Barbara Koegel (1921-1968) and the Koegel Award

Although she won twenty club titles in tennis and paddle, as well as two APTA titles, one in Women’s Doubles and one in Mixed Doubles, and was inducted into The Platform Tennis Hall of Fame in 1966, Barbara Koegel is remembered best at Fox Meadow for the help and encouragement she gave to other players, as opposed to her own play. As coach of the Paddle Pals at FMTC in the 1950s and 1960s, she made it fun to work hard at improving one’s game.

Barbara’s husband, William F. Koegel, served as President of FMTC from 1973-1975.

Source: Adapted from Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983

Several ladies chairmen gave credit for team play in the late 1950s and the 1960s to Koegel. When Barbara coached Paddle Pals, says Delsa Wilson, she instilled a competitive spirit by constantly telling the players, “You have to want the ball to come to you.” Dotsie Erskine added, “It was fun to improve our paddle because our mentor Bobbie Koegel engendered such spirit and sportsmanship and camaraderie.”

During her tenure as ladies chairman, Clare Kingsbury and her committee proposed that the Club create a suitable memorial for Barbara Koegel, who died in 1968. The award reads, “given in memory of a champion who gave her time and talents to develop paddle tennis among women of our Club.” Presented to women Club members for achievement and sportsmanship, the Koegel award winners are listed on a plaque created in the form of a huge paddle by Scott Wood.

Source: Adapted from Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983

Barbara Bixler was born October 11, 1921 in Jersey City, New Jersey. She and her younger sister, Joan, were the only children of Donald and Dora Bixler. At an early age, Barbara and her family moved to Forest Hills, New York, where they joined the West Side Tennis Club, which was then the foremost tennis club in the area and the site of the men’s and women’s National tournaments. She took up tennis as a young girl at her father’s urging, under the tutelage of the club pro, George Agutter. He held the job at West Side for 46 years, was described by Al Laney as “the country’s No. 1 tennis professional,” and was much loved and respected. He developed in his pupils a sweeping style of backhand that was very graceful and very effective, and such a trademark that his pupils could often be identified in later years.

Barbara’s tennis developed very rapidly and she became the club’s women’s singles champion while still in high school. The family moved to Garden City, Long Island, in the late thirties, but kept the West Side membership. In 1940, Barbara played in the Nationals (then on grass) and in the first round defeated the French girl’s champion. According to the newspaper account: “A sunny blonde, enjoying her first attempt in the big tournament, made the home club people very happy – to say nothing of her mother and father who watched joyously as she made a sensational battle out of a losing fight and scored a coveted victory. (0-6, 6-1, 6-1).”

Barbara went on to Smith College, where she graduated in 1943. She was captain of the tennis and squash teams and won the college championships in both sports. After marrying William F. Koegel in 1946, she and her husband lived in Charlottesville VA where he attended University of Virginia Law School. There, she continued to play tennis while she also began to raise a family. She won the Albemarle County (Charlottesville) ladies’ singles championship and played squash, non-competitively.

In 1949 she moved to Hartsdale and in 1952 to Walworth Avenue in Scarsdale. She played at County Tennis Cub until 1955 and was the ladies’ tennis champion. In that year she and her husband joined Fox Meadow Tennis Club and her attachment to paddle tennis began. In ten years, until she gave up competitive play in 1965 for health related reasons, she won twenty club titles in tennis and paddle and won the APTA National Women’s Doubles in 1956 (with Mrs. Peyton [Sally] Auxford) and the National Mixed Doubles title (with Zan Carver) in 1962.

Fessenden Blanchard, in his book Platform Paddle Tennis, had these comments about Barbara Koegel: “Mrs. William F. (Barbara) Koegel is another first-class player, who has come to the top in recent years. She is a sister-in-law of the highly rated Frank Guernsey. In the semi-finals of the national mixed doubles at the Wee Burn Club in February 1959, she played as fine a game as I have ever seen any woman play. Though she and her partner, Herman Schaefer, lost to George Lowman and Sally Auxford in a very close, exciting match, Barbara’s steadiness and poise in returning difficult shots off the wires, her low volleying, her backhands and her all-around play were outstanding. And she continued her fine play in reaching the finals of the 43-team national women’s doubles championship in 1959, with my daughter, Mrs. Frederick B. (Ruthie) Walker, as her partner. As Kitty Fuller put it, she is ‘what the men call a real clutch player’.” And, as one of her partners put it, ‘she’s a spectator’s joy and a partner’s dream’.”

In the late 50′s and early 60′s, she served as captain and coach of the Westchester Junior Wightman Cup team. The Wightman cup was donated by the Queen Mother of tennis, Mrs. Hazel Wightman, who was herself a winner of forty-one national championships. The annual competition was, and still is, between English and American teams. Play would alternate between Wimbledon and Forest Hills. To encourage interest in the younger girls (up to 18), teams were formed from Westchester/Connecticut, Long Island and New Jersey. Barbara, who knew Mrs. Wightman well from Forest Hills days, agreed to captain the Westchester/Connecticut group of about two dozen girls, including several from Fox Meadow. She devoted a great deal of time to the practices and the matches and got great satisfaction from the experience.

Barbara died on October 16, 1968, after a four-year bout with colon cancer, at the age of 47.