In 1961, women’s platform tennis took on a different character. From 1935 until that time, play in the final round of the Women’s Nationals had been dominated, and probably rightfully so, by players from Scarsdale and the Fox Meadow Tennis Club, the birthplace of platform tennis. The change was swift, and while by no means wholesale, certainly a new dominance was evident. The locals were experiencing fierce and impressive competition from new players in the game from neighboring Connecticut and New Jersey. These new players changed the game and brought women’s competition to new levels of play. Peggy Stanton was part of this new breed of competitors, and quickly and decisively made her mark on the game.

Peggy’s partner, Charlotte Lee, was probably one of the finest women players to ever play the game. But, it in no way detracts from her record for, to play with the best, you have to be in that league to begin with. How good was she? Well, if the best lived in the wilds of New Jersey, and Peggy resided in the midst of Fairfield County, CT, a sizeable distance away, even with gas at only 35¢ a gallon, she was pretty good. Charlotte Lee said of her that, “it was her dedicated team effort that brought us to the finals so many times. Her concentration was marvelous. We rarely had to verbally communicate so great was her ability to work together and anticipate the moves of the opponent.” Stanton and Lee won the Women’s Nationals their first time out as a team in 1967, and three more times consecutively in 1968, 1969 and 1970. They were also finalists in 1971, so, they were in the last match of the tournament five out of five times.

Stanton also won the Senior Women’s 50+ in 1974 and 1977, and was a finalist in 1976, as well as in the Mixed Nationals in 1969.

Stanton had one of the best returns of service in the game and a deft drop shot. Her drop shot was often hit from the backcourt, an extremely difficult shot in platform tennis. She was deceptive at net, as opponents couldn’t tell where she would volley the ball, as her footwork and upper body rarely telegraphed the shot. But, probably her most distinctive characteristic was her concentration, and her strongest point was her tremendous will to win. Both partners and opponents alike agreed that she was a terrific competitor. If there was ever any shortfall technically, she made up for it with her aggressiveness. She wanted every point and was on her toes every second. Peggy operated on the court with a point-by-point philosophy and, especially when down, played each point as if it were the last.

Peggy also believed in practice. Stanton worked endlessly at her game, and took to practice the same kind of determination and spirit she took to competition. In one practice session with her partner against two other top women, one member of the opposing team fell to the court with a badly twisted knee, a not uncommon malady of paddle. Our candidate looked at the injured opponent and ran from the court, across the lawn and into the clubhouse. To get the first aid kit? To get ice from the freezer? To phone for a doctor? None of those. She ran to the pro shop to see if the club pro could fill in right away as a fourth. This was a practice session and it wasn’t going to end prematurely.

Her efforts for the game and for the cause of giving women’s paddle its rightful status did not go unnoticed. In 1971, Stanton was named both the first woman director of the APTA and the first APTA women’s tournament director, a position she held for three years.

Stanton worked for the game and worked to teach it to others. She was as good a coach as she was a player, and had the ability to pick up what a player was doing right or wrong without hesitation. She played many exhibitions and, after them, worked with the new players who were there watching. For years, she gave clinics at clubs all over this part of the country and was a teaching professional with her senior women’s partner in Greenwich.

Peggy was also quite a woman off the court. As a young lady, she was a fashion publicist in Paris and traveled over Europe for Givenchy, then became an artist representative and finally a real estate broker in Bedford, New York and Quogue, Long Island.

Source: Estabrook G. Kindred

Biographical Note: Born in New York City, she attended the Nightingale Bamford School, Rosemary Hall in Greenwich and graduated in 1944 from Colby-Sawyer College in New London, N.H. She obtained her first job in publicity at American President Lines in San Francisco in 1947. She returned to NYC to work for Ruth Hammer Assoc. in fashion publicity where she became the publicity director for the fashion designer, Hubert De Givenchy from 1952 to 1954. She continued her career in publicity working for Ley Renwick Realty in Bedford, N.Y. from 1970 to 1982. She received her New York State real estate license and worked for Quogue Realty Co. from 1970 to 2002.

