ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. – The Bard College Department of Athletics and Recreation named Mandy Gamble the school's new Head Men's and Women's Tennis Coach on Thursday. Gamble comes to Bard from Hamilton College, where she spent the last three seasons as the Head Women's Tennis Coach for the Continentals.
"We feel incredibly fortunate to have Mandy coming on board as our new Head Tennis Coach," said Associate Athletic Director and Senior Woman Administrator, Stefanie Carrington. "She has a wealth of experience coaching successful DIII programs and I think our teams will really flourish under her tutelage."
"I am thrilled to be named the Bard College's Head Men's and Women's Tennis Coach," said Gamble. "I am grateful to Stefanie Carrington and the entire search committee for their confidence in me to lead the tennis programs to new heights. I am eager to meet the student-athletes and begin working together to develop a culture of both personal and athletic growth".
At Hamilton, Gamble's leadership helped the women's team qualify for back-to-back New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) playoff appearances during her last two seasons. In her first season at Hamilton, she arrived in February 2022 and went 5-1 in her first month of coaching (March). Over the course of her three seasons at the helm, the team defeated nationally ranked schools Colby and Vassar as well as Ithaca, and RPI.
In her second season, Hamilton finished 28th in the final ITA Division III Top 40 Coaches poll and had one player ranked 48th among the Top 50 Singles and a dubles pair was ranked 24th in the Top 25. The team also picked up its ninth straight ITA All-Academic Team award, a testament to their academic prowess under Gamble's guidance.
Before Hamilton, Gamble coached at The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she was Head Men's and Women's Tennis Coach from 2001 to 2018 before focusing solely on the women's team from 2018-22. She received the Men's Tennis Coaching Staff of the Year award from Caltech's conference, the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) in 2016 and 2018. Gamble was also named the U.S. Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) Southern California section's college coach of the year in 2016.
Gamble guided Caltech women's singles players to four NCAA Diviison III Individual Championships appearances as well as one pair of men's doubles. Her women's Caltech team was ranked as high as 18th by the ITA in April 2019, and the men's team was as high as 33rd in 2017 after their first-ever national ranking in 2016. She posted three top 15 women's recruiting classes and three top 25 men's recruiting classes from 2016 to 2018 according to the Tennis Recruiting Network.
Gamble has her USTA High-Performance Coaching certification as well as a Strength and Conditioning certification. During her tennis career at Division II Cal State Los Angeles, she was an academic All-American and was recognized with all-conference honors.
Gamble holds a Bachelor's degree in Speech Communication from Cal State Los Angeles, a Master's degree in Coaching and Athletic Administration from Concordia, and a Doctorate (ABD) in Cultural Studies from Claremont Graduate University.