(UW Media Relations Photo)
Dean Clower’s favorite sport wasn’t actually tennis growing up. In fact, tennis still isn’t the favorite sport of the 43-year-old head women’s tennis coach at Wyoming. That title belongs to baseball.
Growing up, Clower’s father was a janitor at a local tennis club in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and eventually he even became the director of that tennis club. Around age 13, a grounding by his father forced Clower to spend time at the club, when he’d much rather be out at the ballpark. Clower, however, figured he’d make the most of the situation—as taking to the tennis courts would be a much better use of his time than helping his father clean.
It was from that point that his love for tennis was born.
“When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I got grounded by my dad, and he was always at the tennis courts working,” Clower said. “Anytime members would come in, I would ask them to play tennis. It was a lot better than cleaning stuff with my dad.”
Letting go of his baseball dreams shortly after that fateful grounding was a tough decision for Clower, but one he felt necessary. Tennis was becoming more than just a hobby for him—it was something more passionate, and something he could make a career out of.
“It was very hard for me,” Clower said about giving up his baseball dreams. “But, I also knew if I wanted to play [tennis] in college, I had to play full-time. I wasn’t gonna be able to play multiple sports after that, I had to commit—and I made the right decision.”
Clower began his collegiate playing career at Cowley County Community College, a small college in Arkansas City, Kansas that competes at the NJCAA level. Clower’s two-year stint there is well remembered, as Clower is known as one of the best doubles players to compete at Cowley County and was recently inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2025.
Clower then completed his collegiate playing career with two years at Lamar University and finished with a 12-6 doubles record and accomplished a 48th ranking in NCAA Division I in his senior season, becoming the first player in school history to do that.
After completing an accomplished collegiate career, there was never any doubt to Clower that staying in the collegiate tennis space as a coach was the next step in his journey.
“I always knew since I was a little kid that I was going to coach. My grandpa’s a coach, my mom’s a coach, my dad’s a coach. It’s just been my passion since I was young,” Clower said. “There was never a backup plan, This is what I wanted to do and this is what I was going to do.”
Clower remained at Lamar as a graduate assistant for an additional two years after his playing days. Heading to Laramie, Wyoming to continue his coaching career was never something that was on his radar—rather, something that fortunately fell into place.
“When I was coaching at Lamar, the head coach there got fired and he was engaged to the coach at Louisiana Lafayette. She got the job at Wyoming and he told her to hire me as an assistant. She did, and I just fell in love with Wyoming,” Clower said.
Kati Gyulai, a former player at Wyoming, was named the women’s tennis head coach at her alma mater in the fall of 2008. Gyulai remained in the position until February of 2012, when she suddenly resigned in the middle of the season to take the head coaching gig at SMU.
The sudden coaching vacancy allowed for Clower to step into an interim head coaching role for the remainder of the 2012 season until he was quickly named the official head coach just a few short months later.
Through what seemed like a perfect flurry of coincidental events, Clower had landed his first head coaching job—and it’s a role he wouldn’t relinquish.
“It meant the world to me,” Clower said of earning the head coaching job at Wyoming. “It was like a dream come true.”
In his time as the head coach, Clower has elevated the women’s tennis team at Wyoming to heights it had never reached before his time. Clower helped lead the Cowgirls to 13 consecutive double-digit win seasons, discounting the shortened COVID-19 season in 2019-2020, during which his team was also well on pace for double-figure wins. That feat easily awarded him the most wins as a head coach in program history.
Clower also recently commanded the best season in program history, as his team captured the program’s first Mountain West regular season title in 2023 and played and won in the first national postseason tournament games in program history.
One single accomplishment has eluded Clower during his 14-year tenure at Wyoming. That’s a Mountain West tournament title—and conversely, a bid to the national NCAA women’s championship tournament.
“I want to make the NCAA tournament and make a run at the tournament,” Clower said.
“That’s my bucket list. That’s all I think about everyday, is that.”
