Winder-Barrow Tennis Alum Finds Success as UGA Assistant Coach

By Adam Wynn | Published in the Barrow County News

Earlier this month, Winder-Barrow alum Drake Bernstein was named the associate head coach for women’s tennis at the University of Georgia.

“It doesn’t really change that much for me,” Drake Bernstein said. “I’m going to keep doing the same thing for these girls that I do every day no matter the title and keep pushing for a national championship.”

Those daily responsibilities include such simple things as hitting a few rounds with his players to more complicated issues like recruiting.

“Recruiting takes up a lot of your time, but we try to be creative and build up the closest team in the country,” Bernstein noted. “Obviously having played here, I feel like this is the best place in the country to play college tennis and it’s not hard for me to be passionate about it. I just try to get our recruits to feel that same passion for it.

“We have the best crowd support in the country and the best local support in the country, and that makes the job a lot easier.”

Bernstein, a 2007 graduate of Winder-Barrow High School, has been in red and black for almost the entirety of his tennis career.

After his four years with the Bulldoggs, Bernstein was recruited to play tennis for the University of Georgia. Now, he’s back coaching with the Dawgs.

“My wardrobe is about 90 percent red and black,” Bernstein joked. “You won’t find any yellow or blue and orange in there, either. You’re not going to find those in my closet.”

Bernstein’s path was not always so well defined, however.

Early in the recruitment process, Bernstein thought he would play tennis for Alabama rather than Georgia.

“Just because Georgia is in the backyard and seems like the easy choice, I wanted to get out and do something different. I took my official visit here and it was obvious to me that there is no better option,” Bernstein noted. “Even at 16 or 17, it was obvious to me that there was nothing better than playing college tennis in Athens, Georgia.

“I had Isner as my host on my official visit, so that didn’t hurt,” Bernstein joked. “Once you stand down there on those courts, it’s pretty plain that there is nothing better out there.”

In the end, Bernstein’s recruitment visit to the University of Georgia put on prominent display just how incredible the experience of representing the Bulldogs on the tennis court could be.

“I was really lucky that Manny [Diaz] gave me a chance here. I used to go to bed with a piece of paper on my nightstand with how I would make it into the lineup,” Bernstein said. “If you would have told me in high school that I would start a match at UGA, I would’ve been the happiest person on earth. Then fast forward four seasons and I was able to do some great things here. It all started with the chance that Manny and Will gave me.”

After college, Bernstein moved to Las Vegas to coach tennis and to be near his then-girlfriend, Las Vegas native and UGA Gym Dog Cassidy McComb.

He was still connected with tennis, but the experience was not quite what he was hoping it would be.

“I love tennis, so I knew I wanted to be in tennis after college. She’s my fiancé now, but my girlfriend at the time was from Las Vegas so we moved out there and I was at a great tennis academy with great coaches,” Bernstein said. “I knew then that I wanted to get back into college. There’s something special about college. I was out there for about three months and I decided I wanted to get back into college coaching.”

So Bernstein wound up wearing that Alabama Crimson one way or another when he accepted a position with the women’s tennis team in Tuscaloosa, and that turned out to be one of the best years in program history.

The Crimson Tide women’s tennis team finished the 2011-12 season with an 18-5 overall record and a 10-1 conference record. They were also 4-4 against nationally ranked opponents under Bernstein’s leadership.

After that one season in Crimson, though, Bernstein saw a job opportunity that he had to take.

“This job just happened to open up after one year, and obviously it’s hard to pass up the chance to come home. Hopefully I never set foot anywhere else. I love it here,” Bernstein said.

Having the chance to come back home and coach for the University of Georgia was certainly a dream come true for Bernstein, and it was a goal realized that he still cherishes.

“You wake up every day thankful for the opportunity to be part of Georgia anything. I would do whatever this athletic association asked me to do,” Bernstein said. “But being able to have an influence on this team and helping them push for national championships, I hope they get to experience college the same way I did. That’s priceless.

“When you get to see them happy for their wins…and when they start loving the G as much as I did, I know it’s worth it,” Bernstein added.

