THE GENE MAKO TENNIS STORY “SWEET CLEAN GENE” BY THOMAS PENNER

Written by: on 5th June 2015
THE GENE MAKO TENNIS STORY "SWEET CLEAN GENE" BY THOMAS PENNER  |

Late on a Thursday afternoon some thirteen years ago I sat down to talk with then 84-year-old Southland ( Southern California ) tennis great Gene Mako in the café of the historic Los Angeles Tennis Club where he was a living legend and had been for many, many years. We chatted a whopping six hours.

 

When I drove home that night on the Hollywood 101, Gene’s words hung heavy in the air — all his acerbic advice, his facts which were not opinions, and yes, admonishments. I still wonder why that great curmudgeonly tennis warrior so generously grant me, a virtual stranger, a huge chunk of time. Yes, I was raised researching the life of Big Bill Tilden, whom Gene had known, but then the hours and subject matter seemed to stray and get away from us.

 

He began calling me “Fullerton” for the very slight six degrees of separation between us (the Mako family had been part of my local tennis community, as were many of the tennis courts of my youth which Gene built). Staring right through me with his sharp, blue Austro-Hungarian eyes he said pointedly, ” if you’ve come for an opinion, Fullerton, you’re fresh out of luck. An opinion is worthless if there are no verified facts behind it. I only deal in facts.”

 

Meanwhile, club members came and went through the small café, some addressing him affectionately as “Gino,” or “Sweet Clean Gene.” Though I felt a little off my guard, I knew I was in the presence of greatness, of tennis royalty.

 

He sat dripping lemon into his ice tea, daring me to slip up, to get any fact even slightly wrong.

 

“This may be difficult for you to believe, Fullerton,” he said, thrusting crooked finger at me, “but it’s very simple. Some people in this world are simply better than others. It’s a simple matter of reflex action, or of instinct. Some of us have it, some of us don’t.”

 

Gene Mako.

He was ostensibly speaking of Tilden’s greatness, but that finger with stretched at me. He segued to an anecdote about a friend and fellow uber – human, U. S. badminton Champion David G. Freeman, a Pasadena native who didn’t lose a match for 10 years, beginning in 1939.

 

“David 149 straight matches, “Jean informed me.

 

“Wow, “I said.

 

“Well, it deserves more than a ‘wow,’ “he snarled.

 

“Can you imagine what it takes to win 149 straight matches? Do you think every one of those matches was a challenge? Think of the constitution. Think of the boredom that might’ve set in, but he never let down.”

 

Gene finished his ice tea, ordered two more, one for me as well. Outside, the twilight retreated into the night. We take bathroom breaks.

 

At the time, the Los Angeles tennis club was going through a seeming personality crisis, what with a younger, swimming pool crowd starting to take over, obviously to the club’s incredible tennis legacy, it’s herald past, to which Gene was inextricably linked. He was a relic of that treasured time when the world’s best players gathered and played there regularly – Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines, Bobby Riggs, Ted Shroeder, Lester Stoefen , Pancho Gonzales, and also a bean-stock lad named Jack Kramer.

 

They played, they played.

 

I said, “Wow, ‘er, Gene, so back in the day you could drop by the club be here and hit anytime you wanted with the greatest players on the planet. ”

 

He grew suddenly cross, his eyes slitting. “What’s this hitting [curd]” he barked. “You don’t ‘hit.’ You play, you play! ”

 

I’ve told that story 1 million times on my teaching court. It seems particularly present these days given the proliferation of tennis academies and camps stressing in the cycles of drilling and heating, but not as much “play. ”

 

“You play, you play, “mandated the great “Sweet Clean Gene” with wretched clarity. “How else do you learn to play matches, except to play matches?!”

 

His “facts” came fast and hard: Venus Williams? Gene could help her with her serve.

 

All she has to do is say ‘yes, I’ll let you help me,’ and she’d do away with all those second serve double-faults” he said.

 

“She needs to go to a court by herself and practice second serves, not firsts, until she can get 100 in a row in the court. When you can do that, she’ll know she can do it – because she did it.”

 

On modern day big serves: “Everybody talks about how players are serving harder now than ever,” he grumbled. “But what people don’t realize is that the balls back in the teens and twenties were smaller. Me, Elly ( Ellsworth Vines), Lester Stoefen , and Big Bill Tilden were hitting 150 mph serves regularly.”

 

On learning tennis: “The greats , the champions, they don’t need anyone to show them. I never had a coach or a single lesson. I simply watch the best of them and patterned my shots.”

 

As a basketball player, he informed me, he was a great free-thrower. “I could do it because I planted myself on the line and kept doing it until I can make 100 in a row without missing. That’s it. I knew he could do it because I did it. ”

 

He elaborated, “You want to know why players like Tilden walked on water? ”

 

“Because he knew he could do it?” I ventured.

 

“Right!

 

He went on to say that whether you have a court or not, playing against a wall, on the roof, wherever, you ought to be able to learn the gist of tennis in 5 minutes. Adapt. This is what made Tilden so special – that he could adapt. On any surface – grass, clay, hard court – it became his surface. He had every shot in the book.”

 

“And players today?” I asked timidly.

 

“Monkey see, monkey do,” smiled Gene. “Tilden would have them running in circles. He could hit any angle from any spot on the court, and with perfect touch and speed of the ball.”

 

Of my cherished backhand slice: I told him I recently played some of my best tennis in thirty years, with true flashes of brilliance — to which he retorted, “But at age 40, Fullerton, you have to accept you’ll only get worse.”

 

“But I feel as if I’m at least getting smarter.”

 

“You may be, but your body is falling apart. After that, it’s not too long before your brain does.”

 

Then, as if realizing he’d jabbed too hard, he drag me through a rough patch of elementary mathematics, whittling my tennis rating down (or up) to a talk 1.5%. He said, “Of all the people who play tennis in the world, you’re in the top percentile. You’re in a very small minority of people who play tennis very well.”

 

And so I was officially resurrected.

 

I simply had to accept the fact that Gene dealt in truth, and facts alone. It was nothing personal.

 

Except it was somehow very personal. The club had grown quiet and the kitchen help with packing up to go home. So was I. We shook hands warmly and I thanked him for his time. He shrugged as if it was nothing, all in a day’s work. I had one resolve for the article I know planned to write: I would darn well get the facts straight.

 

Even now, twelve years later, Gene’s soul drifting in and out of the room, I pray I’ll do him factual justice.

 

( Mr. Penner is a writer and tennis pro teaching lessons exclusively on clay and raising three racquet-wielding children with wife Jenny)

 

Editors Note : Gene Mako was a great guy , super tennis player , tennis court designer , art dealer , he was a man who wore many hats. In 1970 when I started playing on tennis courts in Southern California. Every time we played on a great court we knew we would see the famous plaque in the court. Built by Gene Mako.

 

The day came twenty years later when I sat down with a client to design a court with Gino. Wow. What an experience. One thing that stands out from our many visits and chats was how the USLTA had made his early life in tournaments difficult. They just didn’t believe that this big kid that appeared 16 years old in size , height , weight , yet he was only 10. He kept having to show his birth certificate to the point that he carried it with him.

 

We were thrilled when our buddy RUDY told of of this great story that Thomas Penner would share with us. It’s a great piece. Please enjoy. (LJ)

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