You remember squinting at the modest press release, your eyes growing wide as you scanned the basic details of one man's journey into our midst three years ago.

When you were finished, hundreds of questions popped into your head, starting with this one:

How in the world did Greg Van Emburgh come to be the men's tennis coach at the University of Wisconsin?

Here's a guy who participated in one of the most golden of eras of pro tennis, facing the likes of John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras, Ivan Lendl and Boris Becker.

He was good enough to play in all four Grand Slam events -- Australian Open, French Open, U.S. Open and Wimbledon -- not to mention endure on the pro tour for 11 years despite a near-career-ending elbow injury.

He had a scholarship to the famed Nick Bollettieri Academy as a teen-ager, where his running mates included Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang.

He had a legendary college career at Kentucky -- the first All-American in school history and a member of its hall of fame -- but stepped down as associate head coach at his alma mater to come to UW.

So how did it happen?

How did Van Emburgh wind up taking over a 74-year-old program so non-descript that it's never won a Big Ten Conference title and had gone more than a decade without having a player win a match in the NCAA tournament?

He has ready, simple answers to that question.

But there is one answer -- perhaps the biggest of all -- that doesn't come so easily because it brings tears to his eyes and makes his voice choke with emotion.

Van Emburgh, 41, said he saw vast potential in a program "that it hasn't achieved as much success as it could."

Ambitious goal

During his interview with UW athletic director Barry Alvarez and then-deputy AD Jamie Pollard prior to his hiring in 2005, Van Emburgh said he wanted to come to Madison and leave his mark in college tennis.

"It's not a stepping stone," he told them. "I want to be a long-timer here. This is where I want to finish my coaching career."

Winning a national title is part of that agenda. It's highly ambitious, but not so far-fetched when you consider it took Van Emburgh just two years to get the Badgers into the NCAA team tournament, something they had accomplished twice previously (1978, '98). Not only that, they advanced to the round of 32 last spring for the first time in program history.

UW senior Nolan Polley, from Lexington, Ky., thought so much of Van Emburgh he transferred from Kentucky.

"I figured he would turn it around if anybody could," said Polley, ranked 109th in the nation in singles. "He works really hard and he knows what he's doing. He's really competitive and he's really driven.

"He expects hard work out of you, but he'll treat you fair. I think he's a very good coach to play for."

Van Emburgh notes only one school from the Midwest has won a NCAA title, but Illinois did it just five years ago.

And while the likes of Stanford, Georgia, UCLA and Southern California have had dominating programs, the last six years have produced different champions (Georgia, Pepperdine, UCLA, Baylor, Illinois and USC).

"If you've got the passion for it, the heart and the determination, you can do it," Van Emburgh said. "There's no reason why I feel like we can't try to win a national championship.

"Do things have to fall in your favor? Does a little luck have to happen? Do the right recruits have to kind of show up? Yeah. All those things have to transpire. But I think it's definitely attainable."

UW (16-8) just completed its first unbeaten season at home (11-0) since 1991. A 7-0 win at Michigan State in Sunday's Big Ten regular-season finale gave the 34th-ranked Badgers eight league victories for the first time since 1982. UW's only losses were to first-place Ohio State, ranked No. 2 in the nation, and second-place Michigan, ranked 15th.

Next stop: The Big Ten tournament, which starts Thursday in Iowa City, Iowa.

"He's done an unbelievable job," Alvarez said of Van Emburgh.

Family first

Van Emburgh's desire to come to Madison, to fashion an international roster of talent from five countries, is driven by more than tennis. There also is an intense, ongoing family experience that has challenged the Van Emburghs in a multitude of ways.

Greg and his wife, Tracey, live in Verona with their two boys: 9-year-old Jake and 7-year-old Jenson. Greg was a coach on the ATP Tour, traveling the world, and the family was based in Naples, Fla., when Jenson was injured during a C-section delivery that left him paralyzed below the waist and currently in a wheelchair.

Tracey declined to go into specifics about what caused the injuries -- Jenson suffered fractures to his right femur and the T1 vertebrae on his spinal cord -- or what legal action was taken.

"When that happened, our whole direction in life changed," she said. "We were like, 'What are we going to do?' This child needs the best medical care. Where are we going to go? Naples, Florida, was not where it was at."

Prior to parenthood, the Van Emburghs lived a globe-trotting, somewhat glamorous existence. While Greg played on the pro tour from 1988 to '99 -- he was ranked as high as 253rd in the world in singles and 38th in doubles -- Tracey embraced the sights and cultures of Europe, South Africa, Australia and the Middle East.

