Glory Days
The Trinity tennis program had its best years as a team in the 1960s and the 1970s. The team competed in Division 1 at the time against some of the top schools in the country. I talked to Butch Newman who was a player from 1961 until 1964 and later became the coach and eventually the Director of Tennis. Newman told me that when he arrived at Trinity in 1961, the team was full of All-Americans and they had a very talented team all four years he was there. Newman is from San Antonio, but he told me that all of the top players from the United States wanted to come play for Trinity because it was one of the top programs in the country. The team also competed against large state schools that would not happen today as a Division 3 school. An article in the Trinitonian had the season schedule for 1961. The team played schools such as Texas A&M, Baylor, University of Texas, Rice, and many other big schools. According to Newman, the atmosphere at the matches were great. Trinity had some of the best tennis in the country and many people came to watch. Students also came to support the tennis team with great school spirit. Before the Butch Newman courts were built, the team played all of their matches at the Al G. Hill Jr. courts on upper campus. That stadium is a lot smaller than the one the team uses today. Newman said that the stadium was packed for every match and that the students would fill in and get loud and rowdy. Spectators would stand around outside the courts or sit on top of the roof to watch the matches. The Trinity tennis program was a big part of the University in the 1960s.
The program continued to flourish into the 1970s. The team continued to compete against the top schools with some of the best players in the country. In a season preview from the Trinitonian for the 1970 season, the article gives an introduction of the team and the players for the upcoming season. This shows how important the team was to students that they are giving details about each player on the team. Giving this much attention to the players and treating them like stars is like how today’s sportswriters treat professional players. The article talks about each player on the team and how they played last season and where they will line up in the rankings for the upcoming season. The article also talks about how the team finished third in the national championship last year behind USC and UCLA. Finishing third in the country behind two big California state schools shows how dominant the tennis program was at the time. For a small school like Trinity to finish the season ahead of so many other bigger schools shows how special the tennis program was.
One of the biggest tennis matches at Trinity was in 1972 when the number one ranked Trinity Tigers hosted the number two ranked USC Trojans. According to a page in the Mirage from 1972, the Associated Press called the match, “The Super Bowl of college tennis.” The Trinity coach at the time, Clarence Mabry, called it, “the best ever played here in the Alamo City.” The match was close all the way through until the Trinity Tigers finished victorious with many students and fans in attendance. The school paced 600 extra bleacher spaces for the match which still was not enough with more than 1,000 fans in attendance. There are pictures in the page that show the rest of the students finding anywhere to watch the match. There are students piled on roofs of Storch Library and Murchison dorm. This match shows how important the tennis team was to the students at the time. The match up with the second ranked team in the nation brought out many students to watch the match. This proves that having a top ranked program can affect a university. The team attracted many fans to support and bring school spirit and cheer on their team. The Trinity tennis team finished that same 1972 season at the top. The Tigers defeated Stanford in the championship to bring the trophy back to Trinity for the first time in school history.