After playing two years at American River College under coach Ralph Freund, Cris Bacharach came to UCSC Fall of 1980 when the University had just joined the NCAA. Bacharach became UCSC's first NCAA Tournament participant and first All-American, the first of over a hundred under coach Bob Hansen.

After becoming a teacher following graduation, Bacharach is now the head tennis professional at Johnson Ranch Racquet Club in Roseville.

goslugs: What was that first year like, going to the NCAA and that whole "Oh my god, we're a real college team" experience? 

Cris: It was pretty cool. It wasn't quite like that because, really, the very first year, I was kind of the only one all the way on board with everything. I showed up, being the real tennis nut that I was, the very first day of classes, I run down to the court at like 8am because I don't have class until 10:30. I got my racket, go see the coach and say "Hey, where is everybody?" and he was like "What are you talking about?"

I thought guys would be here hitting and stuff because I just wanted to play every minute of the day. The rest of the team were pretty good players, but they would say "Look, I got to miss the match. I got too much school work to do" or whatever it was. They were still having a bit of a club mentality, and there were matches at the beginning of the year where we'd get beat, 8-1, and I'd be the only guy to win a singles match. 

goslugs: Did you have guys you were able to get a good practice in with? 

Cris: Yeah, there were guys that were good, and then Bob, I mean he drummed me every time we played. He was tough. What was cool about it was that I was the one who qualified for stuff, so when there was a tournament in L.A., I was the only one that qualified so Bob would go with me like my personal coach. And when I went to the Nationals, I traveled to the East Coast with Bob.

He was a pretty premier coach for sure, and I really didn't have a lot of game. I mean, I understood the game really well but I was lacking in a lot of skills and I got a private lesson from him almost every morning, and I'd go to practice too and I played a ton. So it was pretty cool and Bob sort of used me as a poster boy, because I was the guy who played at a junior college, and he knew that if he developed me, kids would see. And so he put a ton of time into me. So in a six-month period, I would come home, and the junior college coach and other people would look at me and go "What on earth happened?" It's called like 4 or 5 hours of practice everyday with somebody right there helping y'all. 

goslugs: Would you and Bob get out and compete against each other?

Cris: Well, at the very beginning, it wasn't competing. He'd just drum me. (LAUGHS) But after that, he worked with me for a whole year, and I was a threat. He swears otherwise but I don't remember ever taking a set off him.

goslugs: What was that first trip to NCAAs like?

Cris: Round of 16, I was playing this guy from Kalamazoo (Mark Riley). Anyways, I played him and it was tight. It was cold outside and I think Bob was sweating through his sweats on the sideline because he wanted me to get through so badly. And I beat the guy set one 7-6 and then, I forget what happens, but second set, they make some weird call and Bob was standing up and I was like "No, don't worry about it" and that pushed that second set to the tiebreaker and I won 7-6 and wow. It was the first time I was calmer than Bob.
(NOTE: Cris lost in quarters to eventual national champion Donovan Jones of Claremont)

And fast forward like 30 years and I go take my son to Kalamazoo to play and I'm thinking "Who is that guy?" I'm looking at the pictures in their gymnasium and I'm like "It's that guy right there!"

So I take the picture up and I'm waving it and I'm like "I got to find this guy. We had the greatest match ever and he's really cool. And I got to find him." They go, "Well he's the head coach here" and I'm like "Really?" and they're like "Yeah, go on back there and talk to him." So I go back there and he looks up - and I never talked to the guy once since the day that match was over and we didn't befriend each other during the tournament- and he looks up and he goes "7-6, 7-6!" That's what he says to me. I'm like "How did you know?" He goes "because I've been like sitting on that for 30 years." We had a great time at the tournament because we kind of revisited a little and my son did really well, so that was cool. 

goslugs: Would you say that's one of the most memorable matches of your college experience? 

Cris: Yeah, certainly, because that kind of got it started. 

I played a whole bunch of open tournaments after my first year was over, all through the summer. And people saw me playing and the very next year, without any recruiting, Bob had about 15 guys from junior colleges lining up and saying "Can you do that for me? Can you fix my game?" So we had a pretty good team from then on.

goslugs: Did you have a dominant doubles partner you played with? 

Cris: Yeah, the second year, this guy Ray Miller, a lefty from Delta Junior College. And we did quite well. We made it to the finals of the NCAA, and all the matches were outside except for the last day and it rains so we went inside. I go in there, I was so nervous, and you know how if you're outside and you walk into the dark house, you can't really see for a second? I felt like that for the first half hour. I can't see anything in here, I can't see my partner, I'm so nervous I'm going blind. And the match goes 7-6, 6-7 and then it goes into the third set breaker and it's like 8-9 or something in the tie-break. And it's my serve. I miss my first serve and I go up to hit my second serve, and they called foot fault for match. 

goslugs: That's crazy!

Cris: So if I was doing it, I was probably doing it the whole match, ok? And they waited until second serve match point!  So it was like a little weird. At that time, I was under the understanding that if we won, we got straight into the D1 NCAAs. But we weren't that upset. We were like "Coach, if we miss another week, we're going to flunk out anyways and we're just going to get toasted in the D1." Bob was disappointed but that's kind of an odd result, to get a second serve foot fault called on me at match point in the finals of the NCAAs. 

goslugs: Did you have to find the balance between school and tennis?

Cris: Well back in the day, it was a narrative evaluation. So they wrote a paragraph and they told you "Mr. Bacharach wrote a paper of this length and he researched it at these different places and libraries, and it had this content" and then it'd say overall performance. Well I got one that first year, I remember, the guy basically said 'I had an uncanny ability to find the least amount of work required to pass and achieve only that'. That's worse than a D. I'd rather get a D than have someone rip on me for a whole paragraph.

goslugs: I'm guessing 40 years ago, when there was that balance you were trying to achieve, with you going and telling your teachers, "Well I have this tennis match in Albany, NY", they probably weren't receptive to the idea. 

Cris: Yeah I really only had one guy who was like "No you get an F on anything you miss" and that's just the way it was, but the rest of them were just like "Yeah, whatever." I will say, since you guys are bringing that aspect of it up, I always figured "well I got to do what it takes, whether they like me or not or whether they want to flunk me or not, they're not going to. Because I'm going to somehow do okay".

But the one guy didn't even want to let me take tests on a different day. And I'm like "I'll take them beforehand if that's what you want. If you're worried about giving me extra time or something." But he didn't want to give me that option at all. The rest were somewhat reasonable about it.

But (academics) is important to me, not just because it's hard for kids, but I don't think I would have ended up where I am today. Not that I'm on top of the world but I do alright. And I don't think I'd be there had it not been for the whole tennis aspect.