Varied paths, same destination
NEWPORT, R.I. -- ''With a little bit o' luck," as fair lady Eliza Doolittle's rascalish father warbles. ''With a little bit o' luck, someone else'll do the blinkin' work."
Nobody gets into a sporting pantheon without a little bit of luck, as Jim Courier, Yannick Noah, Jana Novotna, and Butch Buchholz would tell you.
But not without doing years of blinkin' work, too.
As the Class of '05, the four will be elevated to the International Tennis Hall of Fame this afternoon at the 125-year-old Casino, bassinet of the game in the US, a fitting terminus for the most distinguished careers. Stars will be thanking their lucky stars because they had the chances to show off their gifts across the planet.
But what if the towering Yannick Simone Camille Noah hadn't been discovered improbably by the late Arthur Ashe in the heart of Africa in 1971? Or Jana Novotna had followed her father's wishes and become a gymnast? Suppose James Spencer Courier's mom had tired of his throwing Play-Doh all over the house? Or Earl Henry (Butch) Buchholz Jr. hadn't attracted the attention of a hustler named Jack Kramer?
Well, the game would be poorer.
Said Linda Courier Seegers, laughing, ''There must still be blue stains on the ceiling and walls of the house we lived in [Dade City, Fla.] when Jim was growing up. He was throwing it in balls, and hitting baseballs and tennis balls, kicking footballs all over the place. Breaking windows."
A general household menace.
But he turned out all right, his mom said. She put a racket in his hands when he was 3, and before he finished swinging, Courier had four majors (French, 1991-92, Australian, 1992-93), a hand in the 1995 Davis Cup, world No. 1 status in 1992. Courier was a tennis version of Rocky Marciano, slugging away until foes crumbled.
Ashe, playing exhibitions on a State Department goodwill tour of Africa 34 years ago, came across an athletic 11-year-old in Yaounde, Cameroon. The kid was hitting balls with a plank carved to resemble a racket. Ashe was impressed and gave young Noah a racket. Learning that Noah had been born in France of a French mother (and Cameroonian father, a professional soccer player), Ashe contacted French tennis authorities, suggesting that, with proper coaching, Noah could be an asset.
That he was. After moving to Nice, Noah grew to 6 feet 4 inches, developed an atypical clay court game of flamboyant net-rushing, and became the only French citizen since 1946 to capture the French title. That was in 1983, a year after he spearheaded France's drive to the Davis Cup final, a loss to the US.
Later, in 1991, as an inspirational leader he captained France to its first Davis Cup in 59 years. A sunburst personality, Noah is a successful singer and songwriter.
Whether Novotna was cut out to be a gymnast, as her father hoped, the instructor in Brno said forget it. She was too big. A break for tennis and the Czechs. Nevertheless, Jana kept her balance, winning 24 singles and 76 doubles titles -- one major in singles, Wimbledon (1998), and 16 in doubles. You won't find that kind of duality any more, or anyone in her class as a daring serve-and-volleyer.
Probably her most renowned match was a loss: the 1993 Wimbledon final to Steffi Graf after leading, 4-1, 40-30, in the third set. So distraught was Novotna she drenched the trophy-presenting Duchess of Kent in a flood of tears, and won sympathy across the globe.
A tennis man for all seasons and reasons, Buchholz heard the siren song of pro promoter Kramer and made a rash decision to sign a contract when he was only 20. That was 1961. He was No. 3 amateur in the United States, No. 5 in the world, a rangy 6-2 serve-and-volleyer who remembers, ''The money wasn't very good. [Pro tennis was a shaky enterprise then.] But I wanted to play against the best -- Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Pancho Gonzalez."
It was life as an outcast, barnstorming on one-night stands, since those pros were banned from the majors and other meaningful events.
But he learned the game inside-out at all levels to become one of the foremost administrators, doing stints as CEO of the Association of Tennis Pros and World Team Tennis.
Buchholz, probably best known as the founder of the prominent NASDAQ-100 Championships at Key Biscayne, Fla., is ''thrilled to be returning to Newport. I played here as an amateur and a pro."
Buchholz is a leftover from Jimmy Van Alen's radical experiment, his pro tournament at The Casino in 1965. ''We used VASSS -- the Van Alen Streamlined Scoring System," he recalled. ''Part of it was the tiebreaker, which would become important to the game. We didn't know what was going on, but money was scarce. When Van Alen put up $ 10,000 prize money, a fortune to us, we would have played any way he wanted."
They were lucky Van Alen had imagination and enough money from his wealthy mom's cookie jar to back it up.
