Imagine the referee who just cost your team the intramural
basketball championship was going to become the next John Wooden.
It seems impossible, doesn’t it? Legendary coaches just
don’t seem to emerge from the fray of everyday students. They
are gifts that fall into a program’s lap and move into their
history books. While they may not have been decorated
All-Americans, just about all of them at least suited up for the
collegiate sport they go on to coach. It’s just one aspect
that makes Bill Zaima, 56, so unique. He may lack the titles and
aura of Wooden, but he can still lay claim to an achievement the
Wizard of Westwood never had a chance to. By guiding the UCLA
women’s tennis team through its first years as an NCAA sport
and then cementing it among the nation’s elite, Zaima has
undoubtedly been the most valuable asset in the program’s
history. But perhaps the greatest part isn’t what he built or
how, in his 30th season this year, he’s stuck around to see
it develop. The most amazing thing about Zaima is that he was never
seriously involved with tennis until he began coaching it.
Early days As an undergraduate student at UCLA
from 1965-1969, Zaima distinguished himself more on the volleyball
and basketball courts. As a freshman, he went out for the varsity
volleyball team but gave up during tryouts, thinking he
wouldn’t make the team. Years later he ran into coach Al
Scates, who let him know his departure was premature. “He
told me, “˜Hey Zaima, I would’ve kept you.'”
Missing out on the chance to play for Scates does not wear on Zaima
nearly as much as the lost opportunity to play with Lew Alcindor.
“My biggest regret was not going out for freshman
basketball,” he said. “I had such a nice-looking
shot.” With varsity sports out of the picture, Zaima took the
route familiar to most UCLA students who look to fulfill their
passion for sports. Whether it was working as a referee, playing on
an intramural team, or moving sprinkler heads on the IM field,
Zaima became a fixture in the recreation department. “I would
watch the grass grow in the field,” he joked of his odd-jobs
for the department. Those small jobs have reaped handsome rewards.
Shortly after graduating, he began coaching the women’s
tennis team, which was then run by the recreation department
because women’s varsity programs did not exist. “I
didn’t know a thing about coaching,” said Zaima.
“I was flying by the seat of my pants those first couple
years. But you learn by doing.” In his very first season at
the helm, his team went a perfect 8-0. The program he ran in the
early 1970s, however, hardly resembles the one he now assists.
Practices were just three times a week, road trips were taken by
car, expenses such as meals came out of the players’ own
pockets, and there were no athletic scholarships available for
women. “All we got were tennis balls,” he said.
“The NCAA did not want to embrace women’s
sports.”
Sustained success In spite of the challenges
facing his program, the players’ attitudes eased his
adjustment into the coaching ranks. “Players were more
old-school,” he said. “Kids weren’t getting
treated as very special from such an early age like you see
today.” Beginning in 1976, players were rewarded for their
skills. Women’s athletics became its own department under
current volleyball coach Andy Banachowski and scholarships became
mandated. In that year, Zaima replaced Banachowski as manager of
the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center, but remained on staff as a
volunteer assistant for the women’s team. He brought in Gayle
Godwin, one of his former players, to succeed him at the helm.
“She was a good administrator and a very good person,”
Zaima said. Although no longer at the head of the program, Zaima
remained involved. With scholarships available, he began learning a
new aspect of collegiate coaching, the recruiting process. Zaima
proved to pick up on the tools of recruiting just as deftly as he
did the administrative and technical aspects of coaching tennis. In
1977, he landed his first prize recruit, Jeanne Duval, a highly
touted junior from Texas who went on to become No. 20 in the world.
