VIRGINIA BEACH — Former Norfolk State University tennis coach Nat Warren is getting ready for a big “family reunion.”
Many of his former players, supporters and fans are coming to Hampton Roads this month to celebrate Norfolk State University renaming the Spartans’ tennis complex the Nat Warren Tennis Center.
The longtime Virginia Beach resident will be feted at the Norfolk Yacht Club on Saturday, Oct. 14. Warren elevated the men’s and women’s game at NSU.
Warren developed Norfolk State University into a championship tennis program against all odds when Historically Black Colleges and Universities were underfunded. They still are, but I digress.
Warren has an innate gift for creative sports marketing. He told then-athletics director William “Dick” Price, who knew how to accomplish a lot with little – the former Union-Kempsville instructor and coach won three NCAA Track and Field championships without a track at NSU – and visionary then-university president Dr. Harrison B. Wilson he’d raise the funds if they’d support his endeavors.
They did, and Warren raised money with golf tournaments, initially, to recruit internationally. Appreciatively, he recently told me that a lot of that early financial support came from Virginia Beach businesses.
Warren said he set out to recruit the best tennis player available no matter who or where they were. He signed student athletes from a network of players who were recommending the university and its daring tennis coach. Recruits came from the U.S., Africa, the Czech Republic, Peru and the Bahamas.
Warren started the Spartans’ men’s tennis program in the 1992 season and the women’s in 1994. According to university records, he compiled a 402-216 combined record over the years. NSU’s sports information office noted that Warren led the Spartan women to two MEAC championship match appearances. In the CIAA, Warren’s men’s team captured the 1997 conference championship and won the NCAA Division II Southeast Regional title, advancing to the NCAA round of 16.
“I started coaching here in Virginia Beach,” he said. “Then I went to Bayside and coached with Louis Turner as an assistant.”
Warren raised two girls with his wife, Liz, a retired elementary school principal, and his most ardent supporter and tennis team mother. As a 45-year-old Plaza Elementary School teacher, Warren teamed with Jim Broderick of Newport News to win the national 4.0 doubles championship in Palm Springs, California, according to an account in a Virginia Beach schools publication.
Wilson heard about it and then contacted Warren about tennis at NSU, and the building of a storied program soon began.
Warren retired in 2009.
“Supposedly,” the coach noted.
He briefly returned in 2014 as a volunteer women’s coach and continues to help with the overall tennis program.
“Coach Warren taught me many life lessons that I have carried with me,” Chessie Williams, a former Spartan tennis player and now the CEO of Proceed HR Consulting in Norfolk, told me in a text message.
“Dedication and not making excuses were two of the biggest,” Williams wrote. “He always stressed the importance of being dedicated individually and to the team. Sharing that dedication is a part of excelling on the court and in life.”
Warren’s name will live on at the tennis facility at the university, as it does in the hearts of those he coached along the way.
The author is a writer and documentary filmmaker who grew up in Norfolk and lived in Virginia Beach for much of his life. He ran a production company, worked in college athletics and was curator at an art gallery in Virginia Beach for years.
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