Vassar President Henry MacCraken dropped by the Blanchard’s unexpectedly in late 1931 “to find out about paddle tennis.” It was a necessary visit since an alumna had donated a court.

The article headline in the New York Sun on October 24, 1931 read: “Paddle Tennis to Be Tried Out at Vassar.”

At the end of a brief article about the game the Sun added, “Vassar is the first college to experiment with the new form of sport.” Unfortunately, the experiment was a failure, likely due to poor choices of court location and backstops, and the fact that there was only one court.

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959

Also see The game starts to catch on

The Great Depression also influenced the formative years of paddle. Money was short, and even those who were not suffering were reluctant to spend it.

In paddle, gear was cheap, no particular clothes were needed, and a court could be built for as little as $400.

It was a perfect game for lean times.

From the first game, Jimmy and Fess knew they were onto something promising. The court became a gathering place for their families and friends to socialize, play and fine-tune the game. The expanding circle of founders dubbed themselves the Old Army Athletes, for Old Army Road on which the Cogswell’s house stood.

During the winters of 1928, 1929, and 1930, the Old Army Athletes shaped the rules and character of platform tennis. They made it a family game, a sport that players of disparate abilities and ages could play together happily. This enthusiastic group of 25-30 families infused the game with the camaraderie and informality that has become its hallmark.

The Old Army Athletes even started a ”marital championship” with sixteen teams of husband-wife pairs only. There was a penalty of one point for each time a husband criticized the play of his wife, and vice versa. The judges had to listen carefully to detect any faint signs of sarcasm when sweet remarks seemed somewhat overdone.

Molly Blanchard Ware in a 1985 New York Times article recalled “Sagas were composed about the Titanic struggles on that Cogswell court. Pretty good sagas, as a matter of fact, because a Blanchard neighbor, Frederick Lewis Allen , author of Only Yesterday, a history of America in the 1920’s, was an ardent Old Army Athlete. Lives were changed and friendships cemented, because something new and fun and worth saving a weekend for had been invented.”

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Paddle Tennis, 1944, Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959, Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983, and Platform Tennis – Back Where it all Began, New York Times, March 10, 1985

On December 28, 1929, there was a gathering of the Old Army Athletes at Alger Sawyer’s house in Scarsdale. Frederick Lewis Allen (Editor of Harper’s Magazine at the time) and his wife staggered in and serenaded the guests. The song they sang was to the tune of Kipling’s “Gentlemen Rankers:”

Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959

As innovators of a new sport, the duo made a balanced team.

Jimmy Cogswell was a trained engineer with a job in sales. “He was fascinated with the question of how to build the court, the technical side of it,” said his daughter, Do Cogswell Deland.

By contrast, Fess Blanchard “was so un-mechanical he couldn’t change a light bulb,” according to his daughter Molly Ware. He was the game’s pied piper, publicist, and chief promoter.

These complementary skills provided a great impetus to the development of the game.

The biggest stroke of luck was that these displaced Bostonians had ended up being neighbors in the first place. Blanchard had moved to New York to pursue a textile career in New York City, but Cogswell had set his sights on using his engineering training in a mining career in Canada. Fortunately, his wife would have none of that and he re-invented himself as a textile salesman. He moved his family to Scarsdale where Blanchard was his back-yard neighbor and was employed in the same industry.

Blanchard and Cogswell were among the first inductees into the Platform Tennis Hall of Fame in 1965

Blanchard promoted the sport in countless articles and letters in the 1930s and ‘40s. He did radio interviews and published the first book about the sport in 1944.

Both Blanchard and Cogswell had a keen sense of fun, according to Do Deland. Molly Ware agreed, “One thing they had in common was their enthusiasm. They were like kids, never blasé. Neither of them minded being thought an idiot.”

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