Tennis Hits the Books
I was recently thumbing through the USTA Yearbook from 1980 and happened on an advertisement for “USTA Publications.” It is a relic from that forgotten era before the internet and amazon.com brought us the gratuitous ability to order books online and download digital books on demand.
In 1980, if you lived in a metropolitan area of a certain size, you might have had access to a book store in the local mall. If you were lucky, that bookstore might have two or three tennis titles total. Mail order was the predominate access mechanism for tennis literature. A customer who sent a check or money order to the USTA Education and Research Center Publications Department could expect to receive the titles ordered in 2-4 weeks. It was like magic.
Perusing the 1980 list, the selection was intoxicating. 31 unique titles. In addition to those books, USTA pamphlets and related materials could also be ordered. These included the Friend at Court, Rules of Tennis and Case Decisions, just to name a few.
There were three basic categories of books: “Popular Reading,” “Fitness and Health,” and “Instructional Material for the Player, Teacher, and Coach.” It isn’t immediately clear to me why all the titles were all placed under the categories where they were listed. Some of the titles in the “Popular Reading” category are very instructional in nature.
In 1980, I was in the process of aging out of my second year of Girls 14s. Thus, the titles on the list were from what I would consider to be approximate midpoint of my junior tennis career. I am very familiar with many titles on that list as these were the books that were in our possession. I would still probably have them all if they had not been destroyed in a flood.
Prominent on the USTA Publications list from 1980 is “The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance by W. Timothy Gallwey.” As I wrote about on this site previously, it is a book that I do not think will ever fade from relevancy. I think that is the only book on the list that is still in publication, but I am still working through that process.
One of my ancillary tennis hobbies is visiting used book stores and perusing the tennis titles that are in stock. It is like a treasure hunt. I have picked up quite a few books that are out of print that still have value in the “modern” game. I have quite a few of the titles from the 1980 list in my current collection.
Some of the books listed invoke a wave of nostalgia. I distinctly remember having a copy of “Watch the Ball! Bend Your Knees! Thank You, That’s $20 please” by Ed Collins in my house. I don’t currently have that book in my possession, and have a sudden obsessive desire to correct that travesty. On the other hand, I wonder if “The Tennis Player’s Diet” was the source of those god awful wheat germ shakes that the umpire who gave birth to me tried to foist upon us. They were truly horrifying.
I think that I enjoy the tennis books of that era because they examined the game from basic fundamental standpoint that seems elusive today. They take me back to a more simple time. See the ball, hit the ball, get ready for the next ball. Plus, those books had built in implicit endorsement from the USTA by mere fact of being included on the list. You could send in that check or money order with confidence that something of value would be returned.
