Tournamenttennis had been around for 90 years before Lamar Hunt looked in on the game andstarted writing checks. He was as good with a pen as one of his newly signedemployees, Wimbledon and U.S. champion John Newcombe, was with a racket.
Hunt, who died three months ago, was a Texas rich guy who didn’t actlike one. A humble, soft-spoken and straightforward gentleman, he flew steerageclass until late in life when, ill, he used a private jet.
But he was always first class in his imaginative dealings in numeroussporting ventures. His was a creative mind.
Hunt liked being in on the start of things. He was a founder in 1960 ofthe American Football League, which merged in 1966 with the NFL. A new chanceto thoroughly upgrade tennis caught his attention in 1967.
His money came from the oil ventures of his daddy, H.L. Hunt. And he wasin on the ground floor of the tennis gusher of 1968, greasing the beginnings of“open” tennis with petrodollars he poured into a sport he hardly knew.
 |
| Lamar Hunt |
When H.L. Hunt was asked whether young Lamar might go broke throwingmillions at sports, the old man answered, “Maybe in a hundred years.”
Lamar was curious when a friend, Dave Dixon, sought help in bankrollingthe then-struggling and insignificant pro tennis.
At that time, a wide chasm separated the alleged amateurs, playing arecognized circuit that included the majors for chump change under the table,and a handful of pros barred from the spotlight and subsisting mainly onone-night stands.
Boston’s Longwood Cricket Club in 1964 averted a likely pro tenniscollapse by bringing the U.S. Pro Championships to Boston ($10,000 in totalprize money for a 12-man field). A few other cities following suit provided aminor transfusion.
But the game needed more and richer blood, a breakthrough that forcedprofessionalization and over-the-counter prize money. That’s where Hunt came inas Dixon’s partner, enabling the birth of World Championship Tennis.
WorldChampionship Tennis
Hunt agreed to pick up most of the tab for raiding the amateurs. Anaide, Bob Briner, sent on safari to the 1967 U.S. Championships at ForestHills, found hunting easy.
“We were impressed by the money, thrilled to become pros,” saidNewcombe, the No. 1 amateur.
He and Tony Roche were two-thirds of Australia’s Davis Cup juggernaut.The other third, Roy Emerson, eventually joined the flock.
The dollars were guaranteed, somewhere between $30,000 and $60,000 forthe year, a gold mine to the players. Signing three other amateurs (NikkiPilic, Roger Taylor, Cliff Drysdale) and three pros (Butch Buchholz, DennisRalston, Pierre Barthes), Briner had a gang that Dixon dubbed “The HandsomeEight.”
Dixon planned a tournament tour for his iconoclastic octet, the first intennis to abandon all-white apparel.
Badly organized and promoted, the tour, a flop financially, succeededhistorically. WCT had captured four of the top 10 amateur players, andWimbledon had lost 75 percent of its 1967 semifinalists: Newcombe, Taylor,Pilic.
Since the greatest of pros (Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and Pancho Gonzalez)would soon be targets for Hunt’s pen, it was apparent to Herman David, who ranWimbledon, and Bob Kelleher, of the U.S. Open, that the cream of the men’s gamehad flown across that chasm to the outlaw side. Their amateur camps wereimpoverished.
Within months, everybody was together under the banner of “open” tennis.It had been debated, and rejected, for decades by the ultra Stone Age amateurruling body, the International Tennis Federation.
Now there was no choice. “Amateurism” became an archaic term.
“It wouldn’t have happened without Lamar,” said Buchholz, who laterlaunched the eminent spring tourney, the Sony Ericsson Open, at Key Biscayne,Fla. “That first year [1968], nothing went right for us. Lamar told me, ‘Youhave to be ready to take a bath going into new sports, but this looks like along swim.’”
It was. Dixon lost his shirt and was quickly gone. But the 35-year-oldHunt carried on, hiring ex-British Davis Cupper Mike Davies to direct the WCT.
“That,” Buchholz said, “was a great move. Mike made WCT into the firstreally professional organization in the game. Lamar’s football connectionshelped Mike get the tour on NBC.”
In 1970, Davies told Hunt, “I need a million bucks,” a huge sum then. “Iwanted to expand WCT to 20 tournaments at $50,000 each,” Davies said. “Unheardof. We had to guarantee the money, although we came close to making it allback. But Lamar said OK, win or lose.”
That global circuit culminated in an eight-man playoff in Dallas,offering a $50,000 payoff, far beyond first prize at any of the four majors.
Rosewallvs. Laver
In 1972, Rosewall and Laver, the tiny titans out of Australia, clashedfor that jackpot. They kept a nationwide TV audience enthralled for three hoursin an all-time masterpiece.
Rosewall, 37, won in a fifth-set tiebreaker and gasped, “I never eventhought of so much money in my life.”
That encounter gave new life to the pros (and to Rosewall, still winningtitles five years later).
Despite the wars he went through with the ITF and later the ATP(Association of Tennis Pros), Hunt was, Davies said, “one of those rare guyseveryone respected and liked even if they were fighting him. And he respondedin a like manner, difficult because they were trying to put us out ofbusiness.”
Finally, the ATP did put it out of business in 1990. The WCT tour thatmeant so much in professionalizing the game for 22 years was dead.
Billie Jean King said, “Lamar was a visionary. It was one of the saddestdays for tennis when they pushed him out.”
“I detected no bitterness in Lamar,” Davies said. “He enjoyed the ride,a sportsman always. His innovating deeds got him into the Tennis Hall of Fame.Lucky for tennis that he gave the pro game the big step forward.”
Bud Collins is acolumnist for The Boston Globe and a commentator for NBC.
| IT'S YOUR TURN TO SPEAK OUT |
Guest columns may be sent to Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal, 120 W. Morehead St., Suite 310, Charlotte, NC 28202. By fax: (704) 973-1401. For further information, please contact Betty Gomes at (704) 973-1439 or bgomes@sportsbusinessjournal.com. |
