Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2017 Pancho's Racket and the Long Road to Professional Tennis Gregory I. Ruth Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Sports Management Commons Recommended Citation Ruth, Gregory I., "Pancho's Racket and the Long Road to Professional Tennis" (2017). Dissertations. 2848. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2848 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2017 Gregory I. Ruth LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO PANCHO’S RACKET AND THE LONG ROAD TO PROFESSIONAL TENNIS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN HISTORY BY GREGORY ISAAC RUTH CHICAGO, IL DECEMBER 2017 Copyright by Gregory Isaac Ruth, 2017 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Three historians helped to make this study possible. Timothy Gilfoyle supervised my work with great skill. He gave me breathing room to research, write, and rewrite. When he finally received a completed draft, he turned that writing around with the speed and thoroughness of a seasoned editor. Tim’s own hunger for scholarship also served as a model for how a historian should act. I’ll always cherish the conversations we shared over Metropolis coffee— topics that ranged far and wide across historical subjects and contemporary happenings. I came to Loyola University Chicago to study the environmental history of cities with the best urban historians in the country. That changed when I took Elliott Gorn’s seminar where I wrote the first part of this project. From the beginning, Elliott discouraged me from studying sports. Given how long it took to assemble enough archival material to write this project, he made his point. His guidance for what makes a good story and how to tell it nonetheless helped me conceptualize this project. Michelle Nickerson also taught me a great deal both in and outside the classroom. Los Angeles is a complicated city; her scholarship and counsel helped me to know it better. She also never stopped asking me, “What kind of a historian are you?” I hope this project is an answer to that question. Loyola has been a wonderful place to train as a historian. The administrative and financial support the Graduate School gave me in the form of a Crown Fellowship meant the world. So too did the speed at which Jennifer Stegen and the Interlibrary Loan staff fulfilled my iii many requests. The rest of the history faculty, many of whom I took courses from and most of whom I learned from, showed what a department rich in scholarship and committed to teaching looks like. Much the same can be said for my graduate student colleagues, whose own projects and teaching encouraged me throughout our time together. Original research at more than three dozen archives and records centers meant that I spent a great deal of time outside of Chicago and a great deal of time with archivists. Most of them ably facilitated my research, but Kristin Kay and her staff at UMass Amherst Libraries deserve special recognition for going above and beyond during my many days there. Research libraries and repositories seldom support work on sports, and those few that do deserve a share of credit for this project. The biggest share of credit for this project, though, rests with my family. My parents, Harry and Jenny Ruth, read to me as a kid, supported my switch of majors in college, and encouraged me to leave a good paying job in order to attend graduate school. They are wonderful people, and I am very fortunate to be their son. Courtney Burris Ruth has blessed my life beyond measure. We started dating before graduate school, got married when this dissertation got started, and spent many a night together tented on the closest campground to the next morning’s archive. She has taken time away from her own graduate training and violin performance schedule to encourage my work on this project, just as I have worked across several states and two continents to help start her own career. I love you, Courtney. iv For Courtney. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi ABSTRACT viii INTRODUCTION: THE LONG ROAD TO PROFESSIONAL TENNIS 1 CHAPTER ONE: LAWN TENNIS AND THE LADY SUZANNE LENGLEN 15 CHAPTER TWO: TENNIS AMATEUR ASSOCIATIONS ON AMERICAN SHORES 56 CHAPTER THREE: THE RECREATIONAL REVOLUTION 102 CHAPTER FOUR: TENNIS MOBILIZES FOR WAR 146 CHAPTER FIVE: THE “KRAMER KARAVAN” 200 CHAPTER SIX: THE METEORIC RISE OF THE KID FROM THE “WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS” 249 CHAPTER SEVEN: OPEN TENNIS TOURNAMENTS, PROMOTERS, AND TOURS 303 CHAPTER EIGHT: AGENTS AND AGENCIES TAKE TENNIS TRANSNATIONAL IN THE OPEN ERA 353 CHAPTER NINE: SEX, CIGARETTES, AND OPEN TENNIS 398 CONCLUSION: PANCHO’S RACKET AND PROFESSIONAL TENNIS IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY 468 BIBLIOGRAPHY 485 VITA 525 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AAGBL All American Girl’s