Greg played in 14 ATP finals in doubles, winning seven, with a variety of international partners. He advanced to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 1989 and the semis in 1990. His career doubles record was 179-247 with $625,931 in winnings.

Getting to that level wasn't easy. Greg began playing tennis with a $5 racquet he purchased at Herman's Sporting Goods at age 9. When he was 13, his family moved from Long Island, N.Y., to Florida, where Greg, a late bloomer, developed his game modestly.

"Growing up, I'd hit with anybody," he said. "I was a court rat. I hung out at the courts all day long, after school.

"I'd hit against the wall for hours a day. Took a few group lessons, played in a couple local tournaments and had some success.

"It always burned for me to play tennis. I just love the sport. I love the sport being individualized. If you lose, if you win, you only have one to blame for the most part."

But going it alone was not an option when Jenson was born. Greg immediately quit coaching on the APT circuit because of the travel and time commitment. His next major career move triggered a remarkable series of fortuitous events.

Van Emburgh called Dennis Emery, his coach at Kentucky, and inquired about a career in college coaching. Van Emburgh was told he needed to finish his degree work first, but it just so happened there was an opening on Emery's staff.

The school accommodated one of its legends -- Van Emburgh was a four-time All-American from 1986 to '89 -- by paying his tuition toward a degree in sociology while he helped coach the Wildcats from 2001 to '05.

"We felt like it was the best thing for Jenson and for our family," Tracey said, noting that Lexington, Ky., has a Shriner's Hospital. "Most big college towns have great medical care."

Emery, who has coached the Wildcats for 26 years, said Van Emburgh was an "off-the-charts" competitor as a player whose biggest strength as a coach is his ability to judge talent.

"It's a real gift," Emery said.

Perfect place

The opening at UW, created when Pat Klingelhoets stepped down after the 2005 season, seemed destined to the Van Emburghs.

Tracey was born and raised in North Dakota, but she moved when her father, the late Gary Uglem, got a professorship at Kentucky. She said her father visited Madison multiple times in part because he was so enamored with the area. His fondest wish -- one unfulfilled -- was to someday work in the biology department at UW.

Three years after Uglem died in 2002, his daughter couldn 't help but feel her father's love when the school he cherished from afar hired her husband.

"I kind of feel like he pulled some strings," Tracey said of her dad.

More serendipity: The first house Tracey looked at on the Internet is the one she fell in love with and the one the Van Emburghs purchased.

Aside from the job itself, the most appealing aspect of the opportunity involved Jenson. Not only is the climate more conducive to his comfort -- his body temperature needs to be regulated because it can't get too high -- the new UW Children's Hospital and cutting-edge research at UW Hospital are vital links to specialists and hope.

"Obviously, coming here, there is care, there is spinal cord research, stem-cell research that's going on," Greg said.

"As many times as we need to visit the doctor, we're so lucky to have Children's Hospital right here," Tracey said. "It only takes me 10, 15 minutes to get him there for an appointment."

Jake, a budding tennis and hockey player, and Jenson attend West Middleton Elementary School, where Jenson has been known to maneuver through a lunchtime crowd, put his tray of food down midst a table of strangers and happily introduce himself.

Both parents became emotional talking about their youngest son and the influence he's had on them and others.

"The thing is, he's just great," Greg said. "He's the eye of people's life. He goes into a room or talks to people -- his touch, his comments, what he says -- it's just breathtaking for a lot of people."

Jenson's presence is one reason why new playground equipment for West Middleton Elementary has been designed so the disabled can interact with their friends. Tracey also noted Jenson's interest in hockey prompted her to get involved with a sled hockey program in the area.

"The comfort that I take -- even though it hurts every day when you see your child in a wheelchair -- he's just the brightest spot in our lives," Tracey said. "He affects people. And the doors that he opens, I really feel like it's his purpose."

Greg Van Emburgh has a purpose as well. Asked if the Badgers are moving along quicker than he thought, he nodded slightly.

"Did it come a little sooner? Probably, yes," he said. "But I'm not someone who likes to wait for success. I'm someone that wants to produce success quickly and sustain it."

Polley said Van Emburgh doesn't talk about his impressive past as much as he talks about someday winning a NCAA title.

"That's his ultimate goal," Polley said. "In three years we've gone from one of the bottom-dwellers to where we're up there hoping to get a tie for second in the conference this year.

"They're just going to keep getting better," he said of the Badgers. "I think the future's definitely looking good."