“Her mom came up to me and said, “˜Bill, you’re
gonna help my daughter win the National Championship,'”
Zaima recalls. Sure enough, he did. Duval won the singles title her
first year at UCLA. “My forehand was never as good as when I
hit with her,” Zaima said. “She was the only person I
saw that broke the frame on a wooden racket because she hit so
hard.” While Duval jumpstarted the Bruins’ program and
propelled them into the national elite, Zaima kept the motor going
for years to come. The Bruins captured their first Association of
Inter-Collegiate Athletics for Women national title in 1981, the
last tournament the organization ran. In spite of its efforts to
keep women’s sports, the growing NCAA took over all
women’s sports the following year and the Bruins have not won
the team national title since. They stumbled in the finals of the
first ever NCAA Championship against Stanford. “My biggest
disappointment is to always be knocking on the door, but only win
once,” Zaima said. “The hardest thing about second
place is watching the other team celebrate. You don’t feel
good about seeing them win.” This mentality has caused Zaima
to demand some sense of restraint in his players following big
victories. “When we win, we shouldn’t be exuberantly
celebrating because we should feel like we deserved to win.”
An unexpected return As much as he hates finishing second, Zaima
probably would have taken those finishes in the mid-1980s. The
Bruins failed to crack the Final Four from 1984 through 1987.
Godwin was dismissed after the 1985 season, and Zaima returned as
the coach on an interim basis. That soon developed into a permanent
one. The Bruins re-established themselves as national title
contenders, making the Final Four every year from 1988 to 1991,
reaching the finals in 1991, only to fall to Stanford again. Those
years saw a cadre of elite players come into the program, including
current Bruin coach Stella Sampras Webster. “Stella was the
rock anchoring the lineup,” Zaima said, noting that she
occupied every position in his lineup, from No. 1 to the No. 7 spot
that didn’t play. “She was out of the lineup a couple
times because she wasn’t playing up to her capability.”
But in spite of any lapses in motivation, when Zaima began
searching again to groom the next coach, he looked back to Sampras
Webster. He brought her in as an assistant in 1993 and four years
later, handed over the reigns. “She had a commitment to
UCLA,” Zaima said. “I wanted to leave it to someone who
could compete for the NCAA Championship.” Sampras Webster has
benefited from Zaima’s tutelage. “He’s almost
like a mentor,” Sampras Webster said. “It’s great
to bounce ideas off of him because he’s been through so much.
He knows what it takes to get a team to the Final Four.”
The return from retirement Unlike 1976, when he
stayed on as a volunteer assistant, Zaima left after 1996 following
a Final Four appearance thinking it was his final hurrah. The
program held a banquet in his honor, where more than 500 hundred
people attended, including Godwin. With tennis seemingly in the
past, he continued working at UCLA as a development officer raising
money for student affairs. Nevertheless, he would keep up with his
former team from afar. And it didn’t take long for him to
want to get closer. Zaima recalls watching a 2000 NCAA tournament
match between UCLA and South Alabama with Maimie Ceriza, one of the
All-Americans he coached. “You oughta help that
program,” Ceriza told him. It was an itch he just had to
scratch. Sampras Webster welcomed him back as a volunteer assistant
the next season, where he has continued to work for the past four
years. The voluntary transition from coach to assistant at one
school is rarely ever done once, yet Zaima alone has done it twice.
After 16 years at the helm and in the middle of his 14th as an
assistant, he has been able to appreciate both roles. “The
head coach gets the glory, but has to take the flak and make the
tough decisions,” Zaima said. “It’s so much
easier being a voluntary assistant. I can go home at night and
watch a baseball game.” Still, it’s hard for him to
truly rest easy as he continually looks to prepare his players for
the NCAA tournament and the title that has eluded him since 1981.
It’s the reason he returned and the goal that would allow him
to leave the coaching ranks in style. “If we win the NCAA,
I’m out of here,” he said. When he finally does leave
the sport for good, women’s tennis will be losing a legend.
Zaima has bred two singles and four doubles national champions, as
well as four players who have gone on to become collegiate coaches.
Current players recognize his accomplishments and can pinpoint what
has enabled his success. “He’s so knowledgeable,”
current sophomore Jackie Carleton said. “He’s good with
players emotionally and addresses each player differently really
well.” Zaima’s accolades are all the more impressive
considering his roots. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine
working as a student for the recreation department would lead to
what it has. “I was doing it just for a little spending
money,” he said. A little has gone a very long way.