After a couple of years out West--where he picked up his teetotaling habits from a Mormon family after, he confesses, having spent a night or two during his undergraduate days awash in the suds--he returned to Harvard to take two years of medical courses. Then, Fish spent two years as assistant coach, after which he was ready to step into Barnaby's very big shoes.

And he is happy to have the challenge. "The exciting thing about being at Harvard is that I don't think anybody works harder at their tasks than the young men who get here," he says.

"A standard joke is that good tennis players should be dumb in order to put up with having to hit ball after ball over long periods of time," Fish continues. "That's not true--it's just that the smart tennis player has to learn how to control himself."

And that's what Dave Fish's tennis program is all about--learning how to control.

As for Fish himself, well, it's pretty obvious that he's in control.

But the stuff about his being perfect is simply not true. No way. Rumor has it around Hemenway Gym that he can't hit a drop shot and chew bubble gum at the same time.