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UT Arlington head golf coach Jay Rees has taken the Maverick golf program to new heights during his 12 years at the school. Now in his 13th season, Rees, a three-time Southland Conference Coach of the Year, is looking to guide his team to consecutive conference championships in his programs final season in the Southland Conference. In 2010-11, Rees led the Mavericks to the conference championship on their home course. As the Mavericks won, Rees was honored with his third SLC Coach of the Year award. Two of his players - Zack Fischer and Wes Worster - earned all-conference honors while Paul McConnell was named the league's Newcomer of the Year. The Mavericks also made another appearance in the NCAA Regionals. Prior to the conference championship, the Mavericks won the Lone Star Invitational in the fall before being co-medalist at the San Diego Intercollegiate giving the Mavericks three wins on the season. UTA played 12 tournaments during the season and posted nine top-10 finshes. Rees also helped McConnell win the San Diego tournament. In the 2009-10 season, the Mavericks won the Jim West Intercollegiate by 22 shots and also finished second twice in 13 tournaments. He helped Zack Fischer be named a first team All-Southland Conference selection while Wes Worster was named Newcomer of the Year. He guided Fischer to a win at the SLC Preview while Bryce Easton won the Jim West Intercollegiate. In 2009, his Mavericks finished just five shots out of making the NCAA Tournament but produced their highest finish in a NCAA Regional with their eighth place result. UTA also just missed winning the Southland Conference title a few weeks earlier as Rees helped guide his team to a second place finish. He did however produce an individual medalist as Fischer tying for the crown in regulation before missing out on the title in a playoff. Throughout the season his team played in 11 tournaments winning once while registering three second, seven top four and 10 top 10 finishes during the season. The team finished the year with the school's highest ranking ever in the final golfstat.com National Rankings as they were 43rd. Following the season he was named the conference's Coach of the Year for a second time. Rees, who is known for his knowledge of the short game, transferred that to his players during the course of the season, as the Mavericks finished the year as the best short game team in the nation according to golfstat.com. Rees was honored by his peers following the regular season with his second Southland Conference Coach of the Year award, an honor he also won in 2005 when he led UTA to the conference title. He has now led the Mavericks to the NCAA Regionals in four of the last five and also in six of the last nine seasons. Besides these team accomplishments, Rees has also had a representative from UTA at the NCAAs in nine of his 12 seasons. Anyone can look in the UTA record book and see Rees' players listed up and down among the best players in school history. The top 12 players in school history by stroke average have played for Rees at least one season. Bobby Massa became Rees' first All-American as the Irving, Texas native earned honorable mention accolades following the 2009 season. He also holds the school record with a 10-under par 62 shot during the fall of 2008 at the Turtle Bay Invitational. Two of his players - Adam Babb in 2000 and Jordan Krantz in 2005 - were Southland Conference Champions while Fischer was a co-medalist in 2009. Nine of his players have been named first team all-conference a total of 12 times while five players have earned second team honors on six occasions. His teams have won 12 tournaments, posted 61 top five and 97 top 10 finishes while his players have won 14 tournaments during his time. "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 know we have the right pieces in place to do something special here." In 2007-08, the Mavericks had the best fall season in school history. UTA finished first in two of its first three tournaments before turning in a record-breaking performance in Hawai'i. At the Turtle Bay Invitational, the Mavericks shot a school-record 270-281-272=823. The Mavericks remained in the golfstat.com Top 50 the entire fall season. In the spring, the Mavericks had four top six performances and rode those results to an at-large berth in the NCAA Central Regionals. Rees led the Mavericks to their best conference finish in 2005. That year, UTA set a school record at the Southland Conference Tournament, posting a 54-hole total of 861 to win the conference championship by 13 strokes. UTA also dominated the individual accolades with Rees earning his first Coach of the Year honor. Besides Krantz"s Player of the Year award, Jeff Murray was tabbed Newcomer of the Year and Krantz shared the conference"s Student-Athlete of the Year award. 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. 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, where he helped lead both the Bulldog men's and women"s teams to national prominence. After taking over the men's squad in September 1996, the team made three consecutive appearances in the NAIA national tournament, where the Bulldogs finished seventh 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. Prior to his stint at Texas Lutheran, Rees spent one year as the associate head coach of Scottsdale (Ariz.) CC, where his men's squad was ranked No. 1 in the nation. Rees gained Division I experience as an assistant coach at Louisiana State (1993-94) and as the assistant men's and women's golf coach at Arizona State (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. Rees' first head coaching job came at his alma mater, Emporia State in Kansas. He was named the head coach at just 21 years of age, which makes him one of the few collegiate head coaches in history to have been placed in charge of any program at that young of an age. 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 consecutive years from 1990-93. |
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