Schroer had entered his thirty-first season with 486 career victories and the knowledge that just a handful of coaches in college sports had amassed five hundred wins.

“I knew this was the year it could possibly happen, but I didn’t think after the start that it would,” says Schroer. By midseason, the team’s 7–7 record going into a three-day, three-match road trip did little to change his mind.

“We made the trip in March to Virginia to play three top-ranked teams in the South—Washington and Lee, Washington College, and Averrett—and won all three,” says Schroer. “The team really came to life, and that was the turning point for the season.”

The Eagles rarely lost again, finishing the year 17–9 while capturing their tenth straight University Athletic Association (UAA) championship before being eliminated in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division III national championship tournament.

Schroer finished the season with 503 career wins against 288 losses, becoming the twenty-second coach in NCAA history to reach five hundred wins and only the fifth ever in Division III.

Named the 1989 Division III Coach of the Year, Schroer has led the Eagles to UAA titles every year except one since the conference was formed in 1988.

Shortly after the 1999 season ended, Schroer declined an offer to become the University’s new director of tennis, a position that merges the men’s tennis coach with duties at the tennis center planned for the University Apartments complex. He will continue at Emory as associate professor of physical education.—G.F.