Gene Scott by Richard Evans

Written by: Staff on 26th August 2015

Gene Scott by Richard Evans |

I have been thinking about this; about how to write about a friend and a colleague called Gene Scott who was so many things to so many different people; an outstanding athlete who will be remembered for his inquiring, demanding intellect, not to mention his grace and charm.

And as this is a personal memoir, I searched for a particular aspect of our relationship; something that made Gene unique for me. And suddenly I realised something. This natural critic; this man who could have been a college professor or simple teacher so imbued was he with the urge to improve the work of those around him never criticized my writing. He didn’t lavish it with praise, either, save for the occasional quip of approval and he often disagreed with an opinion.

But he never actually criticized the writing. And that, when I think about, is the greatest accolade I have received in over fifty years in journalism. Because Gene could be a harsh, even cruel, critic.

One of the joys of my career was the privilege of being able say whatever I wanted to say about the game of tennis at the back of that unique publication called Tennis Week while Gene’s flowing prose, peppered with the sharp barbs he reserved for those who met with disapproval, adorned the front.

He had founded the magazine in 1974 and it was not long after that he asked me to contribute to a publication that, within a few years, had become an essential read for anyone genuinely interested in how the game was being played and how it was being run.

To an even greater extent than World Tennis magazine, which trod a similarly fearless path under the leadership of its creator Gladys Heldman, Tennis Week reported and probed and analyzed and amused in a way that reflected Scott’s sharp mind and whimsical humor. There was no entity in a sport of many separate entities that escaped his wrath, as well as his approval when merited, because Gene cut that figure which so terrifies bureaucracy and officialdom – the intelligent, knowledgeable and completely independent man.

He invited them all to his lunches and dinners at Elaine’s or the ‘21’ or numerous other East Side watering holes that lived up to the standards he demanded – the Mark McCormacks and Donald Dells and an endless line of USTA Presidents. And an invitation to Tennis Week’s annual cocktail party at the River Club during the US Open was considered a must for anyone who thought themselves important in the game.

Plucking up enough courage to bring the tiger into the cage, the USTA elected him to its Board of Directors in 1995-96 but it was no use. The hierarchy recoiled as he pawed at their ideas and munched on their opinions. After one term, he was free again to roam the meadows of Flushing and White Plains, a prowling presence that kept the game’s keepers forever glancing over their shoulders.

The thing that made Scott so potent as a critic or, as Dell so aptly put it, “the conscience of the game” was that he was no armchair observer. From the actual playing of it, to the running of it, Gene had done it all. It is no exaggeration to say that he was not only one of the finest athletes ever to pass through Yale but was probably one of the finest athletes American sport has ever seen.

Dell, a contemporary at Yale, reckons he could have lettered in twelve sports if he had had the time. As it was he concentrated on a mere four – tennis, soccer, ice hockey and lacrosse. But Dell offered some idea of the range of his abilities when he recounted how Gene would finish a tennis match and immediately run across the road to join the track team and out jump everyone at the high jump.

His skill with a racket took him to No 4 in the US; No 11 in the world; a place on the Davis Cup team and as late as 2004, the 65 Men’s Grasscourt title followed a week later by the ITF Super Senior title. And, for most of his middle years, he was to be found at the Racquet Club on Park Avenue, destroying opponents at the wickedly complicated game of Court Tennis. He was US Champion from 1973 to 1977.

But, despite a strong competitive spirit, it was the role of mentor, friend and creator that brought Gene his greatest satisfaction. He ‘adopted’ young talent and helped them either formally or informally. John McEnroe was one; Bob Kane who started with Gene before going on to run IMG for McCormack was another. And then there was the blond, free-spirited creature who appeared in front of him out of the Long Island mist on the road to Southampton as he was driving to the club one day. It was Vitas Gerulaitis.

“Vitas was out for a run and I had never met him before,” I remember Gene telling me. “With all that blond hair, he looked ethereal, like something out of a fairy tale.”

The fairy tale, of course, had a tragic end for Gerulaitis but not before his whirlwind life and times had packed every unforgiving minute with Kipling’s ‘sixty seconds worth of distance run’ with Gene trying, and sometimes failing, to guide Vitas away from danger.