Source:Obituary, Greenwich Time (Old Greenwich, CT), 28 Jun 2009

In the 1950s, Henry Chalfant built the first paddle court in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. It was a primitive court with a cement floor from an old greenhouse surrounded by old chicken wire, and had a tired tennis court net. Local country club members used it as something to do during the fall and winter months. In 1958, Pam and Wooley Bermingham, moved to Sewickley, PA, and, since Pam had grown up in Scarsdale, they were platform tennis enthusiasts and began playing on the Chalfant court. This marked the beginning of platform tennis’ rise in the Pittsburgh area.

When the Bermighams joined the Edgeworth Club, Wooley took the board members over to play on the Chalfant court. Slowly, he won them over by convincing them that the game would keep their club active in the winter, and the sport would be something that would catch on. The next winter, the first regulation court was put up, but because of some lingering skepticism, the court had to be portable, as it was considered an eye sore.

The club manager, who was part of the opposition, was horrified at this “animal cage.” So, Bermingham had the bartender keep track of the revenue after the court started to be used and, as any paddle player would expect, it was up. After two years of paying a tidy sum to take down and put up the portable court—a cost that likely would have buried the sport forever without Wooley’s determination—the court was made permanent in 1962. A second court was added two years later, and then came a warming hut, designed and built by Bermingham. (As a side note, the club manager who likened the court to an animal cage he moved on to another town and was quickly on the phone to see about getting courts there.)

The first court started to draw attention from paddle players in the surrounding area. Phil Osborne brought a group of players from Fox Chapel over to play and this ultimately lead to the formation of the Fox Chapel Racquet Club, and the beginning of the game in Fox Chapel, now a hot bed of paddle.

The key to all this success in growing the game was the Sewickley Invitational Paddle Tournament (SIPT), a mixed scrambles tournament held on that first court at the Edgewood Club. To enter, one-half the team had to be from another town, and it didn’t matter if participants had ever seen the game. All were encouraged to enter and have some fun. Attendance at the Friday night cocktail party, which opened the next two days of competition, was considered mandatory. By the third year, one-half the team had to be from sixty or more miles away, and guest were housed for free with local players. The success of the event prompted the Allegheny Country Club in Sewickley to build two courts in 1968. The tournament is still popular today.

In the first SIPT, Wooley played with a Cleveland resident who, quite rightly, thought this was the greatest game he’d ever seen. That started the game in Cleveland, with Bermingham traveling there to help promote the game, show how it was played, and even initiate a guest membership for Sewickley and Cleveland players.

Bermingham also traveled and turned on the paddle lights in Detroit, Cincinnati and Toledo He worked with them, got them to play in his tournaments, and helped local clubs start their own. And, all the while, he convinced one Pittsburgh area club after another, and one bordering municipality after another, of the beauties of this sport. In one town, known for its golf, the pitch was “you don’t play golf in the winter.” There are 20 courts in that town now.

In 1967, seven years after the first court was built, Wooley founded the Western Pennsylvania Platform Tennis Association (WPPTA) with five member clubs, the first platform tennis regional organization and ultimately the first subsidiary region of the APTA. In 1968, he was made a regional vice president of the APTA, the first with a true regional organization, and he held this position for four years. When Bermingham stepped down, his region had 17 member clubs and municipalities. He was elected to the APTA board in 1973 and served as a director of the association until 1975.

After getting the WPPTA off the ground, Bermingham started men’s, women’s and mixed competitions, all of them open tournaments, with the West Penn Open being a particular highlight. A year after starting the open tournaments, he initiated the first junior tournament to encourage junior court time, and was active in the Saturday morning clinics for children and young adults started by David Schaff at the Edgewort Club. Two years later, he organized league play. Within five years, there were 600 people playing competitively on a weekly basis.

Bermingham knew he wasn’t going to be a national champion, but he knew he could lead people to paddle, and could teach them to play and love the game anyway. And, that’s really what paddle has always been about and what a large part of this APTA award is about.

Wooley was born March 21, 1925 in Rye, NY, and attended Rye Country Day School, Taft School, and Bowdoin College. He served his country in the 104th Timberwolf Infantry Division and was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery and the Purple Heart. His professional career was in advertising and sales in New York City, Pittsburgh, and Vermont. Woolly was an avid sailor and sportsman.

