Eugene Scott
Born: December 28, 1937
Died: March 20, 2006
Hometown: New York, New York, United States
Citizenship: United States
Inducted: 2008
Eugene L. Scott was a visionary who touched tennis at virtually every level for more than 40 years. He was a well-known player, writer, editor, publisher and entrepreneur, who influenced the visibility of tennis and created a positive public perception of the sport. Having authored more that 20 books on tennis, he was widely known as the founder (1974) and publisher of the national tennis magazine Tennis Week.
Serving tennis from the grass roots novice to the professional players, Scott courageously took on the issues of tennis using the written words of his Tennis Week column “Vantage Point” to educate and exhibit a clear voice of reason in attempts to reach logical, objective conclusions – he wanted to get people thinking. In doing so, he ran the risk of alienating authorities within the game’s power structure, and this undoubtedly led to his being dubbed “the conscience of tennis.”
Scott was also one of the television analysts for the famed “Battle of the Sexes Match” between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973; he served as tournament director of more than 200 men’s and women’s tournaments; and he worked as a player agent representing prominent tennis professionals. Scott served as tournament director for many of tennis’ top events including the Nabisco Masters at Madison Square Garden (which grew into today’s Tennis Masters Cup), New Jersey’s Grand Prix Championships and Moscow’s Kremlin Cup where he discovered a young Anna Kournikova and enlisted her to play exhibition sets before the main draw action and awarded wild cards to a young future champion – Marat Safin.
He was a filmmaker, a lawyer, a businessman, and an executive. Scott served as president of the Eastern Tennis Association (1971-72), president of the International Lawn Tennis Association (1965-2006), president of the U.S. International Lawn Tennis Club (1976-1998), Vice President of the International Tennis Hall of Fame (1981-1997), Counsel to the US Open (1971-75) and a member of the USTA Board of Directors (1995-96).
As a player, Scott had a strong serve-and-volley game, and his playing career took him to a career-high world ranking of No. 11 in 1965, ranking in the U.S. Top 10 five times. He was a member of the United States Davis Cup team (1963-65), undefeated in Davis Cup competition, and was both teammate and roommate of Hall of Famer Arthur Ashe. The pair forged a longstanding friendship and in 1968, Scott, in his role as attorney, filed the papers for America’s most prominent grass roots tennis program, the National Junior Tennis League. (Ashe and Scott, along with Charlie Pasarell and Sheridan Snyder, officially founded the National Junior Tennis League in 1969.)
His passion for tennis was apparent in his life-long devotion to the sport. He played tennis with world leaders ranging from former United States President and fellow Yale alumni George H.W. Bush and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin on some of the most prestigious courts in the world and was equally enthusiastic partnering with wife Polly at annual mixed doubles events at Manursing Country Club in Rye, NY.
“You can play tennis forever,” Scott was fond of saying, and he tirelessly pursued putting that philosophy into practice.
Despite undergoing double hip replacement surgery, Scott was still among the best players in the world in his age group. He captured the USTA Men’s 65 Grass Court Championships in September of 2004 in Philadelphia, then went on to claim the International Tennis Federation’s Men’s Super-Seniors World Individual Championships in the 65 division championship the following week. Scott surrendered just one set in 11 matches en route to the sweep of successive titles.
The author of several books, Scott was a thought-provoking tennis journalist who constantly challenged the game’s guardians to grow the game as an inclusive sport with integrity and chided them when they fell short of expectations.
“Tennis can be a recreational mantra,” Scott said. “It’s about exercise. It’s about doing a sport for your whole life. One way for tennis to grow is if tennis courts were considered as crucial as gymnasiums whenever any new school was built in any city in America. Tennis is played in more countries around the world than any other sport. The U.S. could have an edge in developing tennis, but we don’t take advantage of it.”
His writing was not confined to tennis. A close friend of Paris Review founder George Plimpton, Scott was a New York correspondent for The Moscow News and wrote insightful, thoughtful and emotionally moving columns about the state of New York City and its residents in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
He was most passionate in his support of Davis Cup and advocated that the team competition should be revered and respected as one of the pillars of the sport along with the four Grand Slam tournaments.
His vast and varied experiences as a player, promoter, tournament director, journalist, executive, agent and attorney gave him the unique perspective to see issues from every different angle — a Vantage Point he occupied alone.
“As a player, promoter, journalist and ardent supporter of the great sport of tennis, Gene Scott brought so much to our world and we all are better for having worked with him to grow the sport,” Hall of Famer Billie Jean King said. “He challenged the way we look at tennis and pushed us to make the sport better for everyone.”
Born on Dec. 28th, 1937 in New York City, Scott grew up in New York and on Long Island where he learned to play on a public park court.
“My heart is in public parks tennis. I began playing at age 10 in St. James Park on Long Island,” Scott said. “I learned on courts that had chain-link fences for nets. But there was nobody around to teach you.”
An accomplished all-around athlete who excelled in several sports, he played on the tennis, ice hockey and soccer teams and ran track at Yale, where he set a record that still stands: earning four varsity letters in four different sports for four consecutive years before graduating in 1960. He earned his law degree from the Virginia School of Law in 1965, was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1967 and worked as an attorney in the Wall Street law firm Burke & Burke from 1966-68.
During his tenure as a Wall Street attorney, Scott took time off from work in the summer of 1967 to take the daily subway ride from Manhattan to Forest Hills, Queens, former home of the U.S. Open. Competing as a part-time player and a full-time lawyer, the 29-year-old Scott, wielding the then-experimental steel Wilson T-2000 frame that would be made popular by Jimmy Connors a few years later, advanced to the semifinals before bowing to John Newcombe, who would go on to win the tournament.
In 1969, Scott formed Sports Investors, Inc., a company that directed and promoted tournaments, represented players and created opportunities in sports. He was a friend, confidant and mentor to many of tennis’ top players including Vitas Gerulaitis, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. Scott, one of the first professionals to recognize the brilliance of the young, talented, temperamental lefthander, partnered with McEnroe to win an amateur doubles title.
“People were coming up afterward and congratulating me for carrying this young kid to the title,” Scott confided years later. “When the reality was McEnroe, even at that age, could hit angles I couldn’t even conceptualize on court.”
At the 1977 Wimbledon, McEnroe reached the semifinals as a qualifier and partnered with Scott in the qualifying doubles draw to a slightly different result.
“As great as McEnroe was,” Scott said. “He wasn’t great enough to carry me out of the Wimbledon qualifying in doubles.”
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