Entering his 11th year at Trinity, Head Coach Paul Assaiante enjoyed his return to the men’s tennis team as head coach after a two-year hiatus. Assaiante guided the squad to a 15-2 dual match record, tying the College record for wins, and a bid to Trinity’s fifth NCAA Division III Championship Tournament for the fifth time in six years. The 2003-04 team reached the NCAA Quarterfinals for the second time, downing MIT in the first round before falling to eventual champion Middlebury in a very competitive quarterfinal match. Assaiante has compiled a 91-32 record as tennis coach in nine seasons at the helm.
Assaiante has also coached the Trinity men’s squash squad for the past 10 seasons, notching a 166-10 record with six consecutive collegiate national championship titles including last season. In the summer months, Assaiante serves as head coach of Connecticut’s World Team Tennis franchise, the Hartford Fox Force.
Besides his coaching duties, Assaiante has served as the director of athletic development at Trinity for three years, spearheading the College’s effort to upgrade its athletic facilities. In a short time, Assaiante has played the pivotal role in the fund-raising efforts, which have already produced two new synthetic outdoor fields and the nation’s premier squash facility for the College. In all, more than $7 million has been raised with ongoing projects that include a new boathouse, baseball and softball diamonds, and a community ice skating center.
From 1999-2003, Assaiante coached both the United States Squash Team, which competed in the Pan American Games, and the USA Men’s Team, which played in the World Championships. Twice named the United States Olympic Committee Coach of the Year, Assaiante was named one of Connecticut’s top sports coaches of the 20th century by The Hartford Courant, and recently earned an award from the Hartford Business Bureau for his outstanding contribution to sports in the city.
Assaiante is a 1974 graduate of Springfield College and holds a masters’ degree from Long Island University. His coaching experience includes stints at the United States Military Academy and Williams College. He was also a squash professional at the world-famous Princeton Club of New York, and director of racquet sports at the Baltimore Country Club, the Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y., and the Bellevue Athletic Club in Bellevue, Wash.
Assaiante’s professional athletic career was nothing short of spectacular. He was one-half of the U.S. national doubles championship duo in 1994 and captured the USSRA 50-and-over men’s squash title this past March. Assaiante also recently authored a book on tennis, Championship Tennis by the Experts.