He died peacefully at home in South Londonderry, VT, on November 4, 2004.

At the time of her induction in 1976, Wasch was the fifth ranked woman in total number of points in APTA championship play (for wins and second-place finishes), and she was the youngest woman ever to win the APTA Honor Award. Her ability with a racquet was at the level of a select few, her sportsmanship abounded, her smile and cheerfulness were legendary, and her record in our game was that of a true champion. All this was achieved despite serious illness, despite living in a comparative platform tennis wasteland, despite being a four-time mother, and despite playing mixed doubles with a very large brother who freely admitted to stepping on her lower extremities frequently while he was covering the court.

Her exposure to tennis and, particularly platform tennis, began at a very early age. Her winter playpen was a 60 x 30 foot wooden platform with 12-foot high mesh wire for its sides at the Fox Meadow Tennis Club. She was playing both tennis and platform tennis by ten and, by fifteen, with her natural ability and determination, was well on her way, to the lovely player she would become. At that age, in 1950, the Eastern Lawn Tennis Association gave her the number one ranking in Girls’ 15 doubles and, a year later, she had a number seven Eastern ranking in Junior Girls’ singles. She won the Fox Meadow Tennis Club women’s doubles three times as a teenager. She also played Junior Wightman Cup tennis for two years and her coach remembers her as a heady player with beautiful groundstrokes, and as a terrific, determined competitor.

And then, because the strong always seem to be tested, Susan fell ill and required two operations, and a subsequent prognosis of no more tennis. Her groundstrokes didn’t count now, but her competitiveness and her determination did. She met what she faced and bested it. It wasn’t easy, and it took a long time, but she did it , all of which is a measure of her as a person. Her gift for racquet sports and her skills were still there and she called on them again. But, this time the sport this was platform tennis.

National Championships in paddle started in 1935, the year Susan was born, and in the sport’s and her 22nd year, 1957, she was a finalist in the Mixed Nationals, getting there with a partner, James Carlisle, who had wanted to play with her famous mother, Madge Beck. He’d asked many times, but Madge was pretty much in constant demand and not often, if ever, available. However, she told Carlisle she had a talented daughter and suggested he play with her. They did, and she became the youngest player ever to be a finalist in the Mixed Doubles, and was runner-up three more times, in 1960, 1965, and 1973. She also won the Mixed Nationals in 1972 with her brother, John Beck.

In 1959, at the age of twenty-four, she partnered with her mother to win the first of her four Women’s Nationals, in doing so, becoming the youngest woman to win the title. at that time. She was also a finalist in 1964 and 1967.

Susan and other members of the Childress family had a kind of dominance in women’s doubles competition. From 1935 through 1967, there were twenty-seven championships and she, her mother, and her two aunts, were winners or finalists twenty-two times. Susan, herself, was a winner or finalist six times in nine years of play. She was mentioned in Blanchard’s book Platform Paddle Tennis, published the year she won her first title. With many other fine players to talk about, Fess Blanchard called her “one of the greatest pressure players in the game with a forehand as strong as women’s platform tennis has seen.” He also marveled at her deceptive and well-hit drop-volleys that won her many points with a technique that Fess wished others would study and use. Though she learned the game and many of its finer points from her mother, considered the “Champion’s Champion,” she added her own special qualities. Wasch was beautifully steady under pressure and played with great consistency. And, she could dig down deep to lift her game when she had to. She was fast anywhere on court and a terrific net player, which might have been the result of her mother pounding balls at her when she was a young girl, with the admonition, “Don’t you ever back up.”

Sports Illustrated “Faces in the Crowd” identifies amateurs whom the editors feel have recorded a significant sports accomplishment. Wasch made that page after returning to the game from a virtual seven-year and four-child retirement to win the 1972 Mixed Nationals with her brother. At that time, she had no one to play with where she lived and wasn’t even a weekend player. She played only once before the tournament.

