Florida coach Bryan Shelton had a fantastic career at Georgia Tech.
As a player, he achieved All-American status and was selected to the All-ACC roster every year during his time in Atlanta. As a coach, he led the Georgia Tech women to a national championship and is the winningest coach in the program’s history.
Now the Yellow Jackets are in Gainesville to participate in the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s a little bittersweet,” Shelton said. “When we saw that they (Georgia Tech) was coming to our region, I thought about the potential to go up against your best friend.”
Kenny Thorn is the head coach of the Georgia Tech men, and has been a friend of Shelton’s since the two started playing doubles together at 13 years old.
Yet, before Shelton can think about facing his alma mater and one of his oldest friends in a prospective second round matchup, his team must first get past a school they’ve never faced, Florida Gulf Coast.
FGCU qualified for the tournament after winning the Atlantic Sun conference as a four seed, defeating rival North Florida and Lipscomb in the final two rounds.
The Eagles boast the ASUN freshman of the year, Felipe Ramirez, as its number one player, as well as a former Gator, junior Oliver Landert. Ramirez and Landert play as a doubles combination and made key contributions towards FGCU’s conference title victory.
“They’re high-energy guys that compete hard,” Shelton said. “They give (FGCU) a lot of firepower and emotionally they give them a charge as well… and their skill sets allow them to create a lot of matchup problems.”
However, Florida will have the advantage of hosting the first two rounds, a luxury that players like senior captain Elliott Orkin aren’t taking for granted.
“It’s huge for us,” Orkin said. “Playing in front of our home crowd and boosters and having their support here is really big for us and motivates us to do our best. These two matches are really important so we’re going to make the most out of it.”
Hosting has proved advantageous for the Gators in their preparation for the tournament. The attitude in Florida’s two-a-day practices has also been that of improving rather than maintaining.
“You still go into every practice looking to improve as much as you can and trying to help improve your teammates,” Orkin said. “All of the hours we put in the gym lead up to this tournament. So our goal from the beginning of the season was to peak at this moment.”
Contact Mark Stine at mstine@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @mstinejr.
UF men's tennis coach Bryan Shelton looks on during Florida's 4-2 win against UCLA on Feb. 5, 2017, at the Ring Tennis Complex.
