ever ranked player when Beatriz Cabrera broke through the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's weekly rankings at No. 104 on May 3, 2004. Cabrera also finished the 2004 season as the tenth-ranked player in the Midwest Region.

Tully has served on the ITA Midwest Regional Committee and on the NCAA Regional Committee.

Tully ventured to UIC from Dayton, Ohio, where she spent the previous three years working as an elementary school teacher at Miami Valley Elementary School, while also serving in many different capacities as a local tennis instructor and coach.

Most recently before her appointment with the Flames, Tully was the Director of Adult Tennis at the South Regency Tennis Center in Miamisburg, Ohio. Prior to that, she served as the area training center coach, tutoring the top 14-year old age group tournament players in the region for the 1999-2000 season.

During the summers of 1997 and 1998, Tully was the zonals team head coach for the Midwest's top 12- and 14-year old players from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio. Tully also gained valuable coaching experience serving two seasons as the head varsity tennis coach at Archbishop High School in Kettering, Ohio from 1997 to 1998.

Over the past six years, Tully has served as the head coach of the Midwest squad at the Federation Cup, a prestigious competition among the junior tennis world. In her first season at the helm, Tully led the Midwest to a first-place finish for the first time in the history of the event. In 2006, Tully was awarded with a Five Year Volunteer Service Award in the USTA Midwest Section.

Tully has achieved a Level 1 Professional Certification with the USPTA.

A 1996 graduate of Wisconsin, Tully played four seasons for the Badgers from 1991-1995 and served as the team's captain for the 1994-95 season. In 1993, Tully was honored as the Big Ten's Sportswoman of the Year and received Academic All-Big Ten recognition every season she played.

Tully recently earned an MBA with a concentration in marketing and management from UIC in 2006.

Tully's Career Record