I’m researching Trinity (University) tennis in the “Tennis Tech” days of the 1960s and ’70s and wanting to see what the local newspapers wrote about our men and women in the day. I used a lot of Karl O’Quinn quotes from the ’60s in my book (“From the Sidelines to the Headlines: The Legacy of Women’s Sports at Trinity University). However, I know there were other columnists commenting on the program. I even seem to remember some regular weekly columns about tennis.
Do you know which local writers covered tennis? I know Harry Page and others wrote about sports in the ’80s and ’90s, but really need help with those covering it from the mid-’50s, when (coach) Clarence Mabry arrived, through the ’70s.
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– Betsy Gerhardt Pasley
Although Trinity University has been based in San Antonio since 1942, there was a time when its O’Neil Ford architecture, high academic ratings or even its recently disputed “tower logo” wouldn’t have been the first thing that came to mind about the liberal-arts institution.
“Tennis Tech” was such a familiar nickname for Trinity University that it was found in newspaper coverage of the school. It was the subhead of a Paul Thompson column in the San Antonio Express and News Oct. 19, 1972.
Thompson was a news columnist, not a sports writer. The phrase introduced an item about then-Trinity President Duncan Wimpress, who had made the cover of a Dallas magazine, where he was pictured playing pool.
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In the article, Thompson says, Wimpress “was extolled, among other things, throwing out high-budget sports and the red ink that went with them on Trinity Hill, then adopting a ‘quote’ amateur ‘unquote’ athletic program.”
During his administration (1970-1977), Wimpress made a controversial move. “Faced with pressure from growing costs,” says the Trinitonian student newspaper Jan. 24, 2014, he “eliminated all sport scholarships outside varsity tennis, a move that drew considerable criticism” – meaning that the new president “kept tennis Division I but moved everything else to Division III.”
RELATED: Reader’s book about women’s sports at Trinity
Tennis got to keep its exalted status because the program already had earned it, to the point where the sport was a strong part of the school’s identity.
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Trinity’s fortunes were “variable … on the gridiron and basketball court,” but its tennis teams excelled consistently, says Trinity professor Donald E. Everett in “Trinity University: A Record of 100 Years,” published in 1969. “No Tiger team in any sport had focused so much attention on the institution as did Coach Clarence Mabry’s players in the early ’60s.”
An announcement in the Express and News Feb. 5, 1956, predicted their bright future. “With the addition of Clarence Mabry, tennis professional and city tennis director, to the Trinity University athletic staff,” says the anonymous scribe, “the hilltop school took the initial steps to adding a first-rate tennis program to its athletic layout … Trinity has an excellent opportunity to develop into a leading collegiate tennis power.”
Philanthropist John R. McFarlin (1913-1993) endowed Trinity’s tennis program in 1956, enabling the school to hire Mabry, previously head pro at the San Pedro Tennis Courts, now McFarlin Tennis Center, according to the Trinity athletics website at trinitytigers.com.
McFarlin went on to “supply “tennis scholarship to most of the (team) stars,” says the San Antonio Light, Oct. 3, 1962, which covered an annual tennis awards banquet in a column by longtime Sports Editor Harold “Pop” Scherwitz.
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RELATED: Trinity ancestors’ alumni recorded in library
Thus endowed and led by Mabry – himself a former Southwestern Conference champion – from 1956 to 1974, the small liberal-arts college produced nationally and internationally known teams and players.
During its golden era of the 1960s and ’70s, the Trinity team regularly rolled up impressive winning streaks, set a National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA record for 78 straight wins over three years, won the 1972 national championship and were runners-up in 1970, 1971, 1977 and 1979.
Ten Trinity players received All American honors in Mabry’s time. Members of the early ’60s teams who went on to even greater recognition included Chuck McKinley, who reached the Wimbledon finals in 1961 and won men’s singles in 1963; Frank Froehling, runner-up at the 1963 U.S. Open; and Butch Newman, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps and won the All-Marine, All-Navy, and All-Service singles tennis championships before coming back to coach at Trinity.
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Typically the collegiate tennis season, including advance stories, match results and awards banquets, was covered by the local daily newspapers in the spring, while news of individual players who took part in tournaments appeared in the fall. Nearly all these stories were published without bylines, as was the custom of the time.
Much of the tournament and away-match news of the sport was covered by wire services such as the Associated Press, also without bylines. Routine stories – even one in 1964 about an Australian squad arriving in San Antonio just to play Trinity – were handled anonymously by staff sportswriters.
The exceptions came when a columnist chose to make a tennis story the day’s topic or when something remarkable happened. There was a section-front, above-the-fold story about the time Trinity lost to Pepperdine 5-4, as covered by Clifford Broyles in the Express-News April 26, 1975. With a “stunned audience” watching, the Tigers “battled gamely from a first set loss” but never quite caught up “as darkness shadowed the Trinity courts.”
A new exhibit, “Texas Mineral Waters: History, Health and Healing Beneath Our Feet,” will open from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday in the Texas Medical Association’s History of Medicine Gallery at 401 W. 15th St. in Austin.
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Featuring San Antonio’s own Dullnig Wells, Hot Wells and Terrell Wells, the material was co-curated by Gene Fowler, author of “Crazy Water: The Story of Mineral Wells and Other Texas Health Resorts.”
After the opening, the first-floor gallery will be open Monday through Friday. Admission is free, and free parking is available.
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This article originally published at ‘Golden-era’ Trinity teams dominated college tennis.
