Bert Poole returns for his first season as the Head Men's Tennis Coach at Guilford College in 2026-27 after being hired into the role in May of 2026.
Poole makes the quick move back down Route-29 having spent the last 11 years building ODAC rival Averett University into a regional power, finishing his tenure in Danville as the most-successful coach in Cougars tennis history for both the men’s and women’s tennis programs. Between the genders, he racked up a 250-126 (.665) record. In the four seasons since AU joined the ODAC, Poole has posted a winning record every season en route to a 110-45 overall record and 63-11 mark in conference play. He led the Cougars to the ODAC Championship match in three of the last four years in both men’s and women’s tennis, and halted Washington and Lee University’s 14-year run as league champions in men’s tennis last spring before picking up the program’s first NCAA Tournament victory since the turn of the century, 4-0 over Asbury University.
Highly decorated both personally and by proxy via the athletes he coached, Poole has overseen 81 different all-conference honorees between the ODAC and the USA South Conference prior, with 27 athletes combining to earn 59 All-ODAC nods the past four years. For major awards, Poole recruited and developed three Virginia Sports Information Directors (VaSID) State Rookies of the Year including a sweep for the best first-year players from the VaSID and ODAC in 2025, and a four-time USA South Player of the Year and back-to-back VaSID State Women’s Tennis Player of the Year. Balancing the academics with the athletics, the Cougars’ men’s program had a three-peat of ODAC/Virginia Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete of the Year award winners before Guilford’s own Andres Mercedes (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) snapped the streak this spring. Meanwhile, Poole personally was the 2025 ODAC Men’s Tennis Coach of the Year, the 2022 USA South Women’s Tennis Coach of the Year, and is a two-time VaSID State Coach of the Year, getting recognized in both 2020 and 2025.
Before heading the program at Averett, Poole was named the 2015 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Division-II Men's Tennis Southeast Region Assistant Coach of the Year at his alma mater, the University of Mount Olive. Before joining the Trojans, Poole’s first stint with the Quakers was brief yet successful, turning around a squad that went 0-11 in 2005-06, leading them to a 9-7 record, 5-4 in league play and an ODAC Tournament appearance the following year.
A student of the sport, Poole possesses a bevvy of United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) and U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) certifications, including highest designated certification from the former as a USPTA Certified Elite Professional, in addition to being a USPTA Certified Specialist in Competitive Player Development, USTA Certified Sports Science Coach, and USTA Certified High Performance Coach. Originally hailing from Aston, Pennsylvania, Poole is a member of the class of 2013 with a degree in history from Mount Olive.
Poole eyes a similar turnaround to that of his 2006-07 term as he comes back to the gate city and inherits a Quakers squad that went 2-15 and were on the outside looking in on the ODAC Tournament field for the first time since the conference adopted the tournament-style championship in 2006-07.
#GoQuakes