Having just graduated from the University of Georgia in 2011, Bernstein has quickly ascended the ranks of UGA athletics and has become one of the youngest yet most revered coaches in the country.

“I’m lucky in a lot of ways that Jeff [Wallace] took a chance on a younger guy and that I get to do it here,” Bernstein acknowledged. “I don’t look at it as this title or that title. I’m just lucky that I get to help these girls.”

Bernstein had something of a unique high school experience that helped him cultivate that selfless attitude.

Many highly ranked tennis stars avoid high school altogether or they will attend a particularly tennis-based academy of some type. Bernstein, on the other hand, went to a normal public high school.

Attending a normal high school and playing for a normal high school team taught him an invaluable lesson that prepared him more for college than most athletes in his position: he learned the value of the team.

“I had a great team and that’s what made it worth it,” Bersntein admitted. “I was doing it for the experience side of it. We had a blast every day. We were all competitive and we had a great time. There’s something to be said about playing tennis in high school rather than skipping that. It’s an experience that you can’t replace.

“It was awesome that you’re learning in high school that you win as a team and you lose as a team. If I go out there and lose my match and the team wins theirs, it’s a great day. That’s a great lesson that high schoolers are getting cut short of when they don’t play. The team comes first,” Bernstein added.

Accordingly, Bernstein is excited about what his legacy with Winder-Barrow tennis has done for the community and for tennis in Barrow County.

“You had never really heard much about Winder-Barrow tennis. I think we’d never even made state until my sophomore year,” Bernstein said. “Now to see that tennis has grown at Winder-Barrow and Apalachee, it’s exciting. I hope one day we have another player from Barrow County here at Georgia. It’s pretty cool to see that there are more pros in town and people are taking high school tennis more seriously.”

Bernstein really did leave a special legacy at Winder-Barrow.

In his high school career, Bernstein went 82-1 with a string of 79 consecutive victories. He helped lead the Winder-Barrow Bulldoggs to their first state tournament appearance in 2006 and yet again in 2007.

Coming out of high school, Bernstein was ranked fifteenth nationally and second in the state of Georgia.

As a coach and as a recruiter, Bernstein takes a unique approach.

“Everybody has a nice weight room. Everybody has academic services. A lot of schools have good educations. There are a lot of schools with good facilities. I don’t think there’s anything better than ours, but a lot of schools have nice things,” Bernstein stated. “Most of our recruits aren’t even from the southeast or from this country. They’re from all over, so giving them a place to feel like home is important and we want to teach them to love the G.”

Developing that home and community feeling at the University has been an integral part of Bernstein’s plan for the school and will continue to inform his program moving forward.

“I think that one deciding factor for a lot of recruits in the past has been the family atmosphere that they’re going to get here that they won’t get anywhere else,” Bernstein mentioned.

As a local kid from Winder who got the chance to win a national championship with the Georgia Bulldogs in his freshman season, Bernstein has a very real understanding of what it means to be a part of that family environment.

“The hometown part of it, it’s just like a dream come true. We’ve got a lot of good football players in Winder and a lot of good basketball players in Winder. You go to these football games in Sanford Stadium, and me as a tennis player, even I dreamed of playing out there one day,” Bernstein laughed.

“Then you’re out there and you’re able to soak it all in. I still look back and ask myself if this all really happened. I’m pretty thankful for the opportunities I have here.”

Bernstein still gladly maintains his ties to Winder as his family comes out once a week for dinner with he and McComb, who is now his fiancé, and he frequently comes through town and sees how the city is growing.

“I drove by the high school the other day and they have new tennis courts. That’s nice to see because that’s a luxury we didn’t have when I was there,” Bernstein acknowledged.

As a native of Winder, Bernstein is in rare company. He happens to be one of the few residents of the city to win a national championship as a college athlete, and he and his fiancé will soon be one of the few married couples where both have national championships in their sports.

Though the national titles are great and all that Bernstein has been able to accomplish as a tennis player, he still holds that his greatest calling is what he can do to further the goals of University of Georgia athletics.

“It doesn’t matter what position I’m in,” Bernstein said. “There’s not much better than getting to help Georgia and Georgia tennis.”