Reflections Coach Allison and Snyder

The good news about growing older? Because as your vision deteriorates, your insight improves. In this season of being grateful for blessings received, let me tell you why it has for me.

As I look back at my college years a half-century ago, I am grateful for the first-class education I received at the University of Texas for the foundation it laid for my subsequent professional career. But I am equally thankful for two gentlemen who, though masquerading as my varsity tennis coaches, were far more than that. Their true job was to mold young men for good. Tennis was just their stealth vehicle for pulling it off.

Coach Wilmer Allison, a tennis legend of the ’30s, was a delightful wit and mentor. He recruited the best junior players in Texas, but demanded foremost that they deport themselves as gentlemen. His successor Dave Snyder, like Allison, another former Longhorn, we players admired as a coach and role model for his competitive spirit and humility.

These two men gave my teammates and me much more than the satisfaction of athletic achievement and the memories that go with it. They also slipped into the program life lessons of personal discipline unnoticed by many but which count the most because they spill into other pursuits that are more lasting. Not the least of these are competitive desire, fair play, community responsibility and social maturity. Thanks to them, and the hundreds of Longhorn players before, during, and since their time, UT varsity tennis has set a standard and provided a network that is the gift that keeps on giving.

Jim Bayless