Geoff Young is in his third season at Purdue in 2024-25. Young was named the 10th head coach in Purdue men's tennis in June of 2022, bringing more than 20 years of head coaching experience and incredible success on and off the court.
A proven champion and recruiter, Young arrived in West Lafayette with 24 years of head coaching experience, including 15 at the helm at Minnesota. Young has a career record of 298-263 with 16 winning seasons and 10 NCAA Tournament appearances.
In addition to significant on-court success, Young’s squads have excelled in the classroom, earning 17 ITA All-Academic Team honors and 63 ITA Scholar-Athlete nods.
Young's first campaign in West Lafayette saw the new Boilermaker helmsman work all season to install a new culture within the program. Freshman Mujtaba Ali-Khan and Clemson transfer Dan Labrador epitomized the new ideals of the program throughout the campaign. Ali-Khan led the league in conference matches played to conclusion with nine and his 32 completions overall were sixth in the Big Ten. Labrador and Tomasz Dudek garnered ITA All-Academic honors, while three Boilermakers were named to the Big Ten All-Academic Team.
Prior to spending the 2022 campaign on staff at UCF, Young took Minnesota men’s tennis to historic and sustained heights during his tenure in the Twin Cities. The Golden Gophers went 209-150 under Young with a 90-62 mark in Big Ten play. Twenty-one Golden Gophers were named First Team All-Big Ten during his 15-year tenure.
Reaching the postseason 10 times in his first 13 seasons, Young guided the Golden Gophers to five NCAA Tournament Second Round appearances and one Sweet 16. Five singles players and one doubles team earned spots in the NCAA Tournament under Young’s tutelage.
Minnesota appeared in the final ITA team rankings 12 times, including No. 21 at the end of the 2014-15 campaign that saw the Golden Gophers lift the Big Ten title for the first time since 1995. Young also led 20 singles players and 13 doubles tandems to final rankings by the ITA. His teams were ranked in the Top 25 nationally in 36 different polls.
Young mentored a trio of All-Americans during his time at Minnesota, as well as 25 All-Big Ten honorees, including the 2012 Big Ten Freshman of the Year and 2015 Big Ten Player of the Year Leandro Toledo, and 61 Academic All-Big Ten laurels.
Young was twice named the ITA Central Region Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2015 and maintained a perfect APR.
Young captured his 200th victory as the head coach of Minnesota's men's tennis team in 2020, making him just the third Gopher men's tennis coach to eclipse 200 career wins with the team.
Minnesota reached the NCAA Tournament four of his final five seasons, with the only exception being the 2020 campaign that was cut short in March.
He recorded his 200th career victory when the Gophers took down Middle Tennessee State in 2017. The team finished ranked No. 39 while cracking the Top 25 once after defeating Oregon. The team earned the ITA Central Region Community Service Award.
The 2014-15 Gophers made a 10-win improvement from the season before and finished ranked 21st in the nation. They did not lose a single match at home and went 10-1 in Big Ten play to share the conference title for the first time since 1995. Young was named the ITA Central Region and Big Ten Coach of the Year. All seven players on the 2015 squad earned Academic All-Big Ten honors.
He won his 100th match on Feb. 22, 2009, against Binghamton and his 150th match on March 3, 2012, at Virginia Tech.
Off the court, Young has instilled a high academic standard, as his squads led all teams in grade-point average at Minnesota nine different seasons in the Twin Cities. Three of his rosters were also honored for having the most community service hours at Minnesota. Young transitioned to UCF after Minnesota elected to disband the men’s tennis program after the 2021 season.
Prior to going to Minnesota, Young spent six seasons as head coach at the University of Denver. During his tenure with the Pioneers, Young posted a 71-69 overall record. In his final season in 2005-06, he led Denver to a 13-9 record and then a program-best fourth-place finish in the Sun Belt Conference and a No. 66 national ranking.
While at Denver, he worked with the Pioneers' all-time winningest player, Magnus Ramfelt, who totaled 71 singles wins from 1998-2002. He also coached Adam Holmstrom, who set a single-season school record with 28 singles wins in 2005-06. Holmstrom also became the first Pioneers' player to qualify for the NCAA Championships in his rookie season.
Young served as the head women's tennis coach at Denver during the 1999-2000 season and during the fall of 2000. In his one season, the Pioneers finished 9-8 in Denver's second season at the NCAA Division I level. Prior to his stint at Denver, Young served as an assistant men's coach at the University of Alabama for three seasons.
A two-time All-Big Ten player at Northwestern, Young was the team's co-captain during his senior season in 1994 and collected 83 singles victories. He graduated from Northwestern in 1994 with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology.
A Marion, Ohio, native, Young was also a successful junior tennis player. He was ranked No. 1 in singles in the Midwest region 18-and-under division in 1989 and No. 1 in doubles in 1990.
Young is married to the former Dana Peterson, a four-time letterwinner with the Gopher women's tennis team from 1993-96 and an assistant coach at Minnesota from 1997-99. Dana was also the head women's tennis coach at Denver for six seasons. Their three children are all tennis standouts in their own right. Gavin played his college tennis at the University of Michigan and is currently playing professional tennis
His daughter, Karin, played her college tennis at the University of Oregon and is currently the graduate assistant tennis coach at Belmont. And his youngest, Zan, is an aspiring tennis player himself at the age of 16.
Tennis Tips by Geoff Young:
