The Greatest Coach in the World: Slim Harbett

The greatest coach in the world, Slim Harbett.

I think Slim Harbett was the greatest coach in the world, not solely for his ability to impart his tennis wisdom but for other qualities in the man which went to make him a great teacher. He was easy to talk to and relax with, a good conversationalist because he was a good listener, with a knack of prying open your mind without you being aware of it.

Although he never went to college, he was a self-seeker after knowledge and culture, and this made him broad minded, intelligent, and sophisticated, in an age when so many people were sophisticated but not intelligent.

Slim had originally come into my life in 1930 when I was sixteen, and it was a meeting I have never forgotten. I had played a game at Henderson Park in Miami when Slim came over to me and asked me to give him a few sets. I did, and he proceeded to thrash me 0 and 1.

With the cockiness of sixteen years I could not believe that anyone outside of the top ten could so murder me. The burning shame of it scorched into my mind and…