I remember when Dad won his first trophy!

Dad played, almost every tournament that we played. He lost in the first or second round, most of the time and it gave him time to watch my matches. He played Jimmy Fonsville and lost in the finals, in a very long match and that was the first trophy.


He watched and watched and always had a word to tell me about what I did or didn't do, win or lose. After I lost to Joann Jacobs, in the finals of one the woman's tournament at Rochdale, he and I had an unwritten law. He would never again watch me in my sight, if it was a tourney. He couldn't control himself and his mouth and I couldn't win, if he was watching.

I know that my father admired my strokes and my youth; his pressure on me meant that I had potential. I didn't know that, then.
He screamed and yelled in front of everybody, because we had practiced hundreds and hundreds of crosscourt, put away shots and when the drop shot came to me at game point, I sliced it and tried to dropshot her back. You never dropshot Jo Jacobs, she ran like a deer and put it away on me. I was too young to let my father's words run like water off of a duck's back. He watched me from the mountains at Rochdale and from the clefts in the rocks at Crotona, etc. and if he saw me see him, he would move. I knew what he would say and the pressure was working, just working inwardly and not always outwardly.


It is interesting that when he won his trophy, we were there to cheer him and I am so grateful that he won great parent award at Forest Hills. He took on parenting with all that he had. He had no father and he gave fatherhood all of the strength that was in him. The impact was powerful.