A Dick Crawford Memory

 A Dick Crawford Memory

All

A wonderful memory of our Coach.  I have a thick collection of photos with his "friends"! There's a story waiting to be told behind each of them. Makes me want to dig further to know more about his escapades.  What a life!  

David, thanks for sharing

John

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In June-July of 1977 I embarked on a “grand tour” of the British Isles and Northern Europe. I visited England and Ireland and then traveled thru Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Holland.

Upon returning to England, my immediate destination was the All England Lawn Tennis Club, to attend the Wimbledon tennis championships for the first time. Through high school and college I was a “serious” tennis player. I grew up watching tennis from Wimbledon on TV and reading about the tournament and seeing the photos in World Tennis magazine. Although I had been to the U.S. national championships at Forest Hills several times, a day at Wimbledon was something I looked forward to for many years. While not quite a holy shrine, for a tennis player a visit to Wimbledon was likely the next best thing.

Back then (and possibly still today), tournament play at Wimbledon did not begin until 2:00pm. I arrived shortly thereafter and got in line (joined the queue, as the English would say) to purchase a general admission ticket for the day.

Once admitted to the grounds, I walked to a large plaza that separated the ivy covered center court stadium from the 20-odd field courts. Alongside the stadium was a large scoreboard that showed all the matches currently in progress and on what number court those matches were being played. For a few minutes, I simply stood there and looked around, taking it all in. 

Then I took a look at the scoreboard to see what matches were being played and decide which matches would be worth seeing. But out of the corner of my eye, I noticed there was a steep staircase. Who did I see halfway up the staircase? None other than Dick Crawford! I had absolutely no idea he would be at Wimbledon that day or any other day during the tournament.

I called out Dick’s name. He saw me, smiled and waved me over. At the bottom of the staircase was a security guard, Dick came down, tapped the guard on the shoulder and said to him, “he’s with me.”

I followed Dick up the stairs and in just a few moments we were in the players’ lounge, each eating a bowl of the legendary Wimbledon strawberries & cream. To say that I was a bit in shock was an understatement. For years I had seen pictures in World Tennis taken of Roy Emerson, Billie jean King and others inside the players’ lounge. Here I was, within 20 minutes of entering the grounds of the All-England Club, sitting one table over from Chris Evert, eating strawberries & cream and pretending like I belonged there.

I cannot remember how long we sat there. At some point Dick got up to leave.  I got up as well, figuring I should probably not stay there by myself. Dick told me not to worry, I could stay as long as I wanted.

A few minutes later I noticed there were doors on one side of the lounge opened to a patio that over looked the #2 court. I spent much of the afternoon standing there watching the tennis alongside Mexican Raul Ramirez and Romanian Virginia Ruzici.

I never asked Dick how he gained access to the players’ lounge. On that day I certainly did not care. But, knowing Dick Crawford, I am not surprised that he did!

David Tepper, 3/22/2021

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All

The year was 1985. When my wife Evy and I were in the middle of one of our European vacations. One afternoon, as we were standing in one of Frankfurt's airport ticket lines and as I was surveying the scene, I was startled to see standing a few yards away in another line, a fellow Jester! - Kris Surano with his wife Sylvia.  We exchanged pleasantries before we went our separate ways.  Small world indeed!

John

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