Talk:Mercer Beasley

All of the below is source material that I may use to expand the article

from the Daily Princetonian http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2007/02/22/17422/

Great tennis coach neglected by history By BRITTANY URICK STAFF WRITER

Published: Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

No one epitomized this mantra better than Mercer Beasley, Princeton's tennis coach from 1933-37 and 1939-42. Plagued by poor eyesight, Beasley was never able to play the sport he loved. Instead, he educated himself in the fundamentals of the game and imparted the wisdom he gained to his students.

Despite developing 17 players who won a combined total of 84 national collegiate titles, Beasley and his influential role in the tennis world remain largely unrecognized.

A year before he began coaching at Princeton, having developed tennis greats including Ellsworth Vines, arguably the best competitor in the history of the sport, and child prodigy Frank Parker, Time magazine identified Beasley as the greatest tennis coach in American history.

This recognition raises a question: Why, after he impacted tennis at every level of the game, have the record books and archives continued to neglect Beasley? In 2001, he was inducted into the NCAA Tennis Hall of Fame, but he is still noticeably absent from the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I.

This question has been particularly perplexing for Brook Zelcer, a former tennis professional and current English teacher at Old Tappan High School in Westwood, N.J. Zelcer discovered the story of Mercer Beasley by chance at a tennis tournament during his coaching days.

"Once I took some students of mine to a tournament, and a man was throwing away old tennis magazines," Zelcer said. "One of the magazines had a reference to Mercer Beasley, naming him as the greatest American tennis coach. So I started checking out his story, and much to my surprise, I found out he was the best tennis coach in American history, no doubt about it."

Since that time, Zelcer has made it his personal mission to see that a proper legacy is given to this all-but-forgotten tennis icon.

"If you look at the players that he worked with," Zelcer said, "they constitute the history of American tennis. He taught these great champions from the 1920s all the way up until the 1950s, so how he could be absent from the tennis canon is beyond me. I think he remains one of the last great undiscovered American sports legends."

Beasley began his career at Manhattan's Notlek Novelty and Amusement, where he worked as a maintenance man around the tennis courts. After watching hours of tennis, he quickly uncovered the secrets of the game and began offering informal instruction to the regulars. When Victor Elting got wind of this tennis guru, he invited Beasley to work as a teaching professional at the Indian Hill Club of Winnetka, Ill. It was here that Beasley's career skyrocketed, when he succeeded in emancipating tennis from the confines of country club walls and made it available to the American public.

Beasley contributed greatly to the advancement of the game. In his 1933 book, "How to Play Tennis," Beasley delivers his formula for championship tennis, which involved consistent play, accuracy and proper court etiquette. He developed a precursor program to modern-day cross-training in which he encouraged his students to develop all aspects of their games by having them emulate movements found in other sports, including boxing, ballroom dancing, gymnastics, basketball and track.

The technology of tennis also improved due to his efforts. Beasley pioneered synthetic string, composite racquets, and ultralight footwear. He even created a "Mercer Beasley" tennis racquet for Spalding that became a popular choice in that era.

Princeton benefited greatly from Beasley's tennis genius. Beasley actually experienced Old Nassau as a student for a brief four-month stint in the fall of 1903 but was asked to leave because the faculty questioned his academic integrity and disapproved of his social behavior. Despite this setback, Beasley's return to Princeton was triumphant. During his career as the Tiger tennis coach, he compiled an overall record of 89-20-1 and led the team to back-to-back Eastern Intercollegiate Tennis Association (EITA) championships in 1941 and 1942.

Though unable to play the game to which he dedicated his life, Beasley revolutionized tennis and was one of the game's most influential teachers. Zelcer recently nominated Beasley for the professional Hall of Fame but will have to wait until the spring for this year's inductees to be announced. Justice will be served on the tennis courts of history if Beasley finally earns his well-deserved place among the esteemed greats of his sport.

Like grandfather, like grandson

It would seem that courts are a unifying principle. --Howard C. Berkowitz 04:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Dunno about the son in between, however -- mebbe he wuz a Court Jester (subject of an article?) Hayford Peirce 04:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the son had an unfortunate confusion between the chalice from the palace with the vessel with the pestle? --Howard C. Berkowitz 04:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Get it? Got it! Good! Hayford Peirce 04:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)