Scott’s other great contribution to his sport was as a tournament director. In the early days at South Orange, New Jersey and Rye, New York and eventually taking over the direction of the Masters at Madison Square Garden. It was during this latter period that Gene’s life took a totally unexpected turn. Until the moment when an Armenian businessman called Sasson Khakshouri turned up at the Garden and asked Gene if he could follow him around for a few days to see how a tournament was run, Scott’s world had been bordered by the Eastern US states with much enjoyed forays to the great capitals of Western Europe.

But when Khakshouri threw up his hands in horror and said, “This is too difficult for me. I want to create a tournament in Moscow, will you run it for me?” Gene took a deep breath, planted a fur hat on his head and ventured way out of his comfort zone.

In some unexpected ways, Scott was the perfect man for the job. For all his Park Avenue persona, Gene was a trader at heart; a dealer and swapper of artifacts who, in centuries past, would done brilliantly bartering goods on the Silk Road to Tashkent. Loathe to trade in currency, he would offer a racket; a pair of shoes or one of his books. In all the Tennis Week offices as they moved around Manhattan over the years, there was always a stock room piled high with every imaginable piece of equipment.

So, finding himself in Russia in 1990 at the height of perestroika and Boris Yelstin’s arrival in the Kremlin, Scott knew what to do as he set out to meet a nine month deadline for the creation of the Kremlin Cup and the one million dollars needed to sponsor it.

When Bayer, one of the first companies he contacted, reminded him that the old Soviet government owed them millions of dollars, Gene picked up the phone to Russia’s Davis Cup captain ….Tarpischev, who had become the tennis-mad Yeltsin’s Minister of Sport. Bayer got some of their money back and the Kremlin Cup had a million dollar sponsor.

With his loyal Tennis Week team, headed by Carole Graebner and Bobbie Faig, transported with him to the cavernous Olympic Stadium to set up hospitality areas the like of which the Russian public had never seen, Scott produced the miracle Khakshouri had been dreaming of. And not content with that, Gene, then in his fifties, borrowed some hockey gear and descended with the likes of Karel Novacek and other young Czechs and Swedes to join in a competitive match on the underground ice rink. Excuse the obvious, but he really was a man for all seasons.

Returning to a personal note: Gene hired a young lady from New Jersey who had spent a year at Moscow University and was fluent in Russian. She was called Lynn Zanconato. We met at the Kremlin Cup in 1993 and were married two years later. So it is not too much of a stretch to say that our son, Ashley, is another Gene Scott creation.

It was not until he was sixty that Gene began to lose some of the youthful handsomeness that had been his trademark. ( I always thought that he could have subbed for Ryan O’Neal as the preppy in ‘Love Story’ on looks alone.) We joked that fatherhood was turning him grey because, after marrying the beautiful Polly quite late in life, the couple produced Lucy and Sam so, of course, Gene found himself with new responsibilities. But there were no complaints. He adored being a Dad. What better for a born teacher to have two young minds of your very own to tutor?

But it was not fatherhood that was turning Scott grey. He was beginning to develop the symptoms of amyloidosis, a disease that sees fiber deposits clog the arteries to the heart. It was not until he collapsed twice on the street that everyone realized it was something serious. Supposedly expert heart doctors in New York could find nothing wrong which was absurd because a 68-year-old as fit as Gene does not start falling down for no reason.

Eventually a close friend put him on a private plane and flew him to the Mayo Clinic. Amyloidosis was diagnosed within 48 hours. Almost before the doctors had time to tell him that there was no cure, Eugene L. Scott, this man who had been blessed with so many gifts, dropped dead in the hospital canteen.

A few months before his death, I saw Gene on his return from the Bahamas, having spent a week with Lucy at Lyford Cay where he used to keep an island home. “I’ve just spent a week with my daughter,” he said. “It was one of the best weeks of my life.”

Everyone in tennis knew that Gene Scott had touched many lives but I think we were all taken aback by the number of people who attended his funeral. The church was big but not big enough for those who had travelled from far and wide to pay their respects. The service began with overflow crowds standing on Fifth Avenue and 95^th Street.

Afterwards we repaired to the Racquet Club, where Gene had hosted so many dinners as president of the US International Club, and tried to come to terms with our loss. The game’s loss. Tennis would continue in its glamorous, muddled and contradictory way. But without that column on Page Two of Tennis Week to refer to, the moral compass was gone.

And still, to this day, so many people I meet say, “What would Gene have thought?” We are all the poorer for not knowing.

Topics: Boris Yelstins, Donald Dell, Gene Scott, IMG, Kremlin Cup, Vitas Gerulaitis, Yale