Harvard’s First Black Female Coach Gives the Winning Serve

by Vanessa Loy (BPRW)

It’s time to add the name of Traci Green to the continually growing list of black pioneers in sports. Green was recently named the new women’s tennis coach of Harvard University and will assume her duties this July, according to The Harvard Crimson, the university’s newspaper. She is Harvard’s second black head coach and first ever black female head coach.

Green has some large tennis shoes to fill. Her predecessor, Gordon Graham, gained nine Ivy League Championships and four consecutive conference titles in his 17 seasons at Harvard. Previously, Green coached for three years at Temple University in Philadelphia. Her legacy at Temple included leading her team to its first winning season in six years, proving herself up to the task.

According to her biography at www.gatorzone.com, Green began her career at 10 years old at the Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis Center in her hometown of Philadelphia. Her mentor was the late tennis legend Arthur Ashe himself. After graduating from high school, she attended the University of Florida from 1996-2000 and earned a degree in communications while playing collegiate tennis. Her team played in the 1998 National Collegiate Athletic Association Championship and won two Intercollegiate Tennis Association Championships.

Athletic accomplishment seems to run in Green’s family. Her mother, Tina Sloane Green, is the first black head coach in the history of women's intercollegiate lacrosse, as well as president and executive director of the Black Women in Sport Foundation. Traci Green is a member of the foundation’s advisory board, as listed at www.blackwomeninsport.org.

Traci Green’s success in following in the footsteps of both her mother and her mentor make her appointment at Harvard University a winning match.