If the evolution of a tennis program into a national power had a name, it would be spelled “S.C.R.E.E.N.” For more than three decades, Dr. Robert Screen has not only served as Hampton’s head men’s and women’s tennis coach, but he’s been nothing less than a coaching genius.
Screen was the only African-American tennis coach to win 1,000 matches in a career. His men’s and women’s teams have combined to capture some 40 championships on the conference level as members of the CIAA and MEAC. Screen has also coached the HU tennis teams to two NCAA national championships, four national black college championships and three state of Virginia championships.
Part of Screen’s success can be attributed to his decision to give the HU tennis programs an international flare. Perhaps the first coach in the state, and in the CIAA and MEAC, to recruit international students into its program, those student-athlete were the catalysts to making the HU tennis program the envy of every program in the region.
When the Pirates were members of the CIAA, they won 22 consecutive conference championships along with the two NCAA national crowns, those coming in 1976 and 1988. The Pirates, with Screen at the helm, also finished as the No. 2 team in the country six times between 1985 and 1994. They dominated the decade of the 1990s, winning conference crowns each of those years, except for 1990. Their final three years in Division II, the Pirates lost in the national tournament championship match.
As NCAA Division I members, the Pirates went on to capture four consecutive MEAC men’s titles at one stage and when the women’s program was started in 1996, Screen coached the Lady Pirates to MEAC crowns in two of their first three seasons on that level and to five championships overall.
The tremendous success of the HU tennis program made it an easy, and very appropriate, decision to place Screen’s name on the University’s tennis complex, which is named the Neilson-Screen Tennis Stadium, honoring Screen and his college coach, Herman “Buck” Neilson.
Screen also served as chairman of HU’s Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders.
Link to online obit