40 seasons of victory for Pali legend
By Chad Winthrop
Palisades Charter High School Dolphins tennis coach Bud Kling has become the winningest high school tennis coach in state history.
Kling, who reached this achievement with a Pali Dolphins girls tennis team victory over Nevada’s Bishop Gorman earlier this month, now has 1,248 wins and counting. Robbin Adair, who coached the Coronado High School boys held the previous record of 1,245 overall wins.
Kling, who graduated from UCLA, began his Pali tennis journey as the assistant coach to Bud Ware in 1977 before taking over the head coach role in 1979. Since then Kling, who is Pali’s longest-tenured coach, has gone on to do one thing: lead teams to victory, possessing a .903 winning percentage over the decades.
Over the years, Kling. who was inducted into the CIF-LA Hall of Fame in 2017, has coached both the boys and girls tennis teams at Pali High. He led the girls for all but one season between 1984-2007 before stepping down only to return in 2015 to coach the girls to four straight section titles. Over 40 seasons, Kling has coached the boys to 37 league titles and 27 City titles.
At age 72, Kling is still going strong and has his eyes on another state record: CIF titles. Kling currently has 45 CIF titles, five away from the record 50 held by Monta Vista and Bellarmine Prep swimming coach Larry Rogers.
Given Kling’s track record and winning percentage, one may want to bet the Pali legend will top this record.
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