Cullen Dees is entering his fifth season on the staff with the UTSA men’s tennis program and entering his second as the associate head coach. A native of Canyon, Texas, Dees was hired as an assistant coach on Aug. 1, 2019 and was promoted on June 2, 2022.
Dees has had a major impact on the UTSA program during his time in San Antonio, which clearly translated to the Roadrunners rapidly rising success on the courts over the past three seasons.
In his first season as the associate head coach, Dees helped head coach Sergey Avdeyev lead the Roadrunners to a record-breaking campaign and one of the best seasons on record, as the 2023 UTSA squad went 18-7 to earn the most wins since 1985 (third-most in school history), was Conference USA runner-up and earned the program’s first NCAA At-Large bid in the fifth UTSA appearance. The Roadrunners set ranking records three times in 2023, reaching as high as No. 34 in the national ITA standings, finishing No. 7 in the ITA Texas Region.
The Roadrunners posted 13 wins in dual-match play and improved their singles win total from 41 in 2019 to 61 in 2021, despite playing a scaled back schedule due to COVID-19. UTSA won 60 percent of its singles decisions and went 34-17 in doubles. The Roadrunners earned a win over No. 40 Tulsa. In 2022, UTSA captured 12 victories and made an appearance in the semifinals in the Conference-USA Men's Tennis Championship, the first time UTSA has advanced past the quarterfinals since their 2015 C-USA Championship. Dees helped guide the success of Joao Ceolin to a first team singles All-Conference USA honor and a No. 73 ITA ranking, while freshman Tiago Torres earned a spot on the All-CUSA singles second team. Ceolin went 11-7 with a 4-0 record against ranked opposition on the first court, while Torres paced the team with a 17-4 record in his rookie campaign.
His impact could be seen directly in the 2021 performance of UTSA Ceolin and Juri Reckow, who earned first-team All-Conference USA honors. Javier Gonzalez and freshman Garrett Skelly combined to earn second-team All-Conference USA honors in doubles.
Ceolin led the 2021 team with 13 singles wins, including a 7-1 record on line 2, including a stretch of 10 straight singles points and a pair of wins over ranked foes. Reckow posted his second straight first-team honors after going 12-4 in singles, with nine wins in line 1. He won nine straight and after going 9-0 in 2020 and opening the 2021 season at 11-1 be won 20 of 21 singles points.
During the COVID-19 shortened season, the Roadrunners went 5-6 in 2020. The short season was highlighted by an upset win on the road against UL-Lafayette (5-2), a narrow defeat at No. 5 Texas (4-3) and senior Reckow going undefeated in singles (9-0).
During the 2019 fall season, UTSA saw head coach Rodrigo Da Silva depart for the same position at the University of Louisville. Dees stepped into the role of team leader before UTSA hired head coach Sergey Avdeyev.
Dees helped the team to 41 total wins during the individual tournament season in 2019, highlighted by senior Patrick Poestinger achieving an ITA singles ranking of No. 83.
The team also performed well in the classroom, achieving a 3.05 GPA team average, and being the highest GPA of any men’s team on campus.
Dees served as the volunteer, and later interim assistant coach at Texas for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. He also has previous experience as the men's and women's head coach at the University of the Ozarks for two seasons, and as an assistant men's and women's coach at Schreiner University for three seasons.
Dees helped direct the Longhorns to the 2019 NCAA Championship under interim head coach Bruce Berque, the first national title in Texas men's tennis history. Dees helped mentor three UT standouts to a total of four All-America accolades from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, the most for the Longhorns in 11 years. The Longhorns achieved a program-first number one national ranking during the season. They also took home the regular season Big XII championship, going undefeated.
In his first season with Texas, Dees helped the Longhorns to a 19-7 record and an appearance in the NCAA Championships Round of 16. The 2018 Longhorns also won the Big XII conference tournament, the first tournament or outright Big XII championship in 7 years.
Before joining the Longhorns, Dees spent two seasons as head coach for both the men's and women's tennis teams at the University of the Ozarks. In each of his two years, he took both to the American Southwest Conference (ASC) Tournament, marking the first time in school history both programs reached the tournament in the same years.
On the men's side, he led six players to the ASC All-Academic Team over the course of his two seasons, along with six to the ITA Scholar-Athlete Team. The women were also impressive with five receiving both ASC All-Academic Team and ITA Scholar-Athlete honors. They also claimed the ASC Sportsmanship Award both seasons.
Dees spent the previous three seasons at Schreiner University as the assistant men's and women's coach. In just one year, Dees helped elevate Schreiner to among the best tennis teams within the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC), highlighted by an undefeated conference record (4-0) on the women's side in 2015, and an appearance in the conference tournament finals. The men's team finished with a 3-1 conference mark and advanced all the way to the semifinals of the SCAC Tournament in 2015.
During his time at Schreiner, the men's team posted three straight winning seasons in conference play. A combined 22 women's and men's players received all-conference honors during his tenure.
Dees was a four-year standout player for Hardin-Simmons University from 2009-2012, achieving all-conference all four seasons. He also made the ASC All-Academic Team during his collegiate career. Dees received his bachelor's degree in Exercise Science from Hardin-Simmons in 2012.
He was married in summer 2019, to the former Sarah Smith. She works as a school counselor, and the two had a baby boy in July of 2021, Paxton.