While remembering the talent, the people she played with and against, mostly remember the person – how much they liked her, her sportsmanship, the smile. A young competitor she grew up with said she didn’t know what childhood would have been without this girl and their time on the court at Fox Meadow. One of her frequent opponents said you’d see that lovely smile just as she was about to crush you at net, and everything was OK. Another said that her temperament and sense of fair play—so fair, that she’d give points away, so nice that it interfered with her competitive instincts—made her stand out. How many times she’s broken her own concentration to compliment a shot no one knows. Susan liked to win all right, she wasn’t going to while wearing a coat of antagonism or hostility.

At the time of her induction, she was still a strong contender and brought her oldest son along so that the dynasty could continue. She also took a course to be a member of the American Professional Platform Tennis Association and teach the game she knows so well and loves so much. She worked with the coach at Westover on a court she helped dedicate, and Hotchkiss and Choate also sought her help.

Early on, Moses seemed to be a fixture at the Fox Meadow Tennis Club, spending afternoons tossing tennis balls between the rafters in the clubhouse and, by the age of ten, he was on the courts. Very soon, he was beating people a lot older than he was. Platform tennis was brand new at the time and not particularly interested in encouraging youngsters, so his early concentration was on tennis, where he compiled a truly outstanding record. John was captain of the Scarsdale High School tennis team and then matriculated at Exeter. As a senior there, he won the 1941 National Interscholastic Doubles Championship, and earned rankings in both interscholastic doubles and singles.

The next stop was Yale, where Moses played varsity tennis as a freshman and was ultimately captain of the University team. He was also captain of the combined Yale-Harvard team that played against a combined Oxford-Cambridge team, where he beat a young Irish Davis Cup player. In 1947, he was Eastern Collegiate doubles champion and it is interesting to note a couple of players that year who were number one and two respectively in men’s singles, and number one in men’s doubles: Don McNeill and Frank Guernsey. When these two tennis greats ultimately turned to platform tennis, they were in the finals of the Men’s Nationals in 1953 against Moses and Rawle Deland, and Guernsey later teamed up with John to win in 1957. Their close association with Moses was a testament to his ability and the caliber of the people with whom he was hobnobbing on the court.

While Moses was becoming the number one ranking junior tennis player in the nation, he also began to make a name in platform tennis. At the tender age of 19, while he was in the service and between stints at Yale, he was a finalist in the Men’s Nationals in 1943, the youngest person ever to be a finalist. When he won the men’s doubles in 1947, he was again the youngest male to ever attain that distinction. At that time the game had been dominated by players such as Couch, O’Hearn, Sutter, Hyde and Wiley, all in their mid 30s to mid 40s. He compiled his record with four different partners, and he did it over a period of fifteen years. At that time, only three other male players in the game—Kip Couch, Charlie O’Hearn, and Dick Hebard—were finalists in men’s national competition over as long a period.

Moses also had two Mixed National finals to his credit—in 1955, when he won, and 1956, when he was a finalist. He might very well have been in the record book way past that 15th year—since at that point he was only thirty-three years old—had his career not caused him to move first to Delaware, and then to Kansas City. Paddle was nowhere to be found in Heartland, USA, and he had a battle getting it off the ground. But he loved the game and was going to play, so he persuaded the Kansas City Country Club to build first two courts, and then, a third. He tried, repeatedly, to get courts built at other Kansas City clubs, but was constantly frustrated in the endeavor. Moses was able to put together a foursome, though, of the best he could find, so he could play and have some sort of competition. He was considered, rightly so, the best Kansas City had in tennis and squash, and yards above everyone there in platform tennis.

A profile of Moses wouldn’t be complete without mention of his honors in squash. In the seven years since the inception of the “Heart of America” squash tournament in Kansas City, he was a winner or runner-up six times, and had a number one ranking in the sport.

In platform tennis, Fess Blanchard characterized him as a player who, at his best, had few equals and he was at his best most of the time. John was a natural athlete, with a relaxed, effortless style. His quickness in sharp rallies at the net was remarkable. He was one of the first great left-handed paddle players, and one of the first players to be proficient in hitting overhead smashes from high shots off the wire. He had a highly tuned sense of anticipation, was extremely quick, and had few equals in court coverage. In the 1940’s and 50’s, he was a master of retrieving shots hit through his team at the net off the back wire. This strategy became a standard of top-flight play in the 1970s, but he was doing it 30 years earlier. Moses was tall and had a great big American twist service to go with his height, and a beautiful slashing under-slice backhand, both of which he brought to paddle from tennis.

