PLAYER
Katrina Adams
Althea Gibson was the first African American to enter and win the US Nationals. Arthur Ashe was the first person to win the US Open. On January 1, 2015, Katrina Adams made equally important history by becoming the first African American to serve as the Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) – the organization that owns and operates all official US national championship tournaments and the US Open. The USTA is the governing body of tennis in the US. Adams was selected because of her successful 10 years of service on the Board and instrumental role as First Vice President of the Board in 2013-2014. Her selection for this role is particularly significant in an organization which had a history of openly discriminating against African Americans by preventing them from participating in their events.Adams is also the first former professional tennis player to serve as the Chairman, President and CEO of the USTA. She was an accomplished professional tennis player who won 20 WTA Tour doubles titles and one ITF singles title. Her 1988 -1999 career high rankings include #8 in doubles and # 67 in singles both in 1989. After retiring from professional tennis, Adams successfully transitioned into coaching and broadcasting. In the coaching arena, from 1999-2002, Katrina served as a national tennis coach for the USTA, coaching and mentoring junior and professional tennis players in all aspects of their careers. Her television career began as a commentator for BET’s coverage of the United Negro College Fund Celebrity Golf and Tennis Challenge from 1999-2001. In addition, Adams provided analysis on the international feeds of the 1999 Pilot Pen and Lipton Championships and ESPN’s coverage of the 1999 Bausch and Lomb Championships. Since that time she has served as a tennis analyst for the Tennis Channel and a contributor to Tennis Magazine.
Off the courts, Katrina has helped provide strategic direction for the WTA Tour and professional women players worldwide, serving four one-year terms as a player representative on the WTA Tour Board of Directors and participating in the integration of the WTA Tour, ITF and Players Associations. She also served five two-year terms on the WTA Tour Players Association Board of Directors in the posts of vice president and treasurer and chairman of the Anti-Doping committee. Since 2005, Adams has served as the Executive Director of the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program where she helps local children learn tennis and succeed in school and life.
Born and raised in Chicago, Adams started playing tennis at the age of six on the public parks tennis courts. She is pictured here with the Black Tennis Hall of Fame Founder Dale Caldwell and Executive Director Bob Davis. Adams earned a tennis scholarship to Northwestern University where she studied communications and became the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Rookie of the Year in 1986. In 1986 and 1987, she teamed with her college doubles partner Diane Donnelly to amass an incredible two year doubles record of 72-5. In 1987, Adams became the first African American to win the NCAA Doubles Championship. Adams and Donnelly did not lose a set on their way to the collegiate championship. They were both named to the NCAA All-American team twice (1986 and 1987). Adams was inducted into the Northwestern University Hall of fame in 1998, the USTA Midwest Section Hall of Fame in 2005, the Chicago District Tennis Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame in 2015.
CONTRIBUTORS
David Dinkins
In 1990, David Norman Dinkins made political history by becoming the first and, to date, only African American Mayor of New York City. He is a passionate tennis fan who has shaped tennis history by using his influence as Mayor to clear barriers to the US Open’s growth. In 1994, Mayor Dinkins and his administration negotiated a property lease agreement in Flushing Meadows, New York that benefited both the USTA and the City of New York. This agreement has increased the net profitability of the tournament and enabled it to have a greater positive economic impact on New York City than all of the Yankees, Mets, Rangers and Knicks home games combined. It is one of the reasons that the US Open in Flushing Meadows, Queens is the most financially successful tennis tournament in the world.
The lease agreement was just one of the ways that Mayor Dinkins has been one of the most important contributors to tennis in New York City. One of the challenges that the US Open faced in Queens was the considerable noise of airplanes taking off from nearby LaGuardia Airport. The players and fans constantly complained about the noise of the planes. Mayor Dinkins and his well-respected administration convinced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to establish special takeoff procedures at La Guardia Airport for the entire 14 day US Open tennis tournament. This change helped to make the tournament even more popular with players and fans. Attendance at the US Open has made it the largest annually occurring sporting event in the world.
Mayor Dinkins is the first African-American to serve six consecutive terms on the USTA Board of Directors. In this capacity, he played a vitally important role in promoting the growth and development of tennis throughout America (especially in African-American communities).
In the pictures, Mayor Dinkins receives his Black Tennis Hall of Fame Induction Sculpture from Black Tennis Hall of Fame Founder Dale G. Caldwell and Executive Director Bob Davis. Mayor Dinkins was vice-president of the board of the Black Tennis and Sports Foundation and, as a Board member of the New York Junior Tennis League, helped to develop the largest community tennis program in the world. He is also on the Advisory Board of the Black Leadership Forum and the Board of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund where he promotes the growth and development of tennis in communities of color around the world.
Mayor Dinkins is a living legend who has dedicated his life to helping children, providing leadership in good government and promoting the growth and development of tennis in African-American communities. For the last two decades he has been a true “Tennis Ambassador” supporting efforts to promote tennis in Black communities around the world. He was a trusted and cherished friend of the late Arthur Ashe and also deserves to wear the title “Citizen of the World.” He has one hundreds of awards for his tremendous leadership and community service. Mayor Dinkins was inducted into the USTA Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame in 1993. Every year he is honored by the New York Open professional tennis tournament when they celebrate David Dinkins Family Day on the first Saturday of the tournament.
