BATON ROUGE — LSU Associate Head Coach Mark Booras, who was recently selected as the ITA National Assistant Coach of the Year, has been named as the USTA Summer Collegiate Coach, the United States Tennis Association announced.
Booras will coach a collegiate all-star team consisting of six of the top male players in the country. The team will travel for six weeks while competing at six USTA Futures and Challenger professional tournaments primarily during the month of July.
“This is a great honor and I look forward to the opportunity to creating an environment that will help these guys succeed in these pro events,” Booras said.
USTA Director Rodney Harmon chose Booras to lead the team after Booras helped lead the Tigers to another successful season.
This season, Booras and head coach Jeff Brown led the Tigers to the NCAA round of 16, an 18-6 record and a No. 15 final ranking. The Tigers have reached the NCAA tournament all nine years Booras has been on staff. With Booras as an assistant coach, the Tigers have finished the season ranked in the top 15 six times.
The summer team will showcase six of the premiere collegiate tennis players including: Stephen Bass of Notre Dame, Travis Helgeson of Georgia, Bryan Koniecko of Ohio State, Jesse Levine of Florida, Todd Paul of Wake Forest and Luke Shields of Boise State.
The USTA Summer Collegiate Team is an elite training program for the top American collegiate tennis players that began in 1996 and is funded by the USTA. It is designed to provide players with valuable exposure to the USTA Pro Circuit in a team-oriented environment during the summer.