The following is an excerpt from Sandy Harwitt’s book “The Greatest Jewish Tennis Players of All Time” ($19.95, New Chapter Press, available here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/193755936X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_iEgYub1G0P727 via Amazon.com) on Brian Teacher, whose career was highlighted by an incredible story on how he was able to win the Australian Open in 1980.
Brian Teacher came from a time when players thought that winning a college tennis scholarship was the ultimate success story and very few could even imagine playing on the international tennis circuit.
His love of tennis came from his mom, who played recreational tennis at Morley Field, a public park in San Diego where the great Maureen Connolly learned to play the game. Brian was born in 1954 and he describes his hometown of San Diego aptly: “In the ‘50s, it was pretty much a sleepy naval town.” Before he was old enough to go to school, Brian would accompany his mother to Morley Field a few times a week when she would play tennis and he would play nearby to the courts.
“I would run around there and watch my mom play,” Brian remembered. “I kind of wanted to try and play tennis at an early age so they gave me a racket. I seemed to take a natural liking to it and she would always feed me balls.”
As Teacher’s interest in tennis grew, his parents started giving him occasional lessons. And then when he was between 10 and 12 years old, he would take weekend clinics at the public facility with Fred Kinney, an editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune and avid tennis player.
“There was not that many places to play in San Diego there weren’t many clubs,” he said. “There was the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club but that was in La Jolla and I lived more in the center of San Diego. And at the same time you had to have a lot of money to belong to a club and we didn’t have enough money.”
By the time that Teacher reached his teens, he was even more taken in by tennis. He wanted to do whatever he could to become the best player possible. In his mind he hit the jackpot when he was offered a tennis scholarship to UCLA — it was known as a highly prominent tennis school as well as an academically acclaimed college.
“I was excited to go up there because it was one of the top teams in the country,” Teacher said. “They had (Jeff) Borowiak and (Jimmy) Connors there, although when Jimmy won the NCAAs he left to turn pro. I went to UCLA in ’72 and pro tennis just came in in ’68 so there wasn’t a lot of money in it.”
While Brian was thrilled to be at UCLA to pick the brain of tennis coach Glenn Bassett, he also expanded his tennis horizons by hopping in the car and going to Rolling Hills. That’s where he would take occasional lessons from Robert Landsdorp, a Dutchman born in Indonesia who had a guiding hand in molding many of the greats including Tracy Austin, Lindsay Davenport, and Maria Sharapova.
When Teacher entered UCLA he had no intention of pursuing a pro career, it just wasn’t the given natural progression for most back then although former Bruins Arthur Ashe and Connors went in that direction. But, as time progressed, Teacher began to realize he was a collegiate standout and his mind began to wander to the tour. He would stay on at UCLA to help the Bruins to the NCAA team title his junior and senior years, but he would leave school about 16 units short of a degree, a situation he rectified by earning his diploma in economics when he retired from pro tennis in 1989: “Around my second year, when I won the Pac-8, I said to myself, ‘You know, I’m kind of at the top of this college thing and I’m beating everybody so I should think about going pro. I mean, why not, what do I have to lose?’ ”
At 6-foot-3, the lanky Teacher thrived on fast-court surfaces where his serve and volley style was at its best. He would win eight career titles, reach 15 additional finals, and be among the top 10 in the world, topping out at No. 7 in October 1981. The tour was a very different animal in its proinfancy — paychecks lacked in the extra zero department— and facilities weren’t state of the art: “We still had fun,” he said.
Teacher’s crowning achievement was becoming a Grand Slam champion by winning the 1980 Australian Open. Heading into Melbourne, Teacher had reached the final at the five previous tournaments he played: Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangkok and then the Australian Open tune-up tournament in Sydney. What most people don’t know is that Teacher nearly didn’t play at the Australian Open that year, initially planning to fly back home to resolve a family matter.
Teacher had met and married fellow California player Kathy May, also a Top 10 player, when they were very young. May, who came from a very prominent background, decided to leave the tour early in the fall of 1980 but Brian was continuing to play. May also came from strong Jewish roots although she was raised in the Protestant faith. Her father, the late David May II, was a notable figure in the Los Angeles Jewish community as the heir of the family business — May Company Department Stores Co., which operated 324 stores in 31 states and the District of Columbia when he died in 1992. Her maternal step-grandfather Mervyn LeRoy, who she considered her grandpa, was a famous Hollywood director and the producer of “The Wizard of Oz,” and also was Jewish.
