COLUMBIA, S.C. - Furman veteran men's tennis coach Paul Scarpa was inducted into the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame Monday evening at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.
Scarpa, a Charleston, S.C., native and currently the winningest active NCAA Division I tennis coach in America with 847 victories, was among a class of eight athletic greats comprising the SCAHOF's 50th Anniversary Class.
Joining Scarpa for induction were former South Carolina and NFL player Bill Currier; Bob McNair, owner of the NFL's Houston Texans; Horace Grant of Clemson, who played on four NBA championship teams; Clemson's Joe Bostic, who played several years in the NFL; Spartanburg native and major league baseball player Wayne Tolleson; 2000 swimming gold medalist Courtney Shealy Hart of Irmo; and Stan Smith, a long-time Hilton Head resident who won Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles.
The longest tenured head coach (now in his 44th year at Furman) in any sport in the Southern Conference's 89-year history, Scarpa has compiled a career record of 847-524 over 47 seasons, including one year at Florida State (1964) and two at Navy (1965-66). He has directed Furman to a 274-37 match record (.883) versus SoCon competition, notching 42 consecutive winning seasons in conference play. His Furman squads have captured eight SoCon regular season championships (only recognized by the league beginning in 1992), 14 SoCon Tournament championships, and made five NCAA Tournament appearances.
He has coached five NCAA All-Americans, 92 All-SoCon singles players, 81 All-SoCon doubles players, 70 SoCon singles champions, and 29 All-SoCon doubles champions, five SoCon Players of the Year, five SoCon Tournament MVPs, four Buddy Hartsell Sportsmanship Award winners, four academic All-Americans, two Rhodes Scholars, and one SoCon Male Athlete of the Year. Named SoCon Coach of the Year nine times, most recently in 2009, he directed his squad to a 22-8 campaign in 2009 en route to both SoCon regular season and tournament titles, and an NCAA Tournament appearance.
Besides his duties as head tennis coach, he served as men's head soccer coach at Furman for 14 seasons (1968-81).
In addition to his prolific coaching record, Scarpa is widely known as an innovator in the sport, having developed the current dual match scoring system adopted by the NCAA in 1993, the "3-6" format or "Scarpa System" specifying that all matches begin with doubles play featuring eight-game pro sets with all three doubles teams playing for one team doubles point. He also invented and patented the tape (Tenex) used to mark clay courts around the world.
Currently a member of three halls of fame, including the South Carolina Tennis Hall of Fame (1996), Furman Athletic Hall of Fame (1994), and United States Tennis Association Southern Tennis Hall-of-Fame (2006), he initiated one of the first collegiate summer tennis camps in the nation in 1968, attracting thousands of young players and some of the nation's top young talent over the years. In all four Scarpa pupils have played at Wimbledon, including Nancy Yeargin, Wendy White, Raz Reid, and Ben Testerman.
Recognizing his tremendous contribution to tennis and the university over the last several decades, in 1996 the championship court at Furman's newly constructed Minor Herndon Mickel Tennis Center was named in his honor.
Scarpa enjoyed a stellar collegiate tennis career at Florida State, winning the NCAA Eastern Intercollegiates his senior. He reached the singles quarterfinals of the National 35s Clay Court Championships in 1975, and also made the doubles finals of the National Teaching Professional Championships that same year, an achievement that helped him garner South Carolina Professional of the Year accolades.
Married to the former Sandy Scruggs of Travelers Rest, Scarpa has two children, Seth and Elizabeth. He also has a grandson, Banks, 5, and two granddaughters, Charlotte Blair, 3, and Millie, 1.