The US Open tennis tournament kicks off this week, one month after Marc was inducted into the Austin College Hall of Honor for tennis and one month after Marc read a great book about the history of Texas tennis. Hey, that sounds like a good excuse for a Texas / US Open Roo Tale.
Only one Texan has ever won the US Open in singles: Wilmer Allison, the NCAA Champion from the University of Texas who took the crown in 1935. Allison later coached Longhorn tennis from 1957 to 1973, taking over for his own UT coach: Dr. Daniel Penick.
Daniel Penick is featured prominently in a book about the history of Texas tennis. Author Ken McAllister is a former President of the Texas Tennis Coaches Association and a member of the Texas Tennis Coaches Hall of Fame. In his book “Cattle to Courts: A History of Tennis in Texas,” McAllister calls Daniel Penick the “father of Texas tennis.”
And for good reason. After playing baseball as a UT student in 1892, Daniel Penick returned to the 40 acres to establish Longhorn tennis. During his tenure from 1909 to 1956, Penick mentored countless Southwest Conference champions, 7 national champions, and one US Open champion: Wilmer Allison.
But who introduced Longhorn baseballer Daniel Penick to the game of tennis in the 1890s? It might just be someone like me: a tennis veteran of Presbyterian Austin College.
The Penick family was Presbyterian, with deep ties to AC. Daniel Penick’s uncle was an Austin College trustee in the 1880s. Three of his first cousins attended AC in the 1890s while Penick was playing baseball at UT. And one of those cousins, Tinsley Penick Junkin, played tennis for the Roos. From the May 29, 1892 (!!!), edition of the Dallas Morning News:
“Sherman, Tex – In the tennis contest today between Carr and Baldwin of the Chestnut Hill lawn tennis club of Dallas and [Tinsley Penick] Junkin and [Lawrence] Selfridge of Austin College, Junkin won the single court sets by a score of 6-2 and 9-7. In the double court sets between the four players, Dallas won in a score of 6-2 and 6-3.”
Austin College is Texas sports history. Athletics officially arrived at AC in 1896, well before most colleges in the Lone Star State. Football unofficially arrived three years earlier; Junkin tennis partner Lawrence Selfridge was the captain of that 1893 football team. But way back in 1892, Roos were already playing tennis. In fact, Roo Tinsley Penick Junkin might be the first collegiate tennis player in the state of Texas.
Presbyterian family ties eventually took Daniel Penick to Sherman. Penick spoke in Wynne Chapel on the occasion of Austin College’s 75th anniversary in 1924. “After extending a greeting to the Austin College student body from the students of the University of Texas,” Dr. Penick launched into the subject of Presbyterianism and the value of higher education. It is unknown if he met with the 1924 Austin College tennis team.
After a long career in academia and administration at Daniel Baker College and Texas A&M, Tinsley Penick Junkin passed in 1936. He was an elder of the First Presbyterian Church in Houston, where his Austin College trustee father had been a Minister in the 1880s. One of his pallbearers was his Longhorn cousin Dr. Daniel Penick.
Like Roo Tales themselves, tennis is all about ties. Daniel Penick is bigger than collegiate tennis; he is also the father of UIL (high school) tennis. Until recently, Texas high school tennis players competed for state titles at UT’s Penick-Allison Tennis Center. The Center was named for Daniel Penick and Wilmer Allison, the 1935 US Open champion.
One of those players who competed for a State title at Penick-Allison was my brother Gavin. With Linda Parrish watching, Gavin lost in 1991 to Trey Phillips, a future state champ who would later earn All-American honors as a Longhorn. Phillips played at UT for Coach Dave Snyder, who himself had played at UT for US Open champion Wilmer Allison.
The tennis ties also include me and “Cattle to Courts” author Ken McAllister. My A&M Consolidated Tiger tennis team earned a UIL State Tournament berth in 1986; our team included McAllister’s son. McAllister is a former tennis pro at Conroe’s Walden Country Club, where I earned a state ranking in 1986. Ken McAllister (Southwestern University) and I both played small college tennis in Texas.
You won’t find small college tennis players like Ken McAllister and me competing at the US Open. But we both have our US Open ties. McAllister’s book is full of them. My favorite? McAllister was a line judge for four-time US Open champion Billie Jean King during her “Battle of the Sexes” Astrodome match with Bobby Riggs. Marc? The best player I ever faced in Texas, Alex O’Brien, was the 1999 doubles champion at the US Open.
And this Roo tale includes a new AC tennis tie. 1935 champion Wilmer Allison, the only Texan to win the US Open, might have never reached that lofty height if not for Tinsley Penick Junkin, the 1892 tennis playing Roo who perhaps introduced the game to Allison’s coach: Dr. Daniel Penick, the father of Texas tennis.
If you want a great read about the history of Texas tennis, see the comments for a link to “Cattle to Courts” by Ken McAllister. Thanks for the book Ken! The name Ken McAllister in the world of Texas tennis was known by me even during the days of my youth.
And y’all enjoy this year’s US Open. You won’t find any Southwestern Pirates or Austin College Kangaroos in this year’s draw. But if you give Ken and me enough time, we’ll find the ties that connect our small Texas alma maters to the big American tennis tournament called the US Open.
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/penick-daniel-allen