CHuck Benedict’s Sportalks
- Share via
Chuck Benedict
When you play on the same tennis team with champions Arthur Ashe and
Charlie Pasarell, you’re in good company.
If your name is Dave Reed, you’re always in good company. He attracts
friends and clients who recognize that just being in the world is a
privilege, whether or not you are a sports hero.
DAVE REED: It was fascinating to watch Arthur Ashe develop into UCLA’s
No. 2 singles player long before he became a quiet but strong leader in
important causes. He died much too young, in the midst of a modest but
vital role of leadership off the tennis court.
CHUCK BENEDICT: When you were teammates at UCLA, wasn’t Ashe almost an
enemy of the outspoken?
DR: He gave that impression, simply by default. In his own articulate
but tempered way, he often said he wasn’t actively involved with social
and racial protests and world affairs.
CB: That must be a surprise to those who came to know him later.
DR: Slowly, Ashe became very much involved with matters of world
injustice and need. He began to speak, knowledgeably, of the bad ratios
between resources and opportunities. I really admired him. He was a
singles winner at Wimbledon and a world-class doubles player as well. But
at UCLA, he was in the shadow of another wonderful world class player on
our team, Charlie Pasarell.
CB: What led you to UCLA?
DR: I came to Glendale when I was 7. My dad played a lot of tennis at
the old Central Park courts, which remain squeezed in behind the current
Glendale Central Library location.
Dad played with me and had me take lessons from Bob Harmon, a great
pro teacher who taught me on a court at his own home in Santa Monica.
Meanwhile, at Glendale High School, I played on the team in every dual
match, but Coach Gene Haas saw that I had potential and allowed me to
take private lessons instead of attending all of the GHS team practices.
CB: You must have played well.
DR: We had a good team, with Darrell Sutherland and that gang. I got a
full tennis scholarship at UCLA and I was very lucky to play on the same
team with Pasarell and Ashe. Charlie was the team nugget and earned a
world reputation, but later Arthur became the better player.
CB: Wasn’t Ashe’s premature death a tragedy?
DR: He was the guy who proved to the world that a man with no sex
orientation problem could be could be fatally victimized by the HIV
intermix of medical needles or other transmission causes. He was a role
model, but a true martyr.
CB: After UCLA, how did you fit tennis into your life?
DR: I graduated in 1965, stayed at UCLA and got my Master’s in history
in 1966. The next year, there was a trickle down. Bruin tennis Coach J.D.
Morgan took over as UCLA athletic director and replaced himself with
tennis coach Glenn Bassett from Santa Monica High. I replaced Bassett at
Samohi, as it was nicknamed.
After three years, I was invited to be a tennis pro at Pasadena’s
Valley Hunt Club.
CB: Isn’t that the famous club which started the Tournament of Roses
parade and athletic competition in 1890?
DR: The same. I was intrigued by its history and said I’d stay there
for one year to satisfy my curiosity, then go back to teaching. But the
Hunt Club is still thriving, and I have stayed here 31 years -- so far.
CB: So you are a teaching pro.
DR: That’s it.
CB: Do you coach any teams?
DR: Coaching teams means a lot of time spent away from the courts, and
I am fortunate to have a full agenda of individual and group clients with
whom work only on the courts. Every day is a full day just working right
at the nets.
CB: Let me be the umpteen thousandth person to ask you how the game
has changed during your years in it.
DR: There’s more modern training and equipment and equipment available
now. Also, open tennis (1969) provided new money goals for all. Before
that, even an outstanding player had to spend his primary time earning a
living.
Now, the goal can be a lifetime of play, with opportunities to make a
living at it. Even seniors who are established in business can be
age-group stars because they have continued to learn as they went along
and developed skills of physical stamina.
CB: Could yesterday’s greats compete as well today?
DR: Of course. Jack Kramer (known for the Big Game) and Pancho
Gonzales, with modernized training equipment, might walk all over some of
today’s best.
CB: Is turning out great players still your big challenge?
DR: The second biggest. I love to see folks grow with (or beyond)
tennis to become champions of understanding, tolerance and togetherness.
I hope that’s what I’m all about.
CHUCK BENEDICT can be reached at 637-3200 (voice mail 974), by 24-hour
fax at 549-9191 or via Email: BChuckbenedict@aol.com.