Perry T. Jones: Dictator, Sadist, Genius

[don_budge]

Perry Jones...Classic Tennis Ambassador or Dictator?

While it is true that Jones tried to keep control of his protégés as they became champions, it seems to be forgotten that Perry organized the collection of money to sponsor many juniors who could not otherwise have afforded top-level coaching, equipment, and court time.

Nearly every influential player who dominated the pro game in the thirties through the early sixties....passed through Jones' machine, including Kramer, the man mainly responsible for breaking fake amateurism and ushering in the Open Era. Arguably the two greatest players ever also passed through his empire, Ellsworth Vines and Don Budge.

Any of these players could, if they wished, have sought another patron, as Bobby Riggs proved. And while Jones is excoriated for his treatment of Gonzales, I note that Gonzales willingly served as a paid consultant to Perry in the mid-to-late fifties.

Once the Open Era broke out, incidentally, the tournaments and national federations gained the power Perry Jones formerly exercised, and they proved little better at allowing players to earn what they were worth. Only the formation of Players' Unions broke open the cash boxes. Put in this perspective the ATP should be cut some slack.

There was some angel in Perry Jones...of course there was.

There are those who become holier than thou when it comes to the historical context of morality. It's easy to do as it sort of written into the social contract between the individual and society these days.

The universe has a charge of negative or positive? One might guess it is hanging in the balance...much as the human race has always precariously dangled between good and evil. Everyone has within their soul some mixture of positive and negative. What is right and what is wrong?

Perry Jones has been "excoriated" a bit here and there in this story and in the comments of a couple of posters. A couple of perfect posters I might add. Saints...of course. Mr. Jones lived in an era before that odious term "political correctness" came into force. Full force as it stands now.

But human nature being what it is has always dictated that "birds of a feather flock together" until man became so elevated to nature that he deemed otherwise. Much to his eventual chagrin. In nature diversity divides...it is uniformity that unites. Forget about the "American Paradigm" from which multiculturalism was spawned...that was built on a heap of bones.

I like your comment about Richard Gonzalez eventually becoming a consultant of Jones. My little story about Jones castigating the great Don Budge for his "flimsy sneakers" was an indication that Jones wasn't necessarily discriminating but he was applying his stringent standards across the board. If you couldn't hold the line you were, like Bobby Riggs, looking for other avenues than the Jones Express. To me it sounds as if Perry Jones was the ultimate "Organization Man" and saw to it that his organization was in order from the top to the bottom.

Was he guilty of ruling with an "Iron Fist"... or was it "My way or the Highway"? Obviously he wasn't asking for second opinions or cared a hoot what the politically sensitive some sixty years later thought or FELT. He did it his way and obviously he elevated the status of the game through his efforts. He was an exponent of the "Classic Game" in all that it meant...right down to the sneakers of the time.

I say all of this knowing full well that in my youth I would have butted heads...albeit unsuccessfully with Mr. Jones due to my rather rebellious nature. But I know that down the line I would look back and relish the experience of having known him. Good and bad...virtue and evil...positive and negative...all of it. Certainly he must have had elements of the negative but they weren't fostered in his ability to run a first rate tennis program on a level that hasn't been witnessed since.

Recently I went to a Detroit Tigers baseball game with "The Ugly American" and my father. Half of the players were wearing their stockings outside of their pants...the way that they should be and the other half were wearing their pants down to their ankles. Each of the Tigers had there own theme song playing before they went to bat. Half of them were rap songs. Zero uniformity. Much diversity. Mediocre results. One might speculate an absence of "organization" or consistency within the organization.

My father felt the same way about the stockings and the theme songs. From one point of view...pure and utter nonsense. Are these players there to win a championship or are they there to make a fashion statement or advertise their taste in music. The players make over a million dollars a game in some cases. Over indulgence of the ego.

Thanks for the great article and also the thoughtful post...curiosity.

[curiosity]

The game before every inch of it was monetized:

D_B, I'm not sure I get all the nuances of the "real" game as you sometimes refer to it, but I do think I get a fragment of it: Putting ethics aside for a moment and focusing on something more direct, tennis has reached in the past a state of development in which the rules, clothing, equipment, variety of styles of play, focus on tactics and strategy....reached a high and austerely beautiful state not dominated by technology or the media. It brings to mind the phrase "precis lagom," efficiently sufficient, "just right," "well fitted to purpose without pointless elaboration."

Whether it's the Detroit Tigers or the players in a tennis tournament it is possible, indeed common, that the focus on the individualistic pursuit of one's own brand, individual monetized media presence, leads to a sort of sangria of sport, a marketable but inelegant melange, a spiritually cheapened sport. The sport itself, tennis in point, often seems obscured by a marketing haze. The personality of the player is too frequently expressed mainly through aspects unrelated to the actual style and quality of play. In the past some enforced unity, conformity, reduced the distractions and let the essence of the game be the focus. I can remember when the boards around the major stadium courts were not painted with consumer-goods sponsor names. Were I sufficiently powerful, that is the first modern feature I would ban.

The professionals, of course, have repeatedly brought the fall on themselves. Professionals are, on average, in the game for money. Money flows mainly from the media (matching eyes to product ads or access fees... for money), and from clothing and equipment sales. Shorter doubles matches? Fine. Stiffer more powerful racquets? OK. Make every tournament surface similarly slow? Sure! Tolerate highly eccentric and rude behavior? Perhaps, if the player is a star. Pollute the fans' view with logos painted on every meter of the boards? Of course!

I sometimes feel the evolved "new" game has its virtues. I more often find myself distressed to notice that the variety is in the clothing, hair cuts, grunts, and racquet paint jobs...but not so much in the strokes and tactics. Power has reduced the beauty. It seems to be a law of technology: I am reminded of what horsepower has done to take early Gran Prix racing to its Formula 1 grandchild. Yes, the drivers are excellent, the cars are powerful, the suspensions supremely evolved. But the cars are ugly, the variety of driving styles has been reduced, and the surfaces are hyper-prepared so that maximum traction tires can be used.

Still, I love the game in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. It gets me running, brings me together with friends, and provides sufficient justification to drink a gin-and-tonic afterwards on a hot summer day. Just one.

[johnyandell]

C,

That's a piece of literature. I just doubt the last sentence.

[curiosity]

C,........I just doubt the last sentence.

I was trying to shorten the long comment. Originally the sentence was "Occasionally just one."

We were in Spain for June this year, rather than August, due to some legal work. I was playing one day at the place Lew Hoad built in Mijas. Sipping my post match G&T I looked over and two tables away Lew's widow Jenny Hoad was relaxing with a beverage. It made me happy to see she still can enjoy the club, and looks well. Continuity.

[bottle]

I like the way the senior members of the forum now are becoming juniors. Just think how much better they will play now that they are 15 or 16 years old.

[curiosity]

I like the way the senior members of the forum now are becoming juniors. Just think how much better they will play now that they are 15 or 16 years old.

15 or 16? Heck, I'm feeling like a somewhat younger and much poorer version of a 73-year-old Si Newhouse, who was reported to have said, as a beautiful young woman passed him by on a New York sidewalk, "ah, to be 52 again...."