Nicholas James Bollettieri (July 31, 1931 – December 4, 2022) was an American tennis coach. He pioneered the concept of a tennis boarding school, and helped develop many leading tennis players during the past decades, including Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Monica Seles, and Mary Pierce. He also worked with players such as Maria Sharapova, Daniela Hantuchová, Jelena Janković, Nicole Vaidišová, Sabine Lisicki, Sara Errani, Tommy Haas, Max Mirnyi, Xavier Malisse, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova, Marcelo Ríos, and Kei Nishikori. Bollettieri was also a tour traveling coach, the last time having been for and with Boris Becker for a span of two years. Bollettieri was mentioned and/or profiled in several television series and documentary films, including Jason Kohn's documentary film Love Means Zero, which was premiered at the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2017. Education Born in Pelham, New York, to immigrant Italian parents, Nick Bollettieri attended Pelham Memorial High School. He was a charter member of the Beta Lambda Chapter of the Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity and he graduated in 1949. In 1953, he graduated from Spring Hill College (Mobile, Alabama) with a degree in philosophy. After serving with the United States Army and attaining the rank of First Lieutenant in 1956, he turned to teaching tennis after dropping out of the University of Miami Law School. Bollettieri's first students included Brian Gottfried. His first formal tennis camp was at Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Career Though he had only dabbled in the sport in high school, Bollettieri was the tennis director at Doral Beach Hotel in Puerto Rico in the late 1960s when it was a Rockefeller resort. Moving to Longboat Key, Florida, in 1978, Bollettieri served as an instructor for the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort. In the early 1980s, Bollettieri opened the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy (NBTA) near Bradenton, Florida, on in unincorporated Manatee County on the west coast of Florida, about fifty miles south of Tampa. Seeing a template for other sports, International Management Group (IMG) bought the academy from Bollettieri in 1987, but Bollettieri continued to manage and play a pivotal role in the development of the tennis academy and ancillary programs. In his final years Bollettieri coached top-tier players at the academy, and spent most of his time in Bradenton. Off-court Bollettieri continued to teach and hold public speaking engagements worldwide, including a visit to teach