Before Manuel Diaz reached the 500-wins benchmark as a head coach Sunday, before he took over the helm of the Georgia men’s tennis team and before his stellar career as player, Diaz’s journey to Athens began in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

As he grew up in the beach city, filled with international tourists, he played baseball and dreamed of making it to the major leagues.

After 22 years as head coach of the men’s tennis team, Manuel Diaz got his 500th win Sunday against Vanderbilt. Photo by JON-MICHAEL SULLIVAN

He had never seen a tennis court when one of his father’s friends mentioned a new game he was playing. The friend invited Diaz and his father to watch his next lesson.

One Saturday morning, a 13-year-old Diaz stopped by the local tennis club and observed a tennis lesson. He walked on to the courts afterward, hit a few balls over the fence by accident, decided he needed to know how to play the new game and quit baseball.

“Nobody in my family had ever seen or played tennis. I had never seen a tennis court. So, we started taking a lesson a week and then after about 10 lessons, the teacher said, ‘You have a lot of potential. I think I’ve pretty much taught you everything I can, but there is somebody who is a really, really good coach who you should follow up with and take some lessons from now,’” Diaz said.

That person was Welby Van Horn, a former pro who coached at the Caribe Hilton resort. Diaz, now under Van Horn’s tutelage, learned the fundamentals of tennis. Van Horn’s formula for success was broken into four parts: balance, grips, strokes and strategy, in that order.

As Van Horn taught Diaz more

and more, Diaz and his brother began playing on the junior tennis circuit in the States for weeks at a time during the summer. Starting at 14 years old, traveling was a molding experience for Diaz and a tradition he kept each year until beginning college.

“It was a big part of my growing up. A lot of those trips, I was on my own, self-sufficient, independent. You had to fend for yourself. You learn to make decisions,” Diaz said.

When Diaz turned 17, former Georgia All-American Tony Ortiz became Van Horn’s assistant. After Ortiz described his time at the University, Diaz became interested in the prospect and made an unannounced visit. During the trip, then-head coach Dan Magill offered Diaz a full scholarship based on Ortiz’s recommendation.

Though Diaz enjoyed the visit and had traveled to the U.S. for all those summers, the actual move to Athens involved major adjustment. Spanish was his primary language in San Juan, though he knew English and could speak it. His schools were American, his textbooks in English — since Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory — but living in the South was a new, foreign world.

“[I faced] new food, new language, new climate, new personalities. People here were very hospitable, just great to me, but it was still a long way away from home. I was very homesick,” Diaz said.

After his first semester away at college, Diaz returned home for the holiday break. He pulled his father to the side and said he did not want to return to the University.

“I thank my dad for this, he didn’t budge an inch. He said, ‘You gave them your word, you signed the scholarship, you committed, you finish the year.’ … Once spring started, spring sprung. It was warm and we started playing dual matches and big crowds in the stands, and all of the sudden you became recognized. I loved it,” Diaz said.

In Magill’s book, “Match Pointers,” Magill describes Diaz’s signature “monster serve,” as an integral part of his game. Diaz played on court one his sophomore and senior year. When he played on court six as a freshman, Magill noticed his anxiety competing on the new stage.

“His main weakness as a freshman was nervousness. He tried too hard and was uptight that he had frequent nose bleeding, and we always had to have a roll of toilet paper courtside,” Magill wrote.

With the season’s pace picking up and time passing, Diaz became accustomed to his new environment. He began to learn English more fluently and understand the town and its people better. He also picked up a role model in Magill, along with an ability to cope with his nerves.

“I blossomed as a person here. As a freshman, I didn’t come in here with all these leadership skills — that was just not me. I hope everybody finds a mentor like I did in coach Magill, and all I’m trying to do is be a little bit of that to our guys,” Diaz said.

Senior Jamie Hunt — who clinched the 500th victory against Vanderbilt — has found Diaz to be significantly influential during his four years in college. Hunt’s story mirrors Diaz’s, in that playing college tennis changed him as both a player and a person.

“I came in a little 18-year-old, snotty tennis player who thought he knew everything about everything. [Diaz] just taught me a lot about how to be a better person, how to be a better teammate. He’s just been a great, not only coach, but role model,” said Hunt, who describes Diaz as a calm, relaxed figure during matches.

After suffering a shoulder injury his senior year, Diaz rested and rehabbed for two years after graduation.

He slowly began competing as a pro. He beat four players ranked in the top 50 in the world and reached No. 250, but his shoulder never fully recovered, halting his career.

Diaz moved back to Puerto Rico in 1981 and began coaching at a resort. Only a few months into his new job, his former coach called to offer him the assistant coach position. Diaz thanked him and declined. He lived close to his family for the first time in years. His paychecks were good. His life was settled.

But Magill’s phone calls persisted.

Diaz began to reconsider, with Magill pointing his attention to the future. He realized he may not want to coach at a resort long term.

He began as the assistant coach in 1982 and took over as head coach in the fall of 1988. Magill finished 34 years with a 706-183 record and two national championships. Diaz wanted to maintain the tradition Magill began, while also introducing his own style and ideas.

“I embraced being a part of this program as a player and then as an assistant and to me it was just a continuation, possibly a little bit different in flavor, but in many ways the same,” Diaz said.

Diaz’s commitment in both continuing Magill’s success and to the team he once played for is a fundamental part of his life. As a husband and a father of three sons -— his middle son, Eric, committed last semester to playing for the team next year — Diaz feels his hectic life both on and off the court would be more difficult, if not for his love of his career.

He hopes his players will be influenced by their collegiate tennis experience as much as he was. Making an impact in his players’ lives is Diaz’s main goal, not winning percentages or setting personal records like his 500 wins.

“Ultimately, in 100 years, no one will remember me anyway. People tend to forget. Records are meant to be broken, someone will hopefully take over the helm when I’m done and do a better job and continue what we have going for the program. It’s how you touch people’s lives that is lasting or not.”