“I was married kind of young at the time and it’s kind of a funny story, and I don’t think it’s ever been publicized,” said Teacher, starting to describe the circumstances behind his Australian Open victory. “We weren’t getting along that well so it was right after my final match at Sydney when I called home and I said, ‘I just lost and I had match point’ and the first thing out of Kathy’s mouth was she wanted a divorce. I said, ‘What?’ That’s like crazy and we had just been talking about moving and starting a family. I thought about it, the Australian Open was supposed to start in two days and I was definitely playing the best tennis of my career and I was going to be seeded. But I said to myself, ‘You know what, I think something is going on here, maybe there’s another guy involved.’”
Convinced he would be unable to focus on playing, Teacher decided to pull out of the Australian Open and go home: “I actually called up (Australian Open tournament director) Colin Stubbs and pulled out of the draw. I told Colin I had hurt my back from all those finals in a row and he said, ‘Too bad.’”
His bags packed and less than a half hour away from leaving his hotel room for the airport, Teacher received a call that changed his mind: “I got a phone call from Kathy’s father, David, and he told me that it’s not going to do you any good to come home right now. There’s too much stuff going on with Kathy so I shouldn’t bother coming home. David told me, ‘Why don’t you just go to Hawaii, take a break.’”
Teacher thought about his father-in-law’s advice but decided a solo Hawaiian vacation as his almost two-year-old marriage was on the rocks wouldn’t be any fun: “I didn’t think I’d have a good time in Hawaii so I might as well just stay and try to play this tournament. I called Colin Stubbs back four or five hours after my first call to him and said, ‘Colin, you know what, I just went and got some acupuncture and it feels much better. Do you think you can let me back in the draw?’ Colin said, ‘You know Brian I can’t do that, I just took you out of the draw and put somebody in, but I think somebody else is pulling out of the tournament so let me see what I can do, but you can’t tell anybody because I’m not supposed to do this.’” In today’s world, this could never happen, but back then Stubbs managed to sneak Teacher back into the competition.
The rest is history. In a draw that included marquee names such as Guillermo Vilas, Ivan Lendl, Jose Luis Clerc, Vitas Gerulaitis, Brian Gottfried and Yannick Noah, Teacher came through with the win, defeating surprise finalist Kim Warwick 7-5, 7-6, 6-3 in the final for the victory he describes as “meant to be.” It should also be pointed out that Teacher is the last major champion that holds a university diploma, a further sign that playing college tennis fell out of style as players turned pro earlier.
Back when Teacher played, almost all the players competed in singles and doubles and Brian was no different. He won 16 doubles titles in his career with a variety of partners although he was often linked with fellow Californian Bruce Manson (also a Jewish player) with whom he won five titles. Playing in a time when there were many prominent Jewish players on the tour, it was just an incidental fact if you happened to be of that faith. However, with a generic last name like Teacher it was hardly a given that fans were aware he was a member of the tribe. That fact became very clear at the 1980 U.S. Open when Teacher faced Israeli Shlomo Glickstein in the second round, a match that Brian won in five sets.
“I remember playing Shlomo at the U.S. Open and maybe people didn’t realize I was Jewish,” he said. “And here I’m an American and the whole crowd, they’re going
crazy for Shlomo. I guess, maybe, I should’ve said, ‘Hey I’m Jewish, too.’ I should have. I was all pissed off and I’m trying to focus and am all irritated. And besides that we were playing at that very back court at the back of Flushing Meadows where they had the hamburger stand and the whole time hamburger smoke was blowing in my face.”
Teacher’s marriage to Kathy May did dissolve, but Teacher’s second marriage was a happier match and the couple have two daughters. He taught both to play tennis when they were little but neither had much interest in the game. Recently, Brian credits his oldest, Noelle, in awakening a little more of an interest in Judaism.
“I had a Bar Mitzvah,” he noted. “I’m spiritually religious. I like the tradition. It’s funny, but my older daughter is embracing the tradition much more than I am so she’s kind of bringing me back to the fold.”
Since his retirement from tennis, Teacher has undergone two hip replacements and suffers from osteoarthritis — he was diagnosed at 19 with arthritis, initially in his neck and spine. Despite the pain, Teacher remains active to combat the disease and does a lot of Vikram Yoga. For a long time, he traveled as a coach to other players — Andre Agassi, Greg Rusedski, Max Mirnyi, Jim Grabb, Richey Reneberg, Daniel Nestor, Mark Knowles — but nowadays operates the boutique Brian Teacher Tennis Academy close to his home in Southern California.
Teacher was enshrined in the ITA Hall of Fame, NCAA Tennis Hall of Fame and Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
