50 Years of Influence, US Open: Bud Collins

WATCH—Bud Collins - Unstrung:

In the five decades since the first US Open, these are the players, innovators and newsmakers whose contributions have helped make it one of our nation’s essential sporting events

“Were they playing tennis on a wooded hillside?” the young Collins wondered as he listened from his Ohio hometown to a 1940s radio broadcast of the U.S. Nationals at Forest Hills.

From the moment he heard those siren words, Collins was fascinated by what he couldn’t see. Through the radio, he was introduced to “an unimaginable pleasure dome” in New York City. When he learned that Jack Kramