Tennis star still active today
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In 1990, Mt. Lebanon graduate Gretchen Rush stood on center court at the WTA Tour finals, her high school coach, Charles Stull, watching from the stands.
Her opponent? Oh, just eventual nine-time Wimbledon singles winner, Martina Navratilova.
The outcome wasn’t great — Navratilova won handily — but the experience was so out-of-body, Rush listed it as one of the highlights of her tennis career.
“You can’t script that stuff,” Rush said. “It was pretty amazing.”
After winning WPIAL championships in 1978, 1979 and 1981 and PIAA titles in 1979 and 1981, Rush chose Trinity College in San Antonio over Stanford. The one year she didn’t win a WPIAL title, Rush was at a training camp in Florida. She was a four-time Trinity All-American from 1983-86 and will enter her fourth season as the women’s tennis coach.
“When push came to shove, it was just too big a leap to go from Pittsburgh to California,” Rush said. “The people in Texas were really friendly. They love football just like Pittsburgh people, and it just seemed like a better fit.”
Rush played at Trinity under Hall of Fame coach Clarence Mabry and posted a .906 singles win percentage. The school was Division I at the time, though it’s now a Division III school. She won the NCAA doubles championship in 1983 and was named the college women’s player of the year in 1984 and 1985, winning a gold medal in doubles at the 1983 Pan American games, and attending the 1984 Olympics to represent America.
She grew up with lofty tennis goals and wanted to play at the collegiate level and professionally — but Rush also wanted to coach at Penn State. After her professional playing career as a top 20 singles and doubles player on the WTA Tour, advancing to the Wimbledon singles quarterfinals in 1986 and 1989, Rush moved to San Diego to raise her family. Her three kidsare now college aged.
While opportunities to coach at Penn State never came to fruition, she started coaching in Los Angeles, teaching privately at country clubs and eventually became the women’s tennis coach at Claremont-MuddScripps Colleges from 2012 to 2014. After coaching at San Diego City College from 2008 to 2012, Trinity, her alma mater, came calling. It was serendipity, Rush said.
“The Trinity job came up and it just kind of seemed like life was giving me a doover, so I took it,” Rush said.
Her tennis career isn’t technically over, as Rush still competes in tournaments as a senior player. But her focus is coaching her players and giving back to the sport.
“I really wanted to coach on the collegiate level,” Rush said. “I really do enjoy it. I enjoy mentoring the girls, and I really like this age group. They’re just on fire, the college kids. Anything is possible, they’re smart, they know what they want, and they love to compete.”
“These kids are so much smarter than we were. They’re just brilliant. My skill set that I’m constantly developing is listening. I love to talk, and you’ve got to listen as a coach, and just the communication skills … these kids are at the crux of their life. It’s just a beautiful time to be involved in these young people’s lives.”
Trinity women’s tennis has won the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference championship five times in a row and three times under Rush. Regardless of the team’s record, though, Rush sees her experience at all levels of tennis as her advantage as a coach.
“I think I have a lot of compassion for what they’re trying to do,” Rush said. “I think that’s one of my strengths. I understand tennis, I know how hard it is. I know how much work it takes, how much it takes to be successful.”