The Greatest Coach in the World:
Slim Harbett
Gardnar Mulloy
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 I became so depressed I avoided the courts for a week.
Finally overcoming a strong feeling that as a tennis player I could never be any good, I went out to Henderson Park again, to find Slim waiting to talk to me. In his soft, slow, persuasive voice he restored my self-confidence, told me that I had a great potential and if I worked at it, I could beat them all.
Don’t Fear Losing
"Don't be afraid to lose," he drawled. 'You learn more that way. Winning too often tends to make a man cocky, but when you do lose, sit down afterwards and analyze the reasons, then you can rectify and not make the same mistakes next time."
Slim's observations on learning from losing have stayed with me always. They were in my mind when I went on the court to play him four years later in the Miami Beach Tournament.
As a result of the practice matches we had played together, I had discovered Slim liked plenty of room to make his ground shots. So, using a Western forehand with topspin which made him back up and made my ball difficult for him to handle, I managed to hold my service in both sets until I could break through.
He made me work for my 9-7, 8-6 victory, but it was founded on the insight that he had given me four years earlier—you learn the most from your loses.
The following year Slim turned teaching professional to do the thing he loved best in life, eventually taking a post at the famed Biltmore Hotel.
Some of the happiest days of his life were spent during that long association with the Biltmore. He was popular with the customers, doing the job he loved.
I used to go over frequently and, later on in the 80's, when I was in charge of the Junior Davis Cup Squad, I took them to Slim to be coached. All through these years our friendship was knitting together, and the fame of Harbett as a coach was spreading.
Hart and Moran
In 1988 there came to him for lessons two youngsters Bud and Doris Hart. He watched them play and of course noticed the distinct limp with which an illness had left Doris. Nevertheless, he thought she was a natural if she could compensate for this.
He took movies of her game to study and analyze—completely unprecedented in that day--coming to the conclusion that she would need a big serve and strong volley to balance the weakness of never being able to cover the court as rapidly and effectively as an opponent.
He gave himself five years to make a first class player of her. Progress was slow and difficult at first.
Doris developed a big serve but it resulted far too often in double faults. To overcome this Slim devised a cunning twist action. She mastered her new service rapidly.
The measure of Slim's success can be gauged from this brief catalogue of games played by Doris. In 1942 she was Junior Singles Champion and ranked number six in the U.S.A. at the age of seventeen. She again won the Junior Singles in 1943 and was ranked number three. Slim's five-year plan had paid off handsomely.
However there is one thing for which Slim was never forgiven by Doris. In the National Championships at Forest Hills, 1951, she went on to the court to play Gussie Moran--who was also being coached by Slim.
Gussie was a very nervous girl, always liable to “blow up” on the court during a big match. On this occasion Slim applied a little elementary psychology.
"I want you to take some pills," he told her. "They are very special pills to calm your nerves."
"But don't take too many or they will relax you too much and you'll go through the motions in a daze."
He handed her a small box containing ordinary vitamin B tablets. Gussie carefully took the amount prescribed by 'Doctor' Harbett.
She then went out on to the court full of confidence and knocked hell out of the unsuspecting Miss Hart. It was not the beating that upset Doris but being beaten by someone who had been coached by her coach.
After World War II, when almost every international player had found the chink in my armor I once again sought Slim’s advice. My sliced backhand, which now amounted to a purely defensive stroke, had to be improved.
So in 1949 I placed myself in Slim's care. He was embarrassed when I told him to treat me as a beginner, as I was then ranked number five in the U.S. But we got to work and he fitted me out with a top spin backhand that became as good as my forehand.
It was in this year, too, that Slim, at my suggestion, took under his wing a stringy kid with lots of ability, little confidence, and a mass of complexes-Dick Savitt. Two years later this boy won the Wimbledon and Australian Championships.
In a 1983 newspaper article, a reporter for the Chicago Sun Times had this to say about Slim: “Of literally thousands of people I have met in varied sports backgrounds, there are only a handful I’d put in Slim’s class as thoroughly special people.”
Slim Harbett: a born teacher; and, oh, the patience of the man!