Gene Scott, who served tennis for a half-century as a world-ranked player, tournament director, player agent, author and, perhaps most significant, the founder, publisher, editor and iconoclastic columnist of Tennis Week magazine, died Monday in the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He was 68 and lived in New York.
His wife, Polly, said the cause of death was amyloidosis, an illness in which insoluble protein fibers accumulate in body organs and impair them.
Scott was the director of more than 200 tournaments at such diverse sites as Madison Square Garden and Moscow. He wrote 20 tennis books as well as magazine articles about the sport. He produced tennis documentaries for CBS-TV. He was a television commentator for the 1973 exhibition match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, known as the Battle of the Sexes. In 1969, he was a co-founder of the National Junior Tennis League and mentored young players like John McEnroe and Vitas Gerulaitis.
In 1974, he founded Tennis Week. When Passing Shot magazine once asked if Tennis Week had been as successful as he had hoped, he said: "Never will one fulfill all of one's dreams and goals. The reason I do Tennis Week is that we get an unbelievable amount of psychic income from positive response."
He was outspoken and unafraid to alienate the sport's bureaucracy. In an editorial in 2003, he called the traditional deuce-ad scoring system "a tedious turnoff, an example of the game's ongoing mindlessness." He said he had never understood why the US Tennis Association once made him a director at large for two years. "The process by which I was elected was something of a miracle," he said. "I thought I was probably too controversial an article to have in the chicken coop."
Tennis magazine said that his Vantage Point column had made him "the conscience of the tennis world" and that he "challenges people to think about issues, specifically what's right and wrong about the tennis business."
King told Tennis Week, "He challenged the way we look at tennis and pushed us to make the sport better for everyone."
Eugene Lytton Scott was born Dec. 28, 1937, in New York, the grandson of Dr. Eugene Sullivan, an inventor of Pyrex and the chairman and president of Corning Glass Works. He grew up in St. James on Long Island and started playing tennis at 10 on public courts.
He earned a bachelor's degree in history from Yale in 1960 and a law degree from Virginia in 1964. At Yale, he won three letters in tennis, three in hockey, two in soccer and one in lacrosse.
ADVANTAGE ATLETICO: Well off the pace in La Liga, the Copa del Rey represents Atletico Madrid’s best chance of silverware this season Atletico Madrid on Thursday hammered Copa del Rey holders Barcelona 4-0 in the first leg of their semi-final. After an Eric Garcia own-goal sent Diego Simeone’s side ahead early on, Antoine Griezmann, Ademola Lookman and Julian Alvarez struck to give Atletico a landslide lead by halftime. Barca defender Garcia was sent off in the final stages, with Atletico maintaining their significant advantage on the record 32-time winners, which they take into the second leg at the Camp Nou on March 3. Both sides missed good chances in the second half, with Barca’s Pau Cubarsi having a goal disallowed before Garcia was sent off
Dasun Shanaka hammered the fastest half-century by a Sri Lankan in T20Is as the cohosts thrashed Oman by 105 runs at the World Cup yesterday in Pallekele, Sri Lanka, for their second win in Group B. The 2014 champions piled up 225-5, the highest total of the tournament, before restricting an outclassed Oman to 120-9. The 43-year-old Mohammad Nadeem waged a lone battle for Oman, compiling an unbeaten 53 to become the oldest player to score a 50 in T20 World Cups. Having promoted himself up the order and under pressure to deliver, Sri Lanka skipper Shanaka smashed a 19-ball half-century. It has been
Kawhi Leonard on Sunday scored 41 points, grabbed eight rebounds and made four steals to lead the Los Angeles Clippers in a lopsided 115-96 victory at Minnesota. The 34-year-old forward, a two-time NBA champion, matched the second-best road scoring effort of his career as the Clippers improved to 25-27. “Just being aggressive. My teammates trust me,” Leonard said. “Every moment when I touch the ball — assist, shooting the basketball or getting a rebound — I’m just trying to help the team win.” Leonard made three steals in a row at the start of the contest. “Just wanted to come out early in the
FLOP TO CONQUEROR: It was sweet vindication for Sam Darnold, who played for four NFL teams before his debut season in Seattle ended in the ultimate win The Seattle Seahawks on Sunday coasted to Super Bowl glory, routing the New England Patriots 29-13 as Sam Darnold sealed his journey from flop quarterback to conqueror of the NFL’s biggest prize. Brushing off a reputation for wilting in big games, journeyman quarterback Darnold threw for a touchdown and 200 yards on the grandest stage of all to give the Seahawks their second-ever Lombardi Trophy. “It’s unbelievable. Everything that has happened in my career, but to do it with this team, I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Darnold said. The victory was buoyed by a dominant defensive display and kicker Jason Myers’
RSS