Since 1979, Rick McClure has been been a fixture for all Loyola Greyhounds tennis student-athletes and families. On April 7, 2019 Loyola Athletics invites you to celebrate with us as we mark his 40th season leading the Greyhounds. Join us at the McClure Tennis Center at Ridley Athletic Complex for a men's and women's doubleheader, as well as a special reception between matches in honor of Coach McClure. Read more about Coach McClure in the story below.

RSVP To Attend The April 7 Event

Celebrate Coach McClure's 40th Season With A Gift To Loyola Tennis

 
The job paid only $600, and he was offered it after the wife of a Baltimore Sun reporter recommended him, but that is how Rick McClure's legacy as Loyola Univeristy Maryland's tennis coach started in 1979.
 
It sounds like small potatoes, but don't tell that to McClure. He looks at a photo of that 1979 team on the wall in his office and names those men and who they became – businessmen and executives, medical professionals, lawyers. He knew immediately what was important about being the tennis coach at the Jesuit school on Charles Street.
 
Forty years later and McClure is still leading Loyola student-athletes. The 2019 season marks 35 years since the school's athletic program transitioned to Division I and more than 30 years after McClure took on additional duties as head coach of women's tennis. It has been 16 years since he became full-time and was inducted into the Loyola Athletics Hall of Fame, and five years after an anonymous donor gave more than $3 million toward the building of a tennis complex that bears the coach's name, but McClure feels the same way about the importance of his job.
 
Yes, the 65-year-old McClure has seen his teams win plenty of matches, almost 800 of them. His women's team dominated the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) in the 1990s and early 2000s.
 
And yes, McClure loves good tennis. He was one of the best high school players in New Jersey, an excellent college player, and still looks like an athlete despite the grey in his ever-present beard. All he ever wanted to do was teach and coach tennis.
 
If you really want to know what McClure thinks, though, and how little that's changed despite all the changes at Loyola and in college athletics in 40 years, just listen…
 
"I would never say no to any of my players to anything they want to do."
 
McClure thinks being a student at Loyola is pretty great, and he doesn't care whether you're his No. 1 player or a practice player who never makes the top six; he wants you to take advantage of being a Loyola student.
 
His players get a spring break like most other students, and he knows that underclassmen will likely go home and work on their tennis a little bit, and that upperclassmen might take a trip with their friends for some fun and relaxation. And that's what he wants them to do.
 
He would never dream of telling a player what major to pursue, or not to pursue a specific major.
 
He wants his players to go abroad during their junior year; in fact, he's disappointed if they don't.
 
"I tell all my players that they will be able to do anything that their roommate can do," says McClure. "It would be wrong for me to deprive them of that."
 
Loyola tennis players work hard at becoming better athletes, of course; they're doing strength and conditioning workouts three times a week. Loyola tennis players compete just as hard on the court, a challenge that's become even greater with the move to the Patriot League in 2013.
 
They also do a lot of other things. McClure wouldn't have it any other way.
 
"I've never changed anyone's grip."
 
McClure says that he could have been a tennis pro for 40 years and been very happy. Before his position at Loyola became full-time, he was still teaching players of all skill levels at clubs in the Baltimore area, like the woman who recommended him for the Loyola job.
 
Perhaps the greatest gift he has bestowed on the Loyola tennis program is his ability to build lifetime relationships.
 
McClure's office in the DeChiaro College Center is a testament to those associations. He has tried hard to get a picture of nearly all the 365 student-athletes to have played for his tennis teams in 40 years. When he moved to the new office in 2018, he was worried a huge photo collage wouldn't fit, and eternally thankful to the staff that helped in the move for making that happen.
 
By his count, McClure has been to the weddings of 22 of his players, including 15 that have taken place in the Alumni Chapel.
 
McClure says, almost sheepishly, that "he helps his players as much as I can." The lasting relationships he has with them tell a much deeper story.
 
"I never to want to hear one of my players tell me they got a B instead of an A because they had to miss class."
 
Sure, McClure has always recruited smart kids, with those first guys from 1979 never far from his mind. There's more to it than that though.
 
To accommodate the schedules of the 27 players on his two teams, McClure runs two practice sessions. The later one is for the players who have science labs and seminars that run into the late afternoon. McClure says that only occasionally will his team leave for a tournament or match so early that any of his players miss classes.
 
His players, in turn, become disciplined about every part of their college life so that they don't miss any of it. It's no surprise, then, that his teams consistently rank as the top teams at Loyola in grade-point average.
 
For McClure, it all comes back to why his players come to Loyola, and why he loves having them here.
 
"These kids are all playing tennis by choice," McClure says. "I don't ever want any of them saying they're not interested in playing today."

(Story by David Rosenfeld)