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OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
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 BUD COLLINS ...NBC dumps him at age 78 |
Stars at Wimbledon:
Federer, Venus and Collins
of TheColumnists.com
These are some of the rich images that flashed across television screens from Wimbledon:
. The fathers of Venus Williams and Marion Bartoli hugging after Venus beat Marion in the women’s final.
. The Nadal family up and cheering in the competitors’ box after a terrific long rally in the men’s final that was won, not by their son, Rafael Nadal, but by his opponent, Roger Federer.
. The image of three former legendary rivals--John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg--walking along Centre Court, helping to set the scene for the men’s final.
. The post-men’s final TV feature honoring the career of Bud Collins, the tennis sage and bon vivant, with images of Collins in his outrageous outfits interviewing champions, making jokes and bon mots.
It is a sad thing for Collins that NBC finally left him off the hook they put him on years ago when they dropped him from the commentary booth to the minor role of doing post-match interviews and odd features. It says here that it will be a good thing for him in the long run because the Tennis Channel, ESPN or CBS will be smart enough to employ Collins as a key guy doing commentary on one of their telecasts. Nobody Asked Me, But I’d urge CBS in particular to hire Collins to work its U.S. Open telecasts from Flushing Meadow in September.
Arthur (Bud) Collins, 78, is the reigning authority on tennis. He is also the most accommodating man about tennis in existence. When novices of the reporting trade are assigned to cover tennis and need help, they invariably go to the man holding down the Boston Globe seat at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, Roland Garros in France or the Australian championships in Melbourne and get desired data or anecdotes from Collins.
NBC became so infatuated with McEnroe, the compulsive motormouth after he retired, that they dropped Collins from the commentary booth to the sidelines. They lost a man who not only knew tennis technique--he was an excellent club level player who won the indoor mixed doubles title one year and who taught tennis at Brandeis U. (to Abbe Hoffman among others)--but also was articulate, witty, with a fine sense of tennis history.
The best tennis commentary pair I have
ever heard was Collins working with Mary Carillo on a few PBS
telecasts, but NBC never had the smarts to put them together
at Wimbledon. And, in keeping with their stupidity, the NBC brass
didn’t use Carillo, the wise, witty and succinct
one on Federer’s final victory over Nadal.
Boston Globe followers of Collins tennis dispatches and his website
(www.budcollinstennis.com) were informed of, among other things, this bit of
dark tennis history: A number of tennis stalwarts have gone to
jail.
Wimbledon finalist of 1879, Vere
(St. Leger) Goold, an Irishman, was convicted
of murder, along with his French wife, and died in 1909 on Devils
Island.
The great Bill Tilden did two short jail
sentences late in his life on morals choices.
Peaches Bartkowicz, a top ten American of the 1960s, was incarcerated
for manslaughter, having killed a man while driving a car.
American Roscoe Tanner, the 1977 Australian champion, became a con man involved
in various scams and is currently serving two years in jail for
parole violations.
Collins, the joker, added that “perhaps the most prominent
rogue was the 17th century Italian painter, Caravaggio, better known for
strokes with a brush. He, a poor loser who might make McEnroe,
Connors and Lleyton Hewitt seem meek, had to go on the run after
killing a tennis opponent.
When Collins did commentary, he had a famous
reply when criticized for talking too much. He said, “Yes
I do. If I were you, when a match is on, I would turn off the
sound and put on Mozart.” His finest moment may have been
the time the cameras picked up one member in the Royal Box at
Wimbledon picking her nose. Collins said, sotto voce,
“Nice backhand.”
Some Wimbledon
thoughts: They must have poured a good amount of water on the
courts this year, because the courts played slow enough to discourage
the few players inclined to do so from serving and then rushing
the net to volley. “It was as if,” said tennis authority
Pete Hyman, “they painted the courts red so that it looked
like the clay courts at Roland Garros in Paris.”…The
hidebound British came up more stodgy than ever when they continued
the tradition of NOT playing on the first Sunday of the fortnight
even though postponements from rain made a shambles of their
schedule this year…Tim Henman is over the hill and Andy
Murray, the best of the current Britishers was injured, so another
year went by without a victory by a Brit that has been lusted
for by England, glorious England, lo these many years. Fred Perry,
who won in 1934, ’35 and ’36, was the last British
man to win-and a likeable rogue was he. He once stopped in the
middle of a crucial point at Wimbledon to gaze for a few moments
at a plane flying overhead.
If you didn’t know any better you might say the past week was a great week for the Swiss because Federer, Switzerland’s finest, won Wimbledon, and Alinghi, the Swiss boat, won the 32nd Americas Cup competition. The only trouble with that is that the Swiss boat was financed by a Swiss billionaire, he was the only Swiss on the boat, and many of its crew were New Zealanders. The Americas Cup may well fade into history if they don’t put in a rule that a boat can be sailed only by citizens of the competing country.
©2007 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The photo is courtesy of Bud Collins. This column first posted July 9, 2007.
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