PHOTO BY RAVEN SCHLEY| THE SIGNAL
There’s a new man at the helm of the Georgia State women’s tennis team.
Jason Marshall, whose career as a professional player spanned from 2001-07 and who spent six seasons as an assistant coach for the men’s and women’s teams at Texas Christian University (TCU), was recently hired as the new head coach for the defending Sun Belt champion women’s tennis team.
“I’ve wanted to be a head coach for the past six years,” Marshall said. “And then with Georgia State, there’s so many things about it. Obviously, they’re the defending Sun Belt champions. Right away the program is in great shape. We have an amazing recruiting class as well in a tennis-rich area that is Atlanta.”
Career as a player
Marshall is a native of Dallas. In 2001, he graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor’s degree in business.
He was a four-year letterwinner and holds career records for the top spots at the singles and doubles positions. In 1999 and 2001, he won Big Ten singles championships and was a three-team All-Big Ten selection. With the Boilermakers, he was ranked 17th in singles and 19th for doubles as a senior.
After graduating from Purdue, he spent seven years with the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour. His ranking was as high as 101st in doubles. In Sept. 2005, Marshall scored a huge upset victory in Vietnam over top-10 ranked Marcos Baghbatis in straight sets.
But, Marshall says that his proudest moment of his career came when he had the opportunity to compete on the grass courts of Wimbledon in London. In 2005, he was paired with Poland’s Lukasz Kubot in the first round of the men’s doubles competition, but lost to Jan-Michael Gambill and Paul Goldstein of the United States, 4-6, 6-1, 8-6.
“I lost in the first round at Wimbledon,” Marshall said. “I had a lot of great wins and have won a lot of tournaments, but as a player, when I made it to Wimbledon and I was on that grass playing that tournament, I was thinking, ‘wow’,” Marshall said. “All of the hard work and all of the sweat has paid off.”
Career as a coach
After his playing days concluded, Marshall became a coach. In 2007, he spent one season as an assistant at Wright State in Ohio. During his short stint with the Raiders, he coached a pair of All-Horizon League honorees in Nick Camilleri and Tony Teufel.
That same year, he coached the Tahitian Olympic Team to a Bronze-medal finish at the 2007 South Pacific Games.
As an assistant, Marshall also had the opportunity to coach the women’s and men’s tennis programs at TCU near his native home of Dallas. In three of his first four years at TCU, the women’s team won the Mountain West Championship. The men’s team also won the conference in 2010.
“I would say the proudest moment of my career definitely has to be winning the Mountain West Conference tournament [in 2012 with women’s tennis],” Marshall said. “I think that was something really special. We went to San Diego where we defeated San Diego State in the finals. We could have lost that match. We really were close to losing that match. Just all of the hard work we put in and seeing the reward from that was so exciting.”
Marshall also describes a 2013 victory over No. 17 Vanderbilt as a high point in his coaching career as the women’s tennis team at TCU had lost the first set and were trailing the Commodores 5-2 in the second set.
“We came back and won the team match. No one does that and to beat a highly ranked team like that huge. We pulled of a win that we never should have pulled off,” Marshall said.
As Panthers coach
Marshall has already been the head coach for a pair of tournaments that Georgia State women’s tennis has competed in.
The Panthers competed in their first tournament as defending Sun Belt champions from Sept. 19-21 in the Georgia Tech Invitational that also featured the host Yellow Jackets as well the LSU Tigers and the North Carolina State Wolfpack.
The Panthers won the majority of their singles matches vs. NC State on the first day and two of their doubles games vs. LSU.
“I was somewhat thrown in, when I first came here to a tournament,” Marshall said. “I think it moved along faster than any coach would expect. Usually, you’re here and then you work with the players for a month. Then all of a sudden you start easing into coaching them a bit and understanding their play.”
On the second day, Georgia State was slowed down as they only won a pair of their singles matches against the Tigers. However, they won all of their doubles matches against NC State the final day.
Georgia State also competed in the three-day UCF Invitational in Orlando, Florida. that was affected by rain for most of the tournament. The Panthers won all of their doubles matches the first day against Florida Atlantic, and bested the Owls in all but one of the match during the two days of singles competition affected by the inclement weather.
The team also defeated the University of North Florida (UNF) Osprey in five of the team’s seven singles matches.
The Panthers competed in their third tournament of the year as they hosted the Georgia State Invitational at Piedmont Park and competed against West Virginia and the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Prior to that Marshall also recently announced the hiring of a new assistant coach.
New assistant coach
Lyndsay Shosho arrives to Georgia State after coming from Buffalo as an assistant to its women’s tennis team. Shosho also had stints at Hawaii and Kentucky as well as one at Georgia Tech as a player.
“As I spoke to the other candidates for the job, it just seemed like she had a good game plan. She knew how to do things where I wouldn’t have to necessarily train her from the bottom up. I can throw her into a situation and she will know how to run things,” Marshall said.
Outlook for the season
Marshall hopes to build upon the success that the women’s tennis team has had recently. Last season, the team won the Sun Belt championship over South Alabama and Abigail Tere-Apisah advanced to the semifinals of the women’s singles tournament as a senior last season.
“Looking back on what [Abigail] did and seeing her success for the branding of the university when she’s in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament looks just so good for the program as a whole,” Marshall said.
He is coaching a team that is not overpopulated with players from one particular class. The 2014-15 includes two freshmen, three sophomores, two juniors and two seniors. These include senior Masa Grgan as well as sophomore Marcia Tere-Apisah, the younger sister of Abigail.
“I think we have such a great group of women,” Marshall said. “They all get along and I think they all relate well. I’d like to get the chance once Lyndsay [Shosho] is in place to start working at them more individually, but it’s been great.”
Marshall says that being able to recruit will be the primary ingredient in continuing the winning formula for the women’s tennis program.
“It starts always with recruiting. Like with any team, you’re going to be able to have the talent to win,” Marshall said. “But it also comes with being able to balance out your schedule. If you’re able to find good ranked teams to play against outside of your conference, that’s really good.”
He says that scheduling non-conference matchups against teams such as Georgia Tech, LSU, and North Carolina State is great preparation for the teams they will encounter in Sun Belt play.
“When you get exposure to those types of teams and then you go into the Sun Belt Conference and have to win the tournament, you know that no one’s going to be as good as playing SEC or ACC teams. So, getting as many good teams on the schedule as possible prepares us for the conference matches.”
There is still plenty of tennis to go prior to the Sun Belt Championship in April in New Orleans. But another conference crown is at the top of Marshall and the team’s wish list.
“Obviously, to win the conference tournament is a goal,” Marshall said. “We want to make the NCAA tournament and trying to get where we did last year. We would like to win a round in the NCAA tournament or go further. It would be great to improve our ranking. One of the other goals I have every year as well is for the players to stay healthy and take care of their bodies.”
