“Gorgeous Gussy Our Lady of Lourdes” By Hilary McGuire

Written by: Staff on 13th February 2013

"Gorgeous Gussy Our Lady of Lourdes" By Hilary McGuire |

I had already taught 2 full years at Our Lady of Lourdes in East Los Angeles. One of my math, literature and creative writing students was a particularly receptive Philip Gutierrez, a US District Judge in LA since 2007. Philip was also prominent in my after school tennis program. During the second of those two years I had founded and had a 6-4 season with the Cantwell High School men’s team in nearby Montebello, CA. I fully expected the team to go 10-0 in the 1974 season when Philip would have moved from junior high to high school.

It was the summer of 1973 and my schoolyard tennis program for any kid large enough to hold a racket was in full gear in spite of only a makeshift tennis net and a paucity of equipment. My best non-gang player was Philip, but I was making great progress with the promisingly-athletic Hopie Lopez whose Los Homes Gang was slowly learning discipline–the fun way–playing tennis.

Then in early July I heard about a meeting of the National Junior Tennis League (NJTL) in a room at USC between the Coliseum and the tennis courts. One of the approximately ten people at the meeting approached me.

It was Gussy Moran, wondering how she and two friends could help. I invited them to visit our schoolyard to help me teach and assess the situation. I already had rackets and shirts from Cy Alan Browning, head of LA’s chapter of the NJTL, but was trying to get along with only one net, poorly supported.

A few days later, July 14th, Gussy arrived in East LA. When she and friend Nancy Zimbalist, daughter of famed actor Ephren Zimbalist, Jr. saw the situation, Gussy and Nancy not only helped coach, but Gussy said she could get two old nets from the LA Tennis Club.

By the next weekend the schoolyard was crawling with kids and we had yet another lovely lady coaching. Many more boys were suddenly interested in tennis. They became even more excited when they saw me giving private lessons to teenage girls and getting paid $5 or even $10 per lesson.

The new coaching lady was Debbie Irwin. Her father Mel Irwin, a big time tennis promoter, jumped right in and arranged for a construction team to bring two tennis posts and sleeves for them. Holes were drilled into the concrete, a real professional job!

By the 28th, there were 40 or so kids participating in a tournament which had two divisions, big kids and little ones. To keep all kids interested and to avoid discouragement such as a 6-0 win would cause, I arranged for each contest to consist of only one 3-game set. Each participant played every other in a round robin within either the big-kid or little-kid division. Gussy, Nancy, and Debbie helped steer kids to the proper competition and coached those who had between-match freedom.

Six or eight of that weekend’s better players went to USC the following weekend for the LA-NJTL tournament. Unfortunately, I was called back to Oklahoma before that, but Gussy’s crew helped as Philip advanced to the NJTL finals somewhere back east. Philip will tell that story since I was not involved.

But I wrote a book called Hopie and the Los Homes Gang: A Gangland Primer. The second edition of that book is now available on Amazon.com in both print and Kindle editions.

My correspondence with Gussy through the subsequent decades is something I will always cherish.

Topics: Efrem Zimbalist, gussie moran, Gussy Moran, Hilary McGuire, Nancy Zimbalist, National Junior Tennis League, Philip Gutierrez, Sports, Tennis, Tennis News