Ken Obermeier begins his third season coaching the men’s and women’s tennis teams at Savannah College of Art and Design in the fall of 2018.
The 2017-18 season was the second year in which both teams earned the ITA All-Academic Team Award as the Bees continue to do well in the classroom. Four men and six women were named to the Sun Conference All-Academic Team.
The women's team continue to set records as they have the second longest number of weeks with a top 20 NAIA national ranking in the country. The Sun Conference and Tournament Runner-Up and a fourth consecutive NAIA National appearance concluded the season.
The men's team is rebounding after injuries hampered their progress as they have one of the strongest recruiting classes in history coming in for the 2018-19 season.
He concluded his first season with the women’s team winning the Sun Conference Championship with a national ranking of 3 and advancing to the quarterfinals at the NAIA national championships. The men’s team finished the regular season in second place in the Sun Conference and a national ranking of 18. The bees made their first NAIA national appearance in nine years and advanced into the second round with a win over the 15th ranked team in the country.
Both teams have achieved great success off the court as well with six Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes, one first team All American, 2 honorable mention All Americans and 11 All Sun Conference team members. Obermeier has helped Camille Gbaguidi become the Sun Conference female player of the year. Gbaguidi was also named to the 2017 ITA All-Star Team.
Coach Obermeier came to SCAD from Division II Florida Institute of Technology where he was the ITA South Region Women’s Assistant Coach of the Year 2015 and helped the men and women Panthers finish ninth and tenth in the south region and thirty-seventh and forty-fourth in the country respectively.
Obermeier has 24 years of professional tennis experience. He has taught, coached and played at every level of the game.
He has sent over 250 players to the NCAA Division I, II and III levels, with over 90 percent receiving scholarships. He has also helped several top 50 ranked Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) players, including junior and tour players in each of the grand slams.
He is a United States Tennis Association (USTA) High Performance Coach, a United States Professional Tennis Association Specialist in Competitive Player Development and a USTA Competition Training Center Director of Coaching.
He is also a United States Professional Tennis Registry (USPTR)/United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) Elite Professional and has been a lead sectional coach for three USTA sections – Florida, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic.
Obermeier previously held the position of tennis manager at Genesys Athletic Club in Grand Blanc, Michigan. He was responsible for all tennis center operations at the 6,000-member facility. He also developed four players into the top 100 of the USTA under-14 national rankings.
Before moving to Michigan, Obermeier spent over 11 years in Florida. For six years, he worked at the RDV Sportsplex in Orlando, first as the head tennis professional and then the director of tennis. He then moved on to Palm Coast, Florida where he was the tournament director for the USTA Palm Coast Men’s Futures Championships and then the tennis superintendent for the City of Palm Coast.
As the tennis superintendent for the city, the Palm Coast Tennis Center was chosen 2010 USTA Small Public Facility of the Year.
His professional career started in 1992 as the director of junior tennis and sports fitness specialist for the Potomac Tennis and Fitness Club in Potomac, Maryland.
Obermeier graduated from Illinois State University with a degree in exercise science.
