Young’s team is 24-0 and ranked No. 1 in the nation. This is a simple story with a condensed theme: Even big dreams come true.

STILLWATER — In Chris Young’s office is a photo from 2013. His OSU women’s tennis team is in the Colvin Center, the campus recreation facility, and folding chairs are serving as the tennis net.

Below that photo is another, from three years later, when his Cowgirls were in Tulsa for the NCAA Championships, and OSU reached a match point before Stanford rallied for the title.

When Young arrived in Stillwater 15 years ago, his team routinely would practice in Edmond, Oklahoma City or Tulsa, either because of inclement weather or because the program didn’t rate high enough to reserve the university’s outdoor courts.

One year, Young secured for his team the two indoor courts at Ponca City Country Club, 40 miles north of Stillwater. Young would ferry half the squad to Ponca for morning practice, then drive them back in time for lunch and afternoon classes. Young would repeat the process for the rest of the Cowgirls, coming off morning classes and ready for the trek to Kay County for practice.

Young tells the stories from the palatial upper plaza in the Greenwood Tennis Center, which sits majestically amid OSU’s Athletic Village, between baseball’s O’Brate Stadium and football’s Boone Pickens Stadium. The Greenwood Center includes 12 outdoor courts, six indoor courts and all the trappings, from plush locker rooms to coaches offices to a sports medicine hub complete with a hydrotherapy center.

The Greenwood Center was quickly lauded throughout the nation, and OSU was awarded the 2020 NCAA Championships. The pandemic canceled that event, but Stillwater was handed the 2024 NCAAs, which will run May 16-19.

The Big 12 Championships began Wednesday at the Greenwood Center, and OSU plays Central Florida at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Big 12 quarterfinals.

Young’s team is 24-0 and ranked No. 1 in the nation. The Cowgirls have been No. 1 since winning the national indoor championship in February.

This is a simple story with a condensed theme: Even big dreams come true.

“People want to be a part of something that’s special,” said Young. “People want to be a part of a big vision. I think you gotta sell them that they can be part of doing something that’s never been done before.”

OSU has won 53 NCAA team championships. None of them in a women’s sport.

“Sell a vision, there’s a lot of pressure to back it up,” Young said. “So I think we’ve been able to deliver. Not only on court, but just bringing these events here. It’s one thing to tell people it’s possible, it’s another thing to do it.

“I’m just an Oklahoma kid living this dream. It’s pretty cool.”

Tennis fan

Joe Morris was a tennis fan. Even had a tennis court built adjacent to his home in Carnegie, where he was a farmer and an electrician and a carpenter and a plumber. Morris retired to Stillwater in 1999 because of his love for OSU.

Among Morris’ many campus interests were the OSU tennis teams. He would sit at the Colvin Center to watch the Cowgirls and Cowboys.

Morris died in 2016 at age 93. But he lived long enough to see his tennis passion spread.

Morris’ daughter often would go with her father to watch tennis.

“It was a less than perfect situation,” Anne Greenwood said. “Terrible facility. Not nearly adequate for their needs. We realized we were the only (Big 12) school without a dedicated (tennis) facility. We decided that just wasn’t right.”

Then Anne and Mike Greenwood, who had relocated to Stillwater with successful careers in finance, met the new OSU women’s coach.

Young grew up in Texas, where he was introduced to tennis, and then in his high school days moved to Norman, where his father was a Church of Christ minister. 

Young went to Oklahoma Christian University, played tennis there, joined the coaching staff after graduation and eventually led the Eagle men to the 2003 NCAA Division II national championship. Wichita State hired Young as tennis coach in 2004, and in 2009 OSU did the same.

Then-OSU athletic director Mike Holder, who himself had built an NCAA powerhouse in golf, and had big dreams, hired Young.

The ultimate Cowboy, John Smith, says goodbye to OSU wrestling with lots of emotion and even more memories.

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“I think from the stories I’ve been told, obviously he was doing a good job at Wichita State and built a reputation in the industry,” said current OSU athletic director Chad Weiberg. “So there were people that were saying good things about him. At that point, he was the right hire for a lot of reasons.”

But there was no reason to believe that the Cowgirls had hit the mother lode with Young.

Then Young met the Greenwoods.

“When I got here, some friends of mine said, just pray that God’s going to do something so big through you that no one’s really going to believe it,” Young said.

Mission accomplished.

“I wanted to do something special for the sport and tennis,” Young said. “That was my goal coming back. That’s what Holder and I talked about when I got hired here. He was somebody who could mentor me about building a facility, raising the money for it. I just put a plan together, and talked to anybody and everybody that would listen for four years.”

The Greenwoods listened.

The Greenwoods — Anne in Carnegie, Mike in Tulsa — grew up without great financial means and worked their way through college at OSU. Half a century later, they still have a heart for students who don’t always have it easy, be it a lack of funds or a lack of facilities. They were inspired by Boone Pickens’ philanthropy at OSU, and since their initial, massive gift to tennis, the Greenwoods have contributed to a variety of causes. OSU’s school of music is named in their honor.

But the tennis center was their first major gift to the university. They had sat through enough tennis matches at the Colvin Center to connect with Young’s vision.

“He had the vision to dream as big as we did,” Anne Greenwood said. “We kind of followed his vision. Many others followed, it came together; we were thrilled when others joined us.”

