JIMMY McCLURE--PART II
USATT Hall of Fame Inductee (1966)
by USATT Historian Tim Boggan - © 2001
Having won the 1939 U.S. Open in Toledo, McClure wanted to capitalize
on his title as best he could. Which explains why, though he was the
advertised featured player at the Dec. 16-17, ’39 Intercities he didn’t
show—didn’t get to see, midway up Philadelphia’s City Hall building, the
large electric sign blazoning “WELCOME NATIONAL TABLE TENNIS STARS,”
didn’t get to be greeted by the mayor himself. Since it was said that no
U.S. #1 had ever absented himself from the Intercities before, people asked
the question, “Where the hell is Jimmy?
Answer: Out on a
Tour with Sandor Glancz. And, adding insult to injury, playing exhibitions
elsewhere in Pennsylvania—at Oil City on Friday and Uniontown on Saturday.
This offense prompted the PTTA to ask the USTTA to discipline McClure and
Glancz “for violation of By-Law 8 in playing exhibitions in the state sans
PTTA permission”--a request that was pursued on paper by the newly appointed
USTTA Executive Secretary, Vic Rupp.
As one can see
from his Jan. 7, 1940 letter to the USTTA Executive Committee and Board of
Regents, Rupp himself feels that Jimmy is quite out of line and wants to stop
other top exhibition players from following suit. Here’s a pertinent excerpt
from his three-page, single-spaced letter, which not surprisingly illustrates
his Official vs. Player point of view:
“While it is
true, as Jerry Woodruff [USTTA Recording Secretary and Exhibition Chair]
points out, that the No. 1 ranking player has his best chances to make money
the year he holds the title, nevertheless the selfishness of the players to
gain financially at the expense of the association should certainly not be
condoned. After all, as Carl [Zeisberg] explains, the officials work hard to
arrange events for the benefit of the players, and the players should
certainly be sufficiently appreciative of the work done for them to take an
active part in tournaments where the association will be apt to benefit.
McClure says he is all for the game. I do not doubt this in the least. It is
one thing to be for the game and another for the association. We all know
that exhibitions help popularize the game but have little effect on
increasing the number of USTTA members. In fact the players in exhibitions
are the ones who benefit most; the local affiliate or sponsor next, and the
USTTA gains only by the small Exhibition fee charged. The players must be
taught that the association which helps make possible their opportunities to
make money should receive consideration, and their selfish desire for profit
should not be permitted to outweigh the loyalty they owe.
At the
[Intercity] matches George Schein (USTTA Ranking Committeeman] informed me
that he had received absolutely nothing up to that time for McClure’s
ranking record for the current season. Jimmy himself wrote that he would not
participate in the East-West match if selected. This can indicate only one
thing: that Jimmy feels absolutely no responsibility to the association or
its progress. In the past it has been necessary to clamp down on various
top-notch players because of their failure to cooperate. If McClure is
permitted to run rife, increasing difficulty will be encountered in
controlling players in the future. While the player certainly deserves every
consideration, he in turn must have some consideration for the association
and its officials.”
Rupp suggests four
changes in Exhibition By-Law 8. One, restrain tournament-enhancing players
from arranging exhibitions that would prevent them from playing in major
tournaments. This would also prevent an “unscrupulous exhibition team”
from performing nearby while a major tournament was going on. Two, insure that
the Exhibition team notify the USTTA Exhibition Chair of their itinerary
(which McClure and Glancz did not do), so that he could refuse sanction of a
conflicting tournament. Three, provide a “severe penalty for failure to
apply for permission of the local affiliate to hold exhibitions in the
territory.” (Rupp says Pennsylvania TTA President Robert Metcalf had good
cause to resent McClure/Glancz’s lack of consideration.) And fourth, insist
that, unless excused for good reason, top-ranked players must participate in
major tournaments or forfeit their title. (What, though does that mean? If
someone doesn’t defend his/her title, he of course would no longer currently
hold it. Is the win then to be purged from the record books, never after to be
affixed to his/her name?)
Rupp also
recommended that the USTTA take definite action against McClure for failure to
cooperate.
So was any
punitive action taken against Jimmy? No. And why not? Perhaps because E.C.
members were in awe when they’d heard that a Battle Creek, Michigan reporter
had written that Jimmy and Sandor had “amused the crowd by hitting and
returning the ball with the butt end of their pencils” [sic].
