Pancho Gonzalez:
Transitions
Doreen Gonzales
Professional tennis kept Richard Gonzalez on the road much of the time. When he was at home, he enjoyed pool, poker, bowling, and hunting. He also still liked car racing. In fact, he and his brother, Ralph formed a drag-racing team called the Gonzales Brothers. Richard tuned the dragster and Ralph drove it.
The Gonzales Brothers was one of the top teams around. They qualified second at the 1958 U.S. Nationals and even broke a few speed records. Henrietta, Richard’s wife, was not impressed. Gonzalez was in perpetual motion, and she wanted him to spend more time with his family.
Although Gonzalez said that he loved his wife, he knew he could not be the kind of husband she wanted. In December of 1958 the two were divorced. In the meantime, Gonzalez worked with a writer named Cy Rice preparing his autobiography. The book was called "Man With a Racket," and it was published in 1959.
Francisco "Pancho" Segura wrote the book's introduction, noting that Gonzalez was like a hurricane with one exception. As Segura put it, "Weather is fairly predictable."
In many ways, though, Gonzalez was entirely predictable. While on a tour, he focused solely on his tennis and preferred to be left alone. His powerful serve remained his biggest asset, and some people believe it is what made him the world's best player.
Gonzalez himself did not think his serve was any better than it had been during his amateur days. But, he said, his volley and ground strokes were definitely stronger. Most importantly, he noted, they were more consistent.
In 1959, Kramer promoted a round-robin tour. This time Gonzalez would compete against Lew Hoad, Mal Anderson, and Ashley Cooper. The newest professionals, Anderson and Cooper, were both fierce opponents. Cooper, in fact, had won three of the four Grand Slam tournaments of 1958.
Yet Gonzalez beat them all. He then went on to defeat Hoad 6-4,6-2,6-4 in the final of the World Professional Tennis Championships for a seventh tournament title.
Even so, a friendship had developed between Hoad and Gonzalez, and they admired each other's tennis skills. Gonzalez often said when Lew Hoad was at his peak, nobody could touch him. As for Hoad, he often described Gonzalez as the greatest tennis player ever.
On the basis of his record, Gonzalez tried to renegotiate his contract with Kramer once more. (Click Here for more on the racial and financial discrimation Gonzalez suffered.) This time he gave Kramer an ultimatum. Until their differences were settled, Gonzalez refused to go out on tour.
He told one reporter, "Kramer needs me and I need Jack. He is the promoter and I am the star--the star who doesn't twinkle very bright financially ... Summing it up, the relationship is comparable to a marriage of convenience with mutual admiration entirely lacking."
Gonzalez and Kramer ended up in court over the issue. The judge sided with Kramer, and Gonzalez headed out on the 1960 tour. This time he beat Alex Olmedo, who had won Wimbledon in 1959, Segura, and Rosewall.
The previous decade had placed Gonzalez in an exclusive club. He was the only man to ever become the star on the professional tour after being beaten on his first tour. In every other case, an amateur who turned professional and lost his first tour was never able to rise to star status.
Yet Gonzalez did more than achieve top billing. He reached the point at which there could be no tour without him. Without Gonzalez playing, many owners did not want the tour to play in their arena. They did not believe they would make money on ticket sales without him. Pancho Gonzalez had become the greatest attraction in tennis.
For the first time in years, Gonzalez did not play in the World Professional Tennis Championships in 1960. That year's final round was played by two men Gonzalez had formerly beaten quite soundly, Tony Trabert and Alex Olmedo. Olmedo took home the trophy.
By now Gonzalez had remarried. His new wife's name was Madelyn Darrow. Together they would have three daughter: Christina, Marrisa, and Andrea.
Gonzalez won his final professional tour in 1961, a round robin tour consisting of six players. Spaniard Andres Gimeno, a new touring pro, finished second. Gonzalez was back at the World Professional Tennis Championships that year.
He won, making it a record eighth title. This meant that between Segura, Gonzalez, and Olmedo, a Latino had won the most important professional tennis title for the last twelve years. Gonzalez alone had eight of these.
One expert explained that much of Gonzalez's success stemmed from his attitude. ''Pancho seldom lets anything bother him for long," he said. "He'll go into the arena before a match and look at the lights--they're bad-and he'll look at the ceiling--there's smoke stains there--and he'll test the court--it's slippery. So he'll shrug his shoulders, figure it's the same for everybody and then go out there and give it a battle."
But now that Gonzalez's contract with Kramer had finally expired he was ready for a break. So he retired from professional competition and moved to Paradise Island in the Bahamas. The island was being developed into a resort. It had tennis courts, a marina, a golf course, and an elegant hotel. Gonzalez was hired to be the resort's head tennis professional.
As such, Gonzalez gave lessons to resort visitors. Many of the people who came to his lessons were nervous because of his large size and larger reputation. But Gonzalez was a patient teacher. Most people left having been charmed by his gentleness and sense of humor. As for the women, some were overwhelmed by his handsomeness. One called him "a bronze Greek god."
It was not long before Gonzalez was one of the most popular personalities at the resort. Guests liked talking with him whenever he appeared on the hotel's porch. Gonzalez was usually happy to talk.
But he could be temperamental, too. Occasionally he would cancel a lesson with little reason or apology. One island visitor claimed to notice a pattern in his behavior. According to this visitor, Gonzalez was kindest to the ordinary people who visited the resort. On the other hand, the more well known or pompous a person, the more likely Gonzalez would cancel that individual's lesson.
