The Cat in the Hat : When Director Fred Lamb Dons His Red Chapeau, It Signifies Tournament Time Again in Ojai

Someday, a story about the Ojai tennis tournament will be written without mentioning tournament manager Fred Lamb and his trademark red hat. This will not be that story.

Lamb has been running the venerable tournament for half of his 68 years. His gangly frame, courtly presence and that red hat--a disreputable piece of cone-shaped felt that looks as if it’s been through a few too many spin cycles--have made him one of the event’s most enduring symbols.

“He’s a real figurehead . . . and the backbone of the tournament,” said Dick Archibald, president of the nonprofit Ojai Valley Tennis Club that runs the event.

A history teacher at Thacher School in Ojai and its former longtime tennis coach, Lamb is preparing for the 93rd Ojai, which begins today with 750 matches, and so the hat came out of storage.

“It must be tournament time,” a woman said to Lamb, who appeared in her office at Thacher School wearing the hat.

Lamb won the hat in some long-forgotten bet with a Thacher student in the early 1970s. He retired it about 10 years ago only to be forced by popular demand to bring it back. Sans hat, Lamb was just another spectator at Libby Park, sipping orange juice and strolling down oak-lined paths. “People walked right past me,” he said. Those who overlooked him included tournament volunteers who had a question for him or needed a decision. So the hat made a comeback and has crowned Lamb’s head since.

While the Ojai is renowned among California tennis players for its Wimbledon-like customs--free cups of Ojai Valley orange juice, women serving tea and butter cookies under a canopy--Lamb personifies another tradition: generation after generation of local townspeople volunteering to staff the tournament.

“The Ojai is really a community event,” Lamb said.

This year, about 550 volunteers will be under Lamb’s command, including a core group of 12 to 15 who are the heart of the tournament. Created in 1895 by William Thacher, an outstanding collegiate tennis player at Yale and brother of the founder of the Thacher School, the Ojai has managed to stay in existence through the diligence of volunteers such as Lamb, Caroline Thacher and Archibald, who have helped preserve the integrity and the continuity of the tournament.

The Ojai continues to have strong ties to Thacher School, a private boarding high school with 220 students from all over the world. Several relatives of William Thacher form the volunteer nucleus. And during the four-day tournament, tradition dictates that classes at Thacher are canceled to enable students to work at the event’s numerous sites.

Lamb, who played in the Ojai as a student at Thacher, became tennis coach at the school in 1954, amassing seven Southern Section titles in 35 years and earning induction into the Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame three years ago. But he dismisses his coaching accomplishments, saying his duties were simply to “open cans of tennis balls, get to the match on time and make sure good sportsmanship prevailed.”

William Thacher always emphasized sportsmanship in tennis and so does Lamb, a scholarly man with a deliberate gait and soft, gravelly voice.

A few years ago, “I was worried about the conduct and the language on the courts among juniors,” he said. “But I’ve been very pleased over the last 10 years. The standard of conduct has improved.”

As tournament manager, Lamb “is on the telephone constantly” trying to resolve disputes over court rules or deciding to default a late-arriving player. Over the years, “I’ve heard an incredible number of excuses,” he said. Including: “The fella who called from L.A. and said he was in jail.” Then there was the USC tennis team that said it was trapped in a hotel elevator.

But the best excuse came from Stan Smith, who was playing for USC. Smith “was always 20 minutes early for everything,” Lamb recalled, but when it was time to play the men’s intercollegiate final in 1968, Smith was a no-show. He finally sauntered in 40 minutes late, saying he forgot to set his watch for daylight saving time. Lamb believed him and let him play, and he won.

Lamb also must contend with gripes about the Ojai--it is too commercialized and impersonal and it has lost its rustic spirit--and with prima donnas.

Many years ago, a player told him, “ ‘I’m the No. 1 player in the world and will only play on court one, and if I don’t I will never come back here again,’ ” Lamb recalled, adding with a chuckle: “My assistant said, ‘Well, hot dog.’ ”

Lamb won’t mention the player’s name “in the spirit of good-neighborliness,” but it’s not difficult to figure out. The Ojai has featured many juniors who went on to great careers, including Smith, Jimmy Connors, Arthur Ashe, Tracy Austin and Helen Wills Moody. But the only junior ranked No. 1 in the world when she played Ojai was Billie Jean King.

Two seasons ago, Lamb retired from coaching and is teaching only one class at Thacher--film history. A lifelong bachelor who lives on school grounds, as do the other 40 or so faculty members, Lamb plans to continue managing the Ojai and has “no immediate plans to retire.”

Which is fine with the other members of the tournament hierarchy.

“There isn’t any work underfoot to replace him,” Archibald said.

Although some of Lamb’s duties have been delegated to others to ease his load, no successor has been anointed. “Fred can retire when he wants to,” Archibald said.

And when he does, the red hat no doubt will go into retirement with him.