Fess Blanchard named him one of the top five players in the game in his 1959 book on platform tennis, noting that Moses was “a man who stood out as consistently just a bit better than anyone else.” Fess didn’t comment on attitude, but that, too, was part of why Moses reached the top tier of the game. His sportsmanship was a dominant characteristic. Though he was a competitor with purpose, to be sure, he had the unusual combination of wanting to win but still being a complete gentleman, and whether beaten or not, his temperament was the same.

At the time of his induction in 1976, Moses was the seventh ranked male in points earned for APTA national championship play, even though he played his last competitive match more than 20 years earlier. At the time of his death, John had retired to East Boothbay, Maine, in the same area where his family had summered for several generations.

Since the start of the game in 1928, the design and construction of the courts have continually evolved. But, beginning in the early 1960s, the game was really growing and the time was ripe for innovation in building platform tennis courts. Besides making for better play, better courts also acted as catalysts for the game to grow. Into this environment stepped Dick Reilly who, as much as anyone else, triggered the boom in platform tennis.

Dick hailed from Scarsdale NY, where he was a high school athlete and outstanding football player. He graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1953 and then went to Dartmouth (pre-med), and taught at two different high schools, before his love of woodworking got him into house building. Though he enjoyed building homes, Reilly wanted to work for himself and wasn’t sure that home construction was the best way to do so. At that moment in his life, he played on a bad platform tennis court. A perfectionist, dedicated to the premise that if it was worth doing it at all it was worth doing well, Dick wouldn’t countenance a bad house, and certainly not a bad platform tennis court. Loose deck joints bothered him, as did bad wires because, when they lost tension and became soft, they could ruin the fun of the game.

Reilly set about to change all of this, but it took time and perseverance. He built only one court his first year and then seven in the second year. With the completion of a fifth court that second year, Dick nearly made a huge mistake. He introduced his wife, who was nursing a four-week old, to the game in which he wanted to make a livelihood. He took her out into ten degree weather to play with a rock-hard ball and clunky paddles on a court that he had just sold at his cost. Both his marriage and career survived, and it was all up hill from there.

Brimming with ideas about how to improve the playability of the court, each successive court Reilly built was different. He felt that safety hazards were inhibiting the growth of the game and that players should have access to courts with constant playing characteristics. He eliminated butt joints on the playing surface and random length lumber. All floorboards came together under the net, which meant using 30-foot lumber for the first time. Then he developed a new tension system for screens so they could be tightened from the up-rights. And, instead of the traditional concrete block foundations, he made foundations of sonotubes.

Because platform tennis is played in months when trees are bereft of leaves, he painted the superstructure brown to make the court less conspicuous. He developed the hinged snow boards that are standard today, and did away with the four upper corner cross pieces that often got in the way of high bounce wire shots. Other developments included a new post system and collar so the posts could be removed and the court used for other sports, and the addition of walnut chips and, later on, aluminum oxide to the deck paint, for which the tennis shoe manufacturers of the country thanked him.

A discussion of Reilly’s innovations wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of the use of aluminum. As a purist, he hated the idea of it, but saw it as providing the longevity that wood did not have, and knew that aluminum also had the capability for conducting heat. No one came to him about this metal, he went to them. The mill, however, wasn’t interested. He then went to the men who designed the Head Company’s aluminum tennis racquet and, together, they worked on the forms, dyes, specs, and extrusions that would be used. His work on this project was typical: a total effort, exhibiting the type of thoroughness that colored his whole attitude towards whatever job was at hand. He was right, too. All courts today are now aluminum.

Dick Reilly’s research and pioneering improvements in design moved the science of platform tennis court building forward dramatically, and he set the bar for quality.

Although Dick knew little of photography, he knew the game deserved better representation on film. So, he began to film the sport, collecting thousands of feet of film over time.

