Bill Simons
PARIS
So, as usual, just before dusk, I’m in the Roland Garros media bar frantically working on a French Open post covering today’s action. I’m all locked in, finishing the last edits. Then our contributing editor Vinay Venkatesh blurts out, “Hold on, Bill – newsflash. The USTA’s boss Lew Sherr just resigned.”
“OMG,” I thought, “I’ve got to drop everything.” After all, just ten days after announcing the $800 million upgrade of Arthur Ashe Stadium, the USTA’s CEO Sherr revealed that he’d be leaving his post after three years to work for the New York Mets.
And amazingly, just 15 yards away from me, there was USTA Communications leader Brendan McIntyre, chatting with Wimbledon’s cheery media executive, Eloise Tyson.
Clearly the journalism gods were smiling, the message was clear. This was a perfect time for me to upgrade and fact check a draft on the history of USTA leadership that had long been buried in my computer archives.
So as dozens of jolly French journalists around me enjoy their Friday night Chardonnays, I will at last publish my overview of USTA leaders over the years. Then I’ll lift a glass.
••••
The legendary USTA President Slew Hester was said to be “undressed without a cigar.” And, thanks to this charismatic Louisiana oilman, everything turned for the USTA in 1979 when he led the US Open from its overcrowded, old-fashioned Forest Hills site to its current home in Flushing Meadows.
The avuncular Northern Californian Hunter Delatour, who was beloved around the tennis world, futilely tried to reign in Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe. It didn’t work.
Kalamazoo’s Dave Markin played a key role in developing a new center court stadium at the US Open. San Franciscan Bob Cookson perpetually wore his white baseball cap and opened the door to USTA marketing. The group’s first TV ads featured a mesmerized kitty cat following a tennis ball.
Bumpy Frazer, who still has the best first name in USTA history, affectionately threw his wife under the bus when, at a huge meeting he reported that she brought 14 different dresses to the US Open – one for each day of the tourney.
New Yorker Harry Marmion sought to bring tennis “out of the country clubs and into the parks.”
From Wimbledon to Zimbabwe, Judy Levering was not only a master diplomat and the USTA’s first woman president, she took up the calls to name the US Open’s new stadium after Arthur Ashe. Arizona’s Les Snyder bravely moved to open up and democratize the USTA, but just before leaving tried to manipulate the US Open draw.
Chicago’s bigger-than-life Alan Schwartz, who headed America’s biggest indoor tennis company, brought a long-absent entrepreneurial drive to the USTA. The group has never been the same.
UCLA’s Franklin Johnson was not only a fixture at the Academy Awards, he brought many a big tennis event to the West Coast.
Hall of Famer and feminist pioneer Jane Brown Grimes played a key role at the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the WTA Tour Board and the ITF.
Lucy Garvin was such a storied volunteer that the USTA South Carolina created the Lucy Garvin Volunteer of the Year award.
There have been few greater backers of college tennis than the Chicago attorney and Northwestern product Jon Vegosen, who also effectively advocated for roofs to be built over both Ashe and Armstrong Stadiums.
Before Dave Haggerty headed the USTA, he led the Prince and Head racket companies. He is now the longtime president of the ITF and America’s prime presence in international tennis politics.
Katrina Adams was the first African-American, first Top Ten doubles player, first broadcaster and the youngest ever to head the USTA. Adams oversaw the most tumultuous award ceremony ever after Naomi Osaka won the 2018 US Open over Serena.
Former world No. 1 doubles player and UCLA product Pat Galbraith was a two-time US Open mixed doubles champ. Brian Hainline did cutting-edge (some might say noble) work on mental health.
The University of Virginia product Brian Vahaly reached No. 64 in the ATP rankings. He lives with his two children in Washington, D.C. and is the first openly gay man to head the USTA.
Other notables include the marketing whiz Arlen Kantarian, who helped make the US Open a must-see event. Staffers Page Crosland and Pierce O’Neil played key roles in the naming of Ashe stadium. Longtime Executive Director Gordon Smith oversaw the upgrade of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Michael Dowse guided the USTA through the COVID era.
Kurt Kamperman was a longtime key executive spearheaded the USTA’s move to its Lake Nona center. The continually effective Craig Morris remains as a key influencer.