Gonzalez himself was something of a celebrity. On a tour of the White House in 1962, he was introduced to President John F. Kennedy. The President was an avid sports fan. He asked Gonzalez why Australians dominated recent Davis Cup competitions. The President worried that American talent was weakening.
Gonzalez assured President Kennedy that the only problem with the nation's tennis talent was that it was young. Indeed, Australia won the competition in 1962. However, the next year, Gonzalez coached the team and the U.S. captured the Cup.
One member of that team was Arthur Ashe. Ashe was the first African-American ever named to a U.S. Davis Cup team. He had fought to gain acceptance in the white only world of tennis while growing up in Richmond, Virginia. He would soon begin school at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on a tennis scholarship.
At the time, UCLA had one of the most integrated sports programs in the country. Even so, Ashe still faced discrimination. For example, once he was the only member of UCLA's tennis squad not invited to a tournament at a private California club.
This snub left Ashe particularly angry. Fortunately, he had a friend in Los Angeles who understood what he was going through--Richard Gonzalez.
Ashe had seen Gonzalez play tennis many years earlier in Richmond. He had been impressed with Gonzalez's powerful game and even more impressed by the color of Gonzalez's skin. Seeing someone who had broken through tennis's color barrier inspired Ashe.
So when he moved to Los Angeles to attend college, Ashe visited the Los Angeles Tennis Club often to watch Gonzalez practice. In time the two became friends, and they worked out together.
Ashe's game improved under Gonzalez's guidance, and he was grateful for Gonzalez's friendship. He later wrote, "Three stars shone brighter than all the others in my sky. One of them was Pancho Gonzalez, who was not only the best player in the world but also an outsider, like me, because he was Mexican American."
Gonzalez was clearly proud of this heritage. It was around this time that he went back to the traditional spelling of his name, Gonzalez with a "z," rather than Gonzales, the Americanized spelling his family has chosen when they arrived from Mexico decades before.
When not coaching Davis Cup teams, Gonzalez often worked on Paradise Island. One pastime there was a game called "Paradise Tennis" which the resort's owners had invented. It was a mixture of tennis and ping-pong played on a huge table with a rubber ball and short tennis rackets. It was intended to be played for fun. But as usual, Gonzalez took the competition seriously.
In one tournament, he and Jack Kramer were doubles partners. When their opponents placed a shot close to the net, Gonzalez leaped for it. He landed on the table on his back. His weight bent a table leg, and the table sagged. Somehow, though, Kramer kept the ball in play long enough for Gonzalez to slide off the table and hold it up for Kramer. The two went on to win the match.
While Gonzalez worked on Paradise Island, his wife Madelyn and their daughters stayed at the couple's home in California. Sometimes they flew to the island to visit him. When the resort's tourist season ended, Gonzalez moved back to California.
Gonzalez kept as busy during these vacations from Paradise Island as he did when he was working there. He often held tennis clinics at his California home. He dreamed of finding a youngster to develop into a future champion.
At first he pinned his hopes on his own fourteen-year-old son, Richard. Richard was talented and could even ace his father on occasion, something Gonzalez was proud to note.
In the meantime, the professional tennis tour faltered. There had been no tour in 1962. Kramer's 1963 tour barely survived financially because so few people came to watch the matches. Some felt this was because Gonzalez, whose immense drawing power had kept the tour alive for years, was no longer part of it.
So when the promoters of the 1963 U.S. Professional Grass Court Championships began planning for the tournament at Forest Hills, they believed they needed Gonzalez to attract paying spectators. To get him to enter, they offered him $5,000 in advance. The tournament's first prize was only $1,400. Gonzalez accepted the offer and was the only player to receive any money before the tournament began.
When the other players learned of Gonzalez's unique deal, they were furious. Most refused to talk to him. "They won't even practice with me," Gonzalez reported, "but I'm going to win this tournament." But while Gonzalez's heart was in the game, his body was not.
The out-of-shape champ was matched in the first round against Alex Olmedo. Olmedo was in top condition. Gonzalez lost the first set, then somehow managed to win the second. By the third set, though, Gonzalez was so exhausted he could barely play.
He later remembered how he felt near the end of the match. "My knees were so weak I couldn't stand up and my confidence and swing were also missing. If I hit an approach shot from the service line, I didn't know if it would hit the bottom of the net or the fence." Gonzalez lost and the tournament went on without him.
In the final round of play, Ken Rosewall beat an up-and-coming Australian Rod Laver. But by then, the tournament had gone bankrupt and there was no money to pay Rosewall his first-place prize. The champion left with nothing more than a handshake. However, Gonzalez, the first-round loser, walked off with $5,000!
Yet even though he had lost, Gonzalez had enjoyed competing again. So much so, in fact, that he feared he might never win at tennis again. He began training once more. By the time the 1964 U.S. Professional Championships rolled around, the thirty-six-year-old Gonzalez was well conditioned. This time he made it to the final to face Rod Laver.
It had been raining all week, and it was still raining on the morning of their match. But Gonzalez and Laver were required to play. The two slipped and slid across the grass, neither one willing to give up. It took Laver four challenging sets to conquer Gonzalez. Yet Gonzalez left the tournament feeling satisfied that he could still be a top competitor.
And he was. Gonzalez won several other tournaments that year including the U.S. Professional Indoor Championships. At this tournament he defeated Laver, Hoad, and Rosewall on consecutive days. Gonzalez continued to win tournaments and although he was no longer the best, he was still ranked as one of the top three players in the world at the age of 36.
