Manny Raga has spent much of his tennis life figuring out how to win.
Now, he has a different challenge: helping build something from the ground up.
Raga was hired by Mizzou head coach Robin Goodman in May as the Tigers’ associate head coach, making the move to Columbia after three seasons at Oklahoma. The Sooners reached three consecutive NCAA tournaments during Raga’s time in Norman, including a Super Regional appearance in 2026, when Oklahoma entered the tournament as the No. 4 seed and finished
No. 9 nationally.
But Raga was not looking for another place to simply keep winning.
He was looking for a challenge.
“When I talked with Robin, the way his vision for the program, for this year, to the next year and the coming years, the history about the program, his passion that he has, and the way we talked about, ‘Hey, we’re going to build this team pretty much from the ground up,’” Raga said. “We just connected really well.”
That connection eventually brought Raga from Norman to Columbia.
And now, as Mizzou prepares to welcome a nearly entirely new roster, Raga is getting ready for a season unlike any he has coached before.
“The first page of a book,” is how Raga described it.
It is an appropriate description for a program undergoing a massive reset.
For Raga, though, starting over does not mean starting without experience.
Before Oklahoma, he spent four seasons as the head coach at Cowley College in Kansas. In his final season, he led the men’s team to its first NJCAA championship since 1991 and the women’s team to a national runner-up finish. He also coached nine individual national champions across the two programs and was named the 2023 Wilson ITA Men’s Coach of the Year.
Now, he is taking that experience to the Tigers.
The transition has been easier than one might expect.
Raga said his approach has never been about whether he is coaching men or women. It is about building relationships, earning trust and helping players become better versions of themselves.
“I am always trying to coach players the same way,” Raga said. “For me, that’s being honest, being on the court, trying to develop a good relationship with the players, that they can trust you, you can trust them.”
That relationship-building process is already underway.
Several of Mizzou’s newcomers have been in regular contact with Raga while working through the maze of international paperwork required to get to Columbia. He joked that he may not be an expert at navigating visas and paperwork, but after going through the process himself as a college athlete, he knows enough to help.
That willingness to help is part of what Raga sees as his role.
He calls himself a mixture of Goodman and assistant coach Bronte Murgett.
He loves recruiting, especially getting to know players and their families, but he also loves the part that happens after they arrive. He wants to watch film. Break down opponents. Identify weaknesses. Take those weaknesses onto the practice court. All leading up to game day.
“I love game day,” Raga said.
That enthusiasm could be important for a team entering the toughest conference in college tennis with a roster that has little experience playing together.
Raga knows the SEC well. At Oklahoma, he saw firsthand how difficult road matches can become, from different playing surfaces and weather conditions to packed crowds.
For Mizzou, he said winning at home will be critical.
“The road matches in the SEC become huge, because it’s very hard to win on the road,” Raga said.
But Raga does not want his players looking too far ahead.
Not to March.
Not to April.
Not even to the next weekend.
Just the next match.
“The most important match is the next match,” Raga said.
That philosophy may become a familiar one around Mizzou tennis this season.
There will be wins. There will be losses. There will be days when the young Tigers look like a team ready to surprise the SEC and others when the inexperience shows.
Raga knows that.
His goal is not to make sure the team never struggles.
It is to make sure the team keeps moving forward.
And if he gets his way, Mizzou will become the kind of team nobody wants to see on the other side of the court.
“I want to be a program that it’s really, really hard to beat,” Raga said. “When you go watch Mizzou tennis, you know the girls are going to give everything they can for as long as they play.”
For a program beginning a new chapter, that might be the perfect opening sentence.The first page is about to be written.
Tiger Top Spin is back Monday as we continue following the new era of Mizzou tennis, and next Wednesday another edition of Columns and Courts will return.