Ulysses “Pete” Brown
For more than 50 years, legendary “Coach Pete Brown” was one of the leading grass roots tennis program developer in the urban communities of Los Angeles. His influence went well beyond Southern California. Coach Brown became one of the most respected grass roots tennis coaches in the United States. He specialized in inspiring and developing young tennis players in a way that made them great people off of the court. Coach Brown was often called the “Patriarch of West Coast Tennis.” He was recognized around the United States for his extraordinary work developing quality tennis players and people. In 1979, he won the Martin Luther King Community Service Award. In 1987, he won USTA/USPTA Southern California Community Service Award and the California Community College Tennis Coaches Association Coach of the Year Award. In 1989, he won the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award. That year he also won the Congressional Tribute for Lifetime Achievement and Community Service Activities – Recorded in The House of Representatives Congressional Record on 11/21/89. In 1995, he won the Southern California Tennis Association Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000, he was inducted into the California Community College Tennis Hall of Fame.
Coach Brown passed away in September 2010. He was so respected by the communities he served volunteers created the annual Pete Brown Tennis Classic to “Honor the Legacy of Coach Ulysses “Pete” Brown. In the picture, Willie Emerson accepts the award for the late Coach Pete Brown from Dale G. Caldwell and Bob Davis.
Mark Manning
In 2002, when Manning became the Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the USTA Northern California Board of Directors, he made American tennis history by becoming the first African American President of a USTA Section. The USTA was founded in 1881 and grew to establish 17 sections across the country. Each of these sections are focused on growing the sport of tennis in a particular region of the country. They are governed by an independent Board of Directors that is led by a volunteer who is Board Chair, President and CEO of the organization. Over time the budgets and scope of these sections has grown so that they all have a full-time staff and executive directors that report to the CEO and Board of Directors. The Section President therefore has a great deal of influence over tennis. It took 121 years before Manning broke through barriers of race and class to become the first African American to lead one of these 17 sections.
A former City of Oakland, California fireman, Manning founded and ran the Elmhurst Youth Tennis Center in inner-city Oakland and spent many years using tennis as the vehicle by which he could have an incredibly a positive impact on urban youth. Many of the USTA Northern California Diversity Scholarship recipients have credited Manning for their success on the court and in the classroom. Manning was also a leading voice for “minority participation” in tennis. He served on committees and worked with the late Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson toward that end.
Manning was a member and Chair of the USTA NorCal Junior Council. In addition, he was a recipient of many USTA national, sectional and community awards. In 1992, Manning was honored by USTA NorCal with the Service to Tennis Award, which recognized his significant contributions to the game of tennis over a period of many years. In 2013, Manning was inducted into the USTA Northern California Tennis Hall of Fame.
Tennis was a central part of Manning’s life and sadly, on March 29, 2012, he passed away at the age of 53 while on a rail journey with some of his tennis students to Reno. In many ways it was fitting that Manning passed away while on a tennis trip with some of the young people he mentored. He was a true innovator and champion for the youth of Northern California. The picture to the right depicts Manning’s sisters, Cleo Simon and Lillie Ferguson speaking during Manning’s Black Tennis Hall of Fame Induction ceremony.
PIONEERS
Margaret “Pete” Peters and Matilda Roumania “Repeat” Peters
Known affectionately as “Pete and Repeat”, the Peters sisters dominated the ATA Women’s Doubles circuit by winning 14 ATA Women’s Doubles Championships. They won the ATA National Women’s Doubles titles in 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1953. The Peters sisters were known for their powerful slice serves, strong backhands and tremendous consistency. They have been inducted into the Black Tennis Hall of Fame as a pair because their ATA Doubles Championship victory streak of 1938 to 1941 and 1944 to 1953 will likely never be broken. They will be remembered as one of the most dominant doubles teams of all times.
The Peters sisters were both born in Washington, D.C. Margaret was born in 1915 and Roumania was born in 1917. They both graduated from Tuskegee in 1941 with physical education degrees and spent most of their professional lives as teachers. In addition to being a doubles star, Roumania Peters was also a successful singles player who won the 1944 ATA Women’s Singles Championship. In 1946, she won her second ATA Women’s Singles Championship and became the only African American woman to beat Althea Gibson in a major tournament.
The sisters did not receive widespread recognition until they were in their 80s. The USTA honored the legendary players during the 2003 Federation Cup quarterfinals in Washington, DC on July 19th and 20th. They were both inducted into the Mid-Atlantic Section Tennis Hall of Fame on November 15, 2003.
Ronald Charity
In addition to being the best Black tennis player in Richmond, VA. in the 50′s, Ron Charity is recognized as being the man who first discovered and encouraged a young Arthur Ashe. After learning to play tennis in Richmond’s Brookfield Park, Ashe, at the age of 7, attracted the attention of Charity, who was serving as a part-time tennis coach at the time.
Charity was so impressed with Ashe’s game and attitude that he arranged for him to spend the summers at the Lynchburg home of Dr. Walter Johnson who received widespread recognition as the coach of Althea Gibson. Dr. Johnson became Ashe’s coach and mentor and, with Charity and a few others, became the architects of the American Tennis Association’s formal Junior Development Program. Charity was also instrumental in the creation of a network of families who offered family to family (no-cost) housing to players traveling on the ATA circuit. In the top photo, Charity is pictured with Dr. Whirlwind Johnson in 1964. In the middle photo, Charity flashes his legendary smile. In the bottom photo, Ron’s son Khris Charity accepts the Black Tennis Hall of Fame Induction Trophy from Dale G. Caldwell and Bob Davis.
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