As important as his contribution to court construction had been, he made equally important social contributions. He donated a platform tennis court to the New York School for the Deaf. He developed a maintenance program for his courts in the summer that provided summer-time work for college attendees to repair and recondition courts. All of the participants in this program had to be working to cover at least one half of their college tuition, room and board, must have demonstrated leadership in school, and had to be articulate. Moreover, they had to have the same kind of desire as the boss to do the job well. There were rules of behavior on and off the job and they didn’t get paid until the customer accepted their work. Finishing it wasn’t enough.

He also had a dream for a school for gifted drop-outs and one charitable foundation offered him a job. He took it and spent a year working in the south-east for the poor. He started a weekend football league in his town that had 300 4th to 8th grade students as regulars, and then went on to be a head high school football coach

Many years after being out of college, Reilly went back to the books working toward a MBA and a degree in Public Health. He retired to Montana, where he started a paddle teaching camp.

Sources: Hall of Fame Induction comments as printed in Off The Wire, Vol. 6 No. 3, Spring 1975; Watertown Daily Times, May 4, 1971; personal communication with Richard J. Reilly.

Gray had barely heard of platform tennis and had played only sporadically before 1965. He had been a fine tennis player but when the seasons changed, for him the sport ended. Tennis friends talked about what a great game paddle was and Gordon finally gave it a serious try with another tennis player who was also in the game for the first time. To them, this became not just an enjoyable weekend game, but a focused endeavor that included participation in invitational tournaments and national tournaments. And, his relative inexperience with the sport did not stop him from winning the 1966 Mixed Nationals and upsetting three seeds to reach his first Men’s Nationals final.

The first couple of outings were nothing to write home about, but the fun Gray had playing this game, the challenge and love of competition, the desire to be the best and to win, showed through. The natural talent helped, but it was hard work, coupled with an analytical approach, that lead to his success. Right from the start Gordon analyzed both the matches he lost as well as the ones he won, watched others who could be learned from, practiced, incessantly.

In 1967, he won the Mixed Nationals a second time and, in 1968, won it for a third time, all with Anne Symmers. The Mixed Nationals hat trick had only been done twice before, and not since 1952 (Note: Elfie and Ronald Carroll won four straight from 1949 to 1952, and CharleyO’Hearn and his wife, Virginia, won from1936 -1938). And, he did it in the first three years he played the game.

Overlapping these wins in mixed doubles was the beginning of a reign in men’s doubles as well. Gray and his partner, Jesse Sammis III, by now a seasoned team with the precise melding of abilities, communication and concentration that are prerequisites to winning, took the Men’s Nationals three times in a row, in 1969, 1970 and 1971. Again, a hat trick, a feat done only once before by Dick Hebard and Zan Carver (1961-1963). They were finalists again in 1972. So, over a seven year period—from 1966-1972—this team got to the final round six times.

Gray was above all, a thinking player and one who thrived on paddle. Paddle was not something that he had to do, but he did it for the pure love of the game. Once he got started, he quickly became an innovator of the attacking game. Gordon attacked with consistency and it was a key to his victories. He hit balls on the rise and always had his opponents under pressure. He hit flat shots, which left little margin for error in a game where errors are costly. But, he got so proficient, he could hit the ball as hard as he wanted and not make the error. He had terrific hand-eye coordination and quickness in reacting, particularly at the net. He volleyed offensively and was difficult to pass.

Out on the court he was hard, severe, and dedicated and didn’t fool around. Along with his two partners, Anne Symmers and particularly Jesse Sammis, he introduced a whole new level of play to platform tennis and changed the game. Through all of this, he was eminently fair and an exemplary sportsman in a game where sportsmanship abounds. Gordon also had a great sense of proportion. Winning was important to him, but so were the game’s other ingredients—fun and loyalty to partner. He played the game the way he lived his life –thoroughly and with great enjoyment. He won often and he did it with a smile and, when he did lose, he could also do so with a smile.

Gordon was born in New York City and attended the Groton School (1951) and Princeton University (1955). He served two years as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps. A long-time resident of Greenwich, CT, he was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley Asset Management in Manhattan before retiring in 1998. Gray and his family then moved to Wilson, WY, where died at home in 2007.

Footnote: The honor award to Gray was, in a way, unique. Only once in twenty-seven previous occasions had the APTA honor award been given to a man or woman who was still in the prime of his or her game, had recently been a champion, or was still a highly ranked player. It had most often been given to people who had already made their mark, and rarely to those still making it. However, the Honor Award committee felt that Gray had such a fine record and such superb ability on the paddle court that the recognition of his talents was deserved.

What started as a love for the game and a corporate relocation developed into a string of facilities and a level of enthusiasm for the sport such that—in one town alone—there was as much play as in any section of Westchester County, Central Fairfield County or suburban New Jersey.

Osborne had lived, played and promoted the game in the metropolitan New York City area but then was relocated to an area some 400 miles away where they’d gotten along just fine without much paddle for most of the years the game had been burgeoning out east. His first thought was to build his own court, but that wasn’t going to result in the enjoyment of more than a few and he knew the game could be as big “out west” as it had been at home. He approached the three clubs in town to promote the game and got three firm rejections. “Golf is our sport and besides, you can play ping pong almost any place, ” was the prevailing attitude.

Undaunted, he got a group of people together who enjoyed playing and took them twenty-three miles west to another suburban town that, short of taking an airplane ride, had the only two courts around. After holding a successful demonstration, he had a group of converts but still no interest on the part of the existing clubs. The only answer was to build a new Club and that’s exactly what they did. They found suitable land in a heavily populated area, raised seed money, and recruited members. They wanted a club built around active participation, so the first consideration was the courts, built by R. J Reilly in 1964. The clubhouse came along seven years later. Club participation also meant working on projects, and this emphasis on participation had a great deal to do with the character of the family- oriented membership and the flavor of the club. Osborne served as the first President of the Fox Chapel Racquet Club, that opened in Fox Chapel, PA. A member of the club said, “I don’t know what we did in the winter before he came.”

Osborne played a key role in the subsequent growth of paddle in the whole area. Clubs which originally turned him down developed paddle complexes as prime facilities and he was involved in the development of almost every one, from helping to pick out feasible sites, conferring on court construction, and advising on companion structures from which to watch or recuperate. While doing all of this he championed the sport by encouraging new players to visit his club to watch and play before their own courts were built, began clinics for beginners, and held strategy sessions for the more advanced players. He did all this just for the love of the game.

Osborne, who worked for Alcoa, was an early proponent of the aluminum deck that had been developed by Dick Reilly in the early 1970s a surface, he said, that would last because it wouldn’t rot, warp, cup, twist or check, and one that could accommodate an automatic ice and snow-melting system.

While not a nationally ranked player, he was a semi- and the quarterfinalist in the National Men’s Seniors, in the latter losing in a three-set match to two pretty fair players, Zan Carver and Dick Hebard. He was also a semi-finalist in the West Pennsylvania Mixed, and Men’s Doubles Champion at his own Club.

Osborne served on the Board of both the the Western Platform Tennis Association and, before relocating to Pittsburgh, had been president of the Englewood, NJ, Field Club for two years, during which time their original paddle complex was moved to a better location and two new courts added.

Moore was one of the three Childress siblings that formed a platform tennis dynasty stretching from 1936 to 1974, and was a fine tennis player. She loved our game and did very well at it. She won the Woman’s six times, the first in 1937 with her sister Sally, then was a finalist in 1940-1942 with Mrs. Burr Price. At that point there was a six- year hiatus in the Women’s Nationals because of war-time travel difficulties. When play restarted in 1949, she began a winning partnership with her other sister, Madge, that led to five titles and one finalist finish in 1950. She won the Mixed in 1946 with Lamar Fearing, and was runner up in 1939 and 1951. In National Woman’s Doubles, only her sister Madge has won or been a finalist more times.

In the twenty-nine Woman’s Nationals played from 1935-1969 she, one of her sisters (Madge or Sally), or her niece (Susan Beck Wasch), have been finalists in twenty-two. She was part of a family that thrived on competition. She was a “beautifully steady” player with a tremendous forehand, a great cross course shot and she never gave up. The record proves that.

In tennis, she won the New Hampshire Singles four times since 1965, had a number ten ranking nationally in the Senior Woman’s Doubles, and had been ranked in the top fifteen in the New England States Woman’s Singles twice. For years she was the premier woman’s tennis player at the Fox Meadow Tennis Club in Scarsdale and took the time and the effort to coach young people there.

Moore was born in Scarsdale, NY where she spent her childhood and married life. She graduated from the Spence School in New York City and founded The Maizie Shop in Hartsdale, NY in the 1940s.

Source: APTA Annual Minutes, Nov 5, 1970

Footnote: Maizie was Hall of Fame honoree Oscar Moore’s first wife.

Carver was the number one tennis player at the University of North Carolina and from there went on the tennis circuit as an amateur. He played at the premier United States Tournament, the Nationals at Forest Hills, six times in 1940, 1944, 1946-1948, and 1952. In 1944, he played his way to the quarterfinals, disposing the eighth seed in the round of 16 to get there. He emerged from Forest Hills that year ranked 11 nationally.

Zan was such a dedicated tennis player that, when he was exposed to platform tennis, he continued to play tennis year round because he was afraid that paddle might be detrimental to his strokes. This has been a fear often-voiced fear by tennis players, but he was living proof that that isn’t the case. He adopted our non-resilient, short handled paddle in the off-season and went on to become a leading proponent of the game. He introduced at least four crack tennis players—Don Budge, Don McNeill, Chuck McKinley and Jack Kramer—and, one movie star, Charlton Heston, to platform tennis. He not only played, promoted, and loved the game—he won at the game.

A three time winner of the Men’s Nationals with Dick Hebard from 1961-1963 Carver and his partner were one of five teams in history to win three or more times, and one of four teams so far to turn the platform tennis “hat trick” of winning three times in a row. Zan also won the Mixed Doubles in 1964, and was runner-up four times in 1958, 1962, 1963 and 1968. He was a two-time winner in the Men’s Seniors in 1963 (45+) and 1970 (50+), and was a finalist in that event in 1968. He is also ranked third among male players in the number of Tournaments in which he has been a finalist.

In all of this, Carver showed his highly tuned ability and competitiveness. All his shots were good, but his best was probably his return of service, which was powerful and consistent. Not consistent in the sense of it being hit to the same place or at the same speed, but consistent in deftness and authority and in its absence of errors. In fact, Zan’s entire game was characterized by absence of errors. He was also highly skilled at the half volley and was also extremely successful at bringing the center court theory of tennis doubles to platform tennis.

Tales of his sportsmanship were legend, and in a game where this quality abounds, this man’s selflessness consistently stood out.

Source: Adapted from Induction Speech, as printed in the APTA Annual Meeting Minutes Nov 5th 1970

Elfie Carroll was not as widely known as many of the players from New Jersey, Westchester or Connecticut where there had been tremendous growth in the number of courts and in amount of play. She was a resident of Forest Hills and played platform tennis at the Seminole Club there in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s at a time when Long Island was not a hot bed of the game as it later became. In 1952, she stopped playing the game almost altogether when she and her husband moved deep into the hinter lands of that sandy Indian reservation known as Long Island. As the Shinnecock Indians put it – “Quoguei wachi” – or – “No Courts”.

None of this deterred her excellence on the courts. She would win a National tournament, put the racket down for a year and pick it up a few days before the next tournament and win again. Over a twelve-year span, from 1949 to 1960, she was a winner or finalist 14 times in the Woman’s and Mixed. She won the Woman’s three times—in 1950, 1955 and 1958—and was runner-up five times—in 1951, 52, 53, 57 and 1960. She and her husband won the Mixed four straight years, from 1949-1952, a record that stood almost 30 years. She is the third ranking woman in total number of APTA Tournaments in which she either won or was a finalist.. Many believe she would have had an even more impressive record had she had the chance to play more often.

Elfie was a former New York State tennis champion in singles and doubles and was able to quickly adapt her tennis prowess to platform. Her big shot was her forehand, hit with a western grip and with an effective over-spin and in her prime was considered to be one of the best women volleyers with quick reflexes and great agility.

Elfie was born Elfriede Kriegs-Au in Vienna, Austria on November 5 1915. She came to the US around 1939 with her husband Ronald who was born in Poland who she had met in Havana, Cuba in the mid 1930s