Young’s pitch was simple.

“You put a vision together, and anybody and everybody you come into contact with, you talk to ‘em about it,” Young said. “‘Look, you want to put your name on something at Oklahoma State? You want to make a difference? You want to change a program?’

“You ask the Greenwoods now. They changed my career, they changed the lives of all these kids, and that impact is going to last forever.”

That impact started with a Caddo County farmer. The outdoor center court of the Greenwood Center is named for Joe Morris.

Portal helps OSU

Young’s vision goes beyond brick and mortar and tennis surfaces. He seems to know how to adapt to the changing nature of NCAA sports.

Recruiting high school athletes, or even international players, to Stillwater isn’t always easy. Brighter lights and bigger cities often trump even the Greenwood Center.

But Young still tries to build those relationships, and if a player eventually thinks about transferring, OSU returns to their mind.

“Even if people say, ‘aw, you got no chance to land that kid,’ I say, ‘well, I want to leave a good impression on ‘em. I want them to know about our program and just put our program on their radar,’” Young said. “I think what we’re doing now, with the success that we’ve had the last decade, then the success of this year’s team, kids gotta be paying attention.”

This OSU team includes three new transfers:

• Anastasiya Komar, a third-year sophomore from Minsk, Belarus, who transferred from Louisiana State and is 11-5, playing mostly No. 1;
• Ange Oby Kajuru, a junior from Tokyo who transferred from Iowa State and is 17-3, playing mostly No. 2;
• and Safiya Carrington, a graduate senior from Port St. Lucie, Florida, who transferred from LSU and is 13-4, playing mostly No. 4.

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They joined four primary holdovers:

• Lucia Peyre, a sophomore from Las Flores, Argentina, who is 15-5, playing mostly No. 3;
• Ayumi Miyamoto, a grad senior from Chiba, Japan, who is 13-5, playing mostly No. 5;
• Kristina Novak, a grad senior from Radovljica, Slovenia, who transferred from Nebraska a year ago and is 16-0 playing mostly No. 6.
• And Raquel Gonzalez, a sophomore from Villanueva de Castellon, Spain, who is 5-1 in singles and is 11-6 playing doubles with Miyamoto.
• Young said OSU tennis has not hit the name/image/likeness space much, in part because international athletes mostly are barred from NIL money. But the Cowgirls can offer other things.

“We have a donor that flies us privately to all of our away matches,” Young said. “There’s not another tennis program in the country that flies charter. But we’re very fortunate to have that.

“When kids see us win that trophy on Monday, then buckle it up on a private-plane seat on the way back, they gotta be taking notice.”

First women’s title

The OSU women’s golf team made the 2021 NCAA championship match. The Cowgirl softball team has made four straight Women’s College World Series appearances, and reached the 2022 semifinals. Young’s Cowgirls had that match point in 2016. OSU equestrian won the 2022 national championship, but the equine sport is not yet NCAA-sponsored.

So OSU still seeks its first female NCAA team championship, to go with those 53 male titles, the most recent of which was the NCAA cross-country title won last November.

“We’re looking forward to winning our very first in a women’s sport,” Weiberg said. “To do that right here in Stillwater would be pretty special.”

Young said that OSU’s fraternity of head coaches is strong. They started a group text a few years ago, and everyone is forever congratulating each other after big victories.

But there remains a spirit of competitiveness.

“We’re all tongue-in-cheek ,‘we’re rooting for you,’ but I still want to be the first one,” Young said. “It’s definitely a healthy competition, and I couldn’t be more blessed and fortunate to be around a good group of guys. We really support each other, challenge each other. We all know that first women’s title is coming soon. It’s pretty fun.”

Fourteen of OSU’s 24 wins have come against teams ranked in the top 30 nationally. Using the latest rankings, OSU has beaten No. 2 Michigan twice, No. 3 Stanford, No. 7 Texas twice, No. 8 Pepperdine, No. 10 UCLA, No. 15 Ohio State, No. 16 Auburn and No. 18 Auburn.

OSU long has been an athletic department that punched above its weight. And maybe Young is a model for the Cowgirls and Cowboys moving forward.

“He’s worked really hard to build a community, to build a fanbase, to build a support base,” Weiberg said. “I think that’s what you can do. That’s one of the things that’s special about this place. He’s done a great job of capitalizing on that. Turned out to be a home-run hire.”

Young indeed is out in the community. Get this. Virtually every Monday, from 1-3 p.m., he joins Casey Kendrick’s afternoon talk show on Stillwater’s Triple Play radio sports. Been doing it almost a decade.

“Chris is really good at developing relationships,” said Kendrick. “Chris has a drive to be as good as he possibly can be as a coach, as someone who wants to build community. He’s a people person. He knows how to nurture and cultivate those relationships.”

Those relationships have resulted in a tennis palace and recruiting contacts and a team that can make OSU history.

“You just gotta have a vision and you gotta lay it out there and you gotta have people who want to follow it,” Young said. “Recruiting the kids was like recruiting the donors. Hey, come here and do something special …  come here, put your picture on the wall. Come and do something that’s not been done. Come here and be something special.”

No more trips to Tulsa or Ponca City. No more folding chairs for nets. A sport dominated by the likes of Stanford and Texas, Florida and UCLA, must make way for Oklahoma State.