Men's Golf
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One of the top young coaches in the nation, UT Arlington Men's Golf Coach Jay Rees recently enters his ninth season as the coach of the Mavericks.
Named the Southland Conference "Coach of the Year" in 2005 and leading the Mavericks to two straight NCAA Regional Tournaments, Rees has quickly established UT Arlington as one of the up-and-coming college golf programs in the nation. He has directed UT Arlington to NCAA Regional Tournament berths in three of the past five seasons and has had a representative from UTA at the NCAAs in five of his eight seasons.
In 2005, UT Arlington set a school record at the Southland Conference Tournament, posting a 54-hole total of 861 to win the conference championship by a convincing 13 strokes over runner-up Louisiana-Monroe and 28 better than traditional power Lamar.
UTA also dominated the individual accolades with Rees earning his first SLC "Coach of the Year" honor, then-senior Jordan Krantz was named the "Player of the Year," junior Jeff Murray was "Newcomer of the Year" and Krantz shared the league's "Student-Athlete of the Year" award.
"I am committed to making UT Arlington a golf school," Rees said. "Our goal is to be one of the top 30 golf programs in the nation. We have upgraded our program in terms of schedule and I think we have set the foundation to do something special here."
In 2005-06, UT Arlington won three tournaments and posted an impressive 10 top four finishes during the 13-tournament schedule. Three different individuals -- Krantz, Murray and Tyrone Mordt -- posted tournament wins as individuals and all six golfers that competed in tournament play last season placed in eighth place or better during the season. As a team, UT Arlington golfers compiled 19 top-10 finishes and 37 in the top-20. As a team, the Mavericks finished the year ranked 53rd by golfstat.com.
For his career, Rees' Mavericks have won six tournaments, recorded 45 top-5 finishes and 75 top-10 efforts.
Rees led the Mavs to the 2002 NCAA Central Regional Tournament, the 2005 NCAA West Regionals and the 2006 NCAA Central Regionals. Individually, Adam Babb (2000) and Shad Muth (2001) made NCAA tournament appearances, before taking the entire team in 2002. In 2002, the squad was ranked 52nd in the Golfweek national poll and 57th nationally in the Golfstat rankings. In the 2005-06 season, the Mavericks cracked the top 40 for most of the season before settling for a top-60 finish.
Rees' work ethic has made him a solid recruiter. In the fall 2000 season, Golfstat rated his freshman class as the first-year class having the greatest impact on its team in the nation that season.
Rees arrived at UT Arlington after spending three years at Texas Lutheran University, where he helped lead both the Bulldog men's and women's teams to national prominence. After taking over Lutheran's men's squad in September 1996, the team made three straight appearances in the NAIA national tournament, where the Bulldogs finished seventh in the nation in 1997, fourth in 1998 and sixth in 1999. Texas Lutheran's women's golf team began play on the varsity level in 1997-98, and under Rees' guidance, finished ninth overall in the NAIA's national championship tournament in its first season before finishing second in 1999. In addition, Lutheran's Elizabeth Hoffman won the individual national championship that season. Following each of his last two years at Texas Lutheran, Rees was named the district's Coach of the Year.
Prior to his stint at Texas Lutheran, Rees spent one year as the associate head coach of Scottsdale (Ariz.) Community College's men's golf team, where his squad was ranked No. 1 in the nation. He also served as the tournament director for the 1996 National Junior College Athletic Association National Championship Tournament. Rees gained Division I experience as an assistant coach at Louisiana State University (1993-94) and as the assistant men's and women's golf coach at Arizona State University (1994-95).
The Lady Sun Devils claimed the 1995 national championship. Along with his coaching duties at Arizona State, Rees was the teams' recruiting and fund-raising coordinator, and also assisted in the tutoring and advisement of Sun Devil golfers.
Rees' first head coaching job came at his alma mater, Emporia (Kan.) State University, at the age of 21. During his four-year run as Emporia State's head coach, Rees developed an NAIA and NCAA Division II top-10 program and was named the district's Coach of the Year four straight years from 1990-93.