Baseball League ALETC All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club ABA American Basketball Association AFL American Football League ATA American Tennis Association ATP Association of Tennis Professionals ALTA Australian Lawn Tennis Association BLTA British Lawn Tennis Association CYA California Youth Authority CDA Community Development Association GGOH Greg Gonzales Oral History ILTF International Lawn Tennis Federation IMG International Management Group IOC International Olympic Committee IPTA International Professional Tennis Association ITF International Tennis Federation ITHF International Tennis Hall of Fame JCRS Joint Committee on Recreational Survey of Federal Lands LCA Licensing Corporation of America vi LATC Los Angeles Tennis Club MLBPA Major Leagues Baseball Players Association MCA Music Corporation of America NBA National Basketball Association NCAA National Collegiate Athletic Association NFL National Football League OEO Office of Economic Opportunity PGOH Pancho Gonzales Oral History PSLTA Pacific States Lawn Tennis Association PAL Police Athletic League PLTA Professional Lawn Tennis Association RFC Reconstruction Finance Corporation SCTA Southern California Tennis Association TVA Tennessee Valley Authority USLTA United States Lawn Tennis Association USTA United States Tennis Association UFA Universum Film AG WITA Women’s International Tennis Association WITF Women’s International Tennis Federation WTA Women’s Tennis Association WCT World Championship Tennis Tour vii ABSTRACT Historians have written little on sports in the United States compared to other topics. They have had even less to say about tennis than other popular sports in large part because the original research necessary to complete a full treatment of the history of the game appeared too daunting to undertake. By contrast, this study has made use of over a dozen archival collections around the country, many of which researchers have never used before, to tell the story of how tennis went from an amateur sport closely guarded by economic elitists and cultural purists to a professional sport thoroughly democratized and inclusive of individuals regardless of their financial standing or social position. That change connects a variety of heretofore unconnected developments beginning in the French Revolution and ending in the present: European aristocracy and Continental cultural exports; amateur athletic associations in cities and suburban country clubs; New Deal programs and urban recreational reform; the impact of World War II on the careers of global athletes; postwar prosperity in the United States and the growth of America’s entertainment economy; race, ethnicity, and class in twentieth century athletics; cultural competition during the Cold War; tax policy and the globalization of professional sports; the cultural production of celebrity athletes; professional sports touring and stadium construction; as well as masculinity, femininity and gay and transgender athletes. Dozens of characters, both notorious and obscure, make this story as much about people as about social processes and places. Many of the important stops along the way from amateur to professional tennis took place in the United States, but given the global popularity of the game, this study takes a transnational perspective to analyze the professionalization of this world sport. viii INTRODUCTION THE LONG ROAD TO PROFESSIONAL TENNIS The scoreboard at the U.S. National Championships in August 1949 read 16-18, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 5-4. After more than four sets and more than four hours of grueling play at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York, veteran Ted Schroeder and the twenty-one-year-old Richard “Pancho” Gonzales were locked in a winner-take-all fifth set to decide the best amateur tennis player in the world. While the youthful Gonzales reigned as the current U.S. champion— owning the title after his breakout victory the previous year—Schroeder remained the favorite in this clash. He had dominated Gonzales in their previous head-to-head matches. He was fresh off a recent Wimbledon title won in England a month earlier. He hungered for the crown after he had skipped the U.S. Championship the previous year. The work he did at his refrigerator business and the time he wanted to spend with his family took precedence. Schroeder was the ideal amateur. The combatants were a contrast in style off and on the court. Schroeder lived the life of an all-American hero. He hailed from the California coast, where his middle-class family ran a local refrigerator business. He looked like the veterans on morale posters from World War II. His blond hair sat tightly cropped against his angular jaw and high cheekbones. Tanned from the sun but not too dark, he possessed naturally lean and muscled limbs without giving the impression of having worked at it.