The 10th
U.S. Open (with $1600 worth of trophies) was held Apr. 5-7, 1940 in
Indianapolis at historic Tomlinson Hall, called by one local reporter “a
rambling old structure” that’s seen “bicycle races” and heard “the
rantings of political orators and the screeches of old fiddlers’
contests.”
In the 8th’s,
Defending Champion McClure smashed his way to a straight-game win over Don
MacCrossen, giving himself “pep talks” along the way to keep forcing the
attack. Then in the quarter’s, no problem, he eased by the Massachusetts #1,
Les Lowry. In the semi’s, though—as former USTTA Ranking Chair Reginald
Hammond, brought out of retirement to be the Tournament Referee, tells
us—Jimmy fell to Sol Schiff. “McClure, leading 2-1 and 17-16, blasted a
shot down the sidelines for a sure winner. When Sol returned it—even though
it was a sitter that any dub could finish off—Jimmy was so amazed that he
drove it off to lose his lead,” and then the match. Perhaps Jimmy lost in
part not only because he was running this Open, but because he wasn’t
tournament tough. Preoccupied with two other responsibilities—his table
tennis club and Pla-Good sports shop—he hadn’t played enough this season
to get a ranking.
In Men’s Doubles
there was only one upset—but that high on the Richter scale. Defending
Champions Laci Bellak and Tibor Hazi were beaten in the 8th’s by
the last-minute pick-up pair of Doubles specialist Al Nordhem and Roger Downs.
Which made it easy for former World Champions McClure and Schiff to win
another National Doubles title.
First and
second-round matches in the Mixed started at the ungodly hour of 10:30
Saturday night, just an hour before the buffet supper and get-together party
at the Hotel Washington. For whatever reason, McClure and Sally Green (who
would win the Women’s Singles) defaulted their scheduled opener. Perhaps the
fact that not only had they already played on Saturday evening but that, being
in contention for other titles on Sunday, they didn’t want too many singles
and doubles matches to pile up on them. One thing sure—it wasn’t because
McClure was in a hurry to get to the buffet, for Topics “Sidelines”
columnist George Koehnke said that Jimmy was so involved in running the
tournament and playing in it that he “didn’t eat a meal” the whole time.
That fall,
Jimmy who’d put on a couple of tournaments at his Club but hadn’t played
in them, did show for the Intercities. Against St. Louis, out-of-practice as
he was, he could still beat both George Hendry and Garrett Nash, but his
Indianapolis team wasn’t strong enough to be in contention.
At the 1941 U.S.
Open, held in New York’s Manhattan Center, McClure lost to Lowry, whom
he’d convincingly beaten at last year’s Open. Ah well, since matches never
started before 1:00 in the afternoon, look into the New Yorker’s cocktail
bar at any wee hour of the morning and you could see why it was the official
hotel—Jimmy and a host of others would be there, swapping stories. Defending
in the Men’s Doubles, McClure and Schiff got by the strong Chicago team of
Bill Holzrichter and Bob Anderson in 5 to meet in the final the teenage team
of Eddie Pinner and Cy Sussman who’d just eked by Nash and Lou Pagliaro
deuce in the 5th. In a thrilling 5-game match, “Sussman’s
backhand shots were the big siege guns of the attack,” a convincing
counter-force to McClure’s “smashing forehands.” The 17-year-old Pinner
and the 18-year-old Sussman thus became the youngest doubles team to win in
the 11-year history of the Open.
At the Intercities,
Topics said “McClure looked bad in losing earlier to Chicago’s
Billy Holzrichter [Oustanding Player Award winner] and Bob Anderson,” but
then he had “straight game wins over Pagliaro and Hazi [who was 12-4].”
At
the Cincinnati Middle States Open, held the week before the Apr. 10-12, 1942
Detroit U.S. Open, Jimmy reached the final before losing to Dick Miles. Dick,
then 16, hadn’t much opportunity to see 3-time World Doubles Champion
McClure play, but years later he told me that even in the early 1940’s Jimmy
was hitting the ball “murderously hard.” At the Cobo Hall National’s,
Jimmy beat Sussman, then in the
quarter’s he 19, 20, 19 ever threatened, but only threatened, Chuck Burns
who that year would be runner-up to Pagliaro. Pinner and Sussman successfully
defended their Doubles title, but were 5-game pressed in the semi’s by
McClure and Bellak.
Ever since, at 22, he’d won the U.S. Open, Jimmy was more
and more concerned about establishing his Jimmy McClure Table Tennis Company
and Pla-Good Sports Shop. But of course the War intervened and in May, 1942 he
joined the Navy and served in the South Pacific. His mustering-out photo
appeared on the cover of the Jan., 1946 Topics.
Naturally in those
post-War years Jimmy, trying to pick up where he’d left off, had to keep a
firm hand on his table tennis/tennis business. But he still played
competitively—at least, as had been his habit before, in big tournaments,
and was registered with the USTTA as an exhibition player. At the 1946 U.S.
Open, held at the St. Nicholas Arena in New York City, McClure beat
Holzrichter, then in the quarter’s was beaten by
Pinner in 4. In the semi’s of the Mixed, he and 1945 U.S. Open Champ
Davida Hawthorn lost to that year’s holders, Schiff and Peggy McLean, the
‘46 Women’s winner. In the Men’s Doubles, he and Paggy dropped a
deuce-in-the-5th killer to Schiff and Johnny Somael.
The December Topics
showed the results of a poll taken as to who was the greatest U.S. player of
all times. Miles, who’d won his first National’s only the year before, and
hadn’t yet represented the U.S. at a World’s, received 38% of the vote,
McClure 29% (he’d been thanked for presenting action photos of himself for
publicity purposes at the recent Intercities), and Coleman Clark, who had only
a weak 1932 APPA National’s to his credit,
an astonishing 12%, explainable only because he was such a famous
exhibition player and because many USTTA members obviously had no idea what
excellence was. Schiff, who in the 1930’s was indisputably one of the world’s
greatest players, was not mentioned in the article.
The Jan., 1947 Topics
that followed had a full-page article by Jimmy accompanied by a pre-War photo
of him in a defensive pose. Among his “Tips” was the advice, gleaned as we
saw in Part I from his own experience, “Never let a net ball, edge shot, or
so-called lucky shot bother you.” In a later article, Jimmy will describe
the different forehand strokes of the top U.S. players and have tips on
attacking play.
At the ’47
National’s, McClure knocked out the U.S. Junior Champion, Marty Reisman in 5
in the 8th’s. Marty outscored Jimmy, 100-87—but Jimmy won the
close games. Holzrichter, however, avenged his ’46 loss—downed Jimmy in
the quarter’s. In the Men’s Doubles, paired with Sol, Jimmy lost another
close semi’s, 19 in the 5th, to Burns and Max Hersh. But that
season he played enough to get his first ranking in years—U.S. #11.
With his
teammates, Capt. Bill Price, Schiff, and Pinner, McClure helped the U.S. blank
the Canadians in the U.S. vs. Canada Match at the 1947 Toronto CNE. In the
Singles, Jimmy was beaten in the semi’s by Doug Cartland, runner-up to
Reisman. In Men’s Doubles, Jimmy partnered by Pinner, lost in the final to
Schiff/Cartland.
For whatever
reason, McClure didn’t play in the ’48 National’s, but he was named
Player/Captain of the U.S. Team to the 1949 Stockholm World’s.
Since the
USTTA’s “Fighting Fund” contributions weren’t nearly enough to cover
the players’ expenses, our Team was obligated to do exhibitions in Sweden
and later in England. These exhibitions were necessary, for in contracting for
them we were guaranteed a $1,000 from each country.
In Sweden the Team
split into two exhibition groups. McClure, Reisman, and Thelma “Tybie”
Thall played matches in “the little fishing town of Gravarne” where they
were presented with “beautiful leather-filled cases.” Miles, Cartland,
Peggy McLean, and Mildred Shahian went to Ljungskile where for their friendly
play they received “gifts of glass vases.”
The Team then came
together for more exhibitions—in Tibro and Halmstad, for example—and for a
tournament in Norakoping before 900 spectators, where the winner, the great
Swedish Champion Tage Flisberg, beat Jimmy 19 and 22 in the semi’s. An even
larger audience attended the Jan. 19 U.S.-Sweden match in Gothenburg—won by
the U.S. when Miles beat Bengt Grieve 27-25 in the 3rd game of the
9th match.
In Stockholm, our Team made a good appearance, outfitted as
they were by McClure’s Pla-Goods Sport Shop, but the men had to have been
disappointed. Their one loss to Hungary kept them out of the Swaythling Cup
final. And in the Singles, Reisman, who after this World’s would win the
English Open from many-time World Champion Victor Barna, lost in the semi’s
to runner-up Bo Vana, dropping the 1st game that might have given
him momentum 23-21; Miles lost in the quarter’s to the eventual winner,
Johnny Leach, lamenting for a lifetime how at deuce in the 5th he
missed an easy putaway. Cartland, who couldn’t win one of the two opening
deuce games, outscored 3-time World runner-up Alex Ehrlich but couldn’t beat
him; and McClure lost to Sweden’s Arne Anderson, like Miles, deuce in the 5th.
In the Doubles, McClure and Reisman dropped an early-round match to
Yugoslavia’s Harangozo brothers. So all this was… Uggg-ly.
The U.S. Women,
however, had every reason to smile on winning the Corbillon Cup from England.
With matches tied at 1-1, McLean and Thall beat Peggy Franks and Pinkie Barnes
deuce in the 3rd , and McLean then finished off Franks deuce in the
2nd.
On returning home,
McClure participated in the 1949 U.S. Open, and in the 3rd round,
against George Ferris, had the distinction of playing the only Expedite match
of the tournament. The Rule went in when Jimmy was down 16-14 in the 5th—and,
said Topics, “amazingly enough, each player did his best when it was
his time to hit.” This match, finally won 24-22 by McClure, “was probably
the most exciting match of the whole tourney.” Jimmy went on in the 8th’s
to upset Morris Chait, who at 17 with Miles, 22, and Reisman, 18, had been the
youngest member of the youngest team to date to win the (’48) Intercities.
But in the quarter’s, Jimmy fell to Reisman. Marty, though losing the
Singles to Miles, teamed with Schiff to win the Doubles, beating McClure and
Somael in the semi’s.
The ’49
Intercities, now for the first time known as the National Team Championships (NTC’s)—and,
with teams defaulting, an abbreviated one at that--was held in Indianapolis,
so Jimmy, while playing for Indiana, took on the responsibility of running the
tournament. But though Topics said he was “not nearly up to his old
form,” given his three wins in the Detroit tie, had his teammate, the
precocious junior Gordon Barclay, up 1-0 and 20-17 match point, won his match
against Glen Whitcroft, Indiana, not Detroit, would have been in the final.
The U.S. can’t
send a team to the 1950 World’s, held in off-limits Budapest. But McClure,
as U.S. Team Captain, arranged a series of Army exhibitions in Austria,
Germany, and England in return for transportation to and from Europe. In fact,
said Jimmy, “The whole team traveled VIP (Very Important Persons), the same
as senators, congressmen, etc. We stayed in the finest hotels, and ate like
kings all through the trip.” Accompanied by Army escort officers, the Team
was able to play in the prestigious English Open at Wembley Mar. 9-11, as well
as in the earlier Austrian Open warm-up tournament. At Vienna, U.S. Open
Junior Champion Wally Gundlach won the Junior’s and Jimmy with Holzrichter
the Men’s Doubles.
England’s Johnny
Leach, the 1949 World Champion, had come to St. Louis for our 1950 U.S. Open
as the favorite to win. He’d reached the semi’s without losing a
game—and there met the 33-year-old McClure who’d just beaten him in the
English Open. McClure had gone deuce in the 4th with the hot and
cold Detroit player V. Lee Webb (in this instance, hot, for, after leading
Jimmy 20-14 in the 4th and losing, Lee broke his bat), and then
another 4 with Chicago’s Ralph Bast, who’d eliminated Garrett Nash, 29-27
in the 5th. Here’s what Topics had to say about “the aging but
agile” McClure’s match with the World Champion:
“…McClure
had the Englishman down 2 games to one and 20-19 match point in the fourth!
This was a terrific match and it’s a shame that everyone could not have
seen it. For the first two games Jimmy McClure was simply untouchable. He
whanged the ball to the far corners of the gym, and even Leach’s great
retrieving ability was not up to the task of running down the flying
celluloid.
McCLURE’S
MISTAKE
But at this
point Jimmy made a fatal error. He left the floor for three or four minutes
to quench his thirst and mop his sweating brow. That was all the time that
Leach needed. He walked to the edge of the playing area, which is all
perfectly legal and honorable, and conversed with his coach, Jack
Carrington. And Carrington’s advice was good. He told Johnny to keep his
defense a little shorter (according to our informant) and this the new
champion did, winning the third game 21-17. However it was the
Englishman’s fight that pulled out that fiercely fought fourth game. That
plus the fact that he had simply tired out McClure’s good right arm, which
had done a tremendous amount of flailing trying to get that ball past plucky
Leach. McClure said afterward that his arm felt like a damp rag after the
third game, and well it should be what with the number of kills he hit.
Leach led all the way in the fifth game, keeping the ball away from
McClure’s forehand as much as possible; when McClure moved to the backhand
side of the table to hit his forearm, he found Johnny’s return way over on
his forehand side causing him to hit on the run. Scores of this great match
were –18, -20, 17, 21, 15.
I assume the writer of this unsigned article was
Editor Bill Price who himself reached the semi’s before losing to
Holzrichter, runner-up to Leach. In the Men’s Doubles, McClure and Hazi went
down in 4 in the semi’s to the eventual winners, Leach and Carrington.
Jimmy’s great play earned him the #2 U.S. ranking for the year in both
Singles and Doubles.
McClure remained
as our U.S. Team Captain for the ’51 Vienna World Championships (though Bill
Gunn would assist him with the Women’s Team), and again the U.S. Army in
return for exhibitions before and after the World’s would provide free
transportation. At Vienna, in the Singles, Jimmy put up 22, 19, 17 stiff
resistance to France’s Michel Lanskoy, but couldn’t contend in the
Doubles.
McClure didn’t play in the ’51 National’s or NTC’s.
But he was obviously present at the ’52 U.S. Open, for Topics said,
“As usual the gallery followed Jimmy McClure around and gave him a big hand
when he came from behind [-18, 22, 28, 26] to whip Jerry Ghahramanian,” a
University student here in the States said to be the “Champion of Iran.”
Jimmy followed that win with another—over 1950 U.S. Team member Gundlach—before
losing 16, 19, 20 in the 8th’s to Schiff. In the Doubles McClure
and Hazi lost in 4 in the semi’s to the runner-up team of
Pagliaro and Somael.
Jimmy was also at
the 1952 South Bend NTC’s—not playing, but “for two long days” working
the control desk.
From 1949 to 1952,
Jimmy, despite his major-tournamant involvement, seems to be concentrating as
much on Tennis as Table Tennis, for during these years he’s repeatedly
Indianapolis Men’s Singles and Doubles Tennis Champion.
Indeed, it’s
quite remarkable how, with so little tournament play, Jimmy had been able
since returning from the Navy to continue to do so well in his table tennis
matches. But his Hall of Fame playing career has now really pretty much come
to an end. There is only one more National Championship to win—the 1953 Over
35 Senior Doubles with Sol (sort of for old times sake?).
By 1957, and his marriage to Nellie Lee Orr, who would never play a
game of table tennis in her life, Jimmy had left the Sport that had made him a
World Champion and for 20 years would be Referee for the National Clay Court
Tennis Championships.
But in 1979 he
returned dramatically to Table Tennis—was honored at the first USTTA Hall of
Fame Annual Awards Banquet in Las Vegas with other 1966 Charter Members, and
was elected President of the Hall of Fame Board of Directors, a position he
holds to this day.
He now starts a whole new, though non-playing, table tennis
life--becomes very involved not only in USTTA but ITTF activities. He begins
his multi-term tenure as USTTA Vice-President and Olympic Chair, and from
1984-1998 he’s President of the USTTA Foundation which, as I write, in 2001
he still represents as a member of the current USATT Board of Directors.
In the 1990’s,
as International Umpire and Referee, he worked many major tournaments and
looked mighty sharp doing it.
During this time,
too, he was the ITTF Olympic Commissioner for North America, and specifically
the Commissioner for the Atlanta Games. He was also a Jury Member at both the
Seoul and Atlanta Olympics. After that he was the ITTF Vice-President for
North America, and for the last 15 years the Chair of the ITTF’s Hall of
Fame Committee.
Naturally, he’s
attended many world-class tournaments abroad. In Japan he’s particularly
welcome. Indeed, in June of 1998 he attended the Japan Open as a special guest
of the Japanese TTA to be honored for his post-World War II help, 50 years
earlier, in getting the ITTF to accept the JTTA as a member-country.
Recently Jimmy was
made a member of ITTF President Sharara’s select Advisory Committee and in
that capacity attended an Oct., 1999 meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland with
former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch. When Jimmy found out that
Samaranch wasn’t really a member of any Sports body, he said, “Well you
are now,” and presented him with an Honorary Life Membership in the USATT
and the gift of an Association tie.
It’s now another
millennium, and with our 2001 Association’s tie…to the USATT Mark Matthews
Lifetime Achievement Award, it was only fitting, that, among the mirrored
stars atop the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas, we honored one of our greatest
USATT Champions—the now 85-year-old Jimmy McClure, a man eternally young who
for decades has deserved the praise we’ve all bestowed upon him.
