May 14, 2002
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Irish senior Javier Taborga (La Paz, Bolivia) and assistant coach Billy Pate were recognized with regional honors by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association yesterday. Taborga was named Midwest Region Ted A. Farnsworth/ITA Senior Player of the Year and also was selected as the regional nominee for the John Van Nostrand Memorial Award, which provides a stipend to an outstanding senior who plans to pursue a professional career after college. Pate, meanwhile, was named the ITA Assistant Coach of the Year for the Midwest Region.
Taborga and Pate are now eligible, along with the winners from each of the other seven regions, for the national awards, which will be announced on May 23 in College Station, Texas.
Taborga is the second Irish player to win the regional Farnsworth Award and the second to be the regional nominee for the Van Nostrand Award. 2000 Graduate Ryan Sachire was honored as such and went on to win both awards on the national level. Sachire is competing professionally and is ranked 331st in the world in doubles and 586th in singles in the latest rankings from the Association of Tennis Professionals.
Taborga is ranked 15th in the nation in singles and fifth in doubles and has posted an 18-5 mark at No. 1 singles. He is the only player in the country to have defeated both the current No. 1 singles player in the nation and the top-ranked doubles team.
Pate is the third Irish assistant coach to win the regional honor, joining Andy Zurcher (1997) and Michael Morgan (1999). Pate is in his second year at Notre Dame after serving as the head coach at Georgia Perimeter College from 1996-2000. His Jaguars were the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II champions in each of Pate’s final three seasons at the helm. He was named national junior college coach of the year three times and earned the United States Professional Tennis Association national college coach-of-the-year award in 1999. The Irish have compiled a 40-13 mark in the two years since Pate joined the program.
The other regional winners of the Farnsworth Award were Princeton’s Judson Williams, North Carolina’s Marcio Petrone, Tennessee’s Peter Handoyo, Indiana State’s Stefan Hirn, Texas-Arlington’s Andy Leber, UNLV’s Thomas Schneiter and Stanford’s K.J. Hippensteel. Other nominees for the Van Nostrand Award include Handoyo, VCU’s Florian Marquardt and Tulsa’s Shrianga Sudhakar. The other regional assistant-coach-of-the-year awardwinners were Brown’s Matt Halfpenny, Wake Forest’s Shawn Heinchon, Tennessee’s Chris Mahony, Tulsa’s Dean Orford, Baylor’s Sam Winterbotham, UNLV’s Stephane Matheu-Cambas and California’s Lan Bale.
In addition, William & Mary’s Brian Kalbas was named East Region Wilson/ITA Coach of the Year on the women’s side. Kalbas is a 1989 graduate of Notre Dame and spent three years after graduation as an assistant at Notre Dame before taking the post at William & Mary. He is a four-time winner of the regional coach-of-the-year award and was the 1998 national coach of the year.