The game starts to catch on

The Scarsdale Inquirer of December 11, 1931 carried the story with the headline:

“Paddle Tennis for Grown-Ups Grows More and More Popular With This Community. Fame of Game Developed on Wooden Platforms by Two Local Residents Spreads to Other Parts of the Country”

Vassar builds first college court

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

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Winter activity at Fox Meadow in 1936 included paddle and ice-skating. Playing paddle are Fess Blanchard and his daughter Ruth (on the right) playing against Kitty Fuller and an unidentified partner.  

Old Army Athletes bring their spirit to Fox Meadow

With the completion of the first paddle court, the Old Army Athletes joined Fox Meadow almost en masse and transferred their camaraderie and sense of fun to the Club. They formed the core of the new Paddle Committee (Cogswell, Gatchell, Blanchard and W. C. Harrison) and posted a notice on the Club bulletin board explaining the game in simple terms.

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1958, and Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983

The informal quality of the games stems from these beginnings and the influence of the Great Depression. As paddle drew more people on frigid days Blanchard, an enthusiastic skater, conceived the idea of flooding the unused tennis courts for ice-skating.

The unique ambience that still clings today to Fox Meadow evolved during winters of paddle and skating. It is captured in a frequently published photograph that first appeared in the Sunday New York Times in 1936. The picture shows a winter scene with ice skaters in the background and, in the foreground, a paddle match with Fess Blanchard and his daughter Ruth playing against Kitty Fuller and an unidentified partner.

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

 

First club court built at Fox Meadow Tennis Club in Scarsdale, NY

Of the twenty-five or more families comprising the Old Army Athletes (O.A.A.) in 1928, five were members of Fox Meadow Tennis Club and one of them had built their own court. They urged the club to put in a paddle court so Fox Meadow could become a year round sports rendezvous.

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Paddle Tennis, 1944

Expanding into an untried sport in the midst of a national economic depression was risky. Gradually worn down by the arguments of its O.A.A. members, the Board of Directors of the Fox Meadow Tennis Club had a meeting on April 15, 1931, to make a crucial decision. Should they or should they not put up a platform tennis court? They represented a tennis club and some of the avid tennis-playing members didn’t warm up a bit. Finally, a happy compromise was proposed on which the conservatives and the enthusiasts could agree. The club would put up a platform with a boarded end, marked suitably for practicing tennis strokes. It would also be marked for platform tennis with an easily removable net at the center.

On motion “duly made, seconded and carried [as the minutes of that meeting read] the Board authorized the construction of a Practice Tennis Court.” On November 1, 1931, the grand opening of the new platform, no longer called a “practice tennis court,” was featured by matches between teams from “both sides of the tracks.”

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Paddle Tennis, 1944, and Platform Paddle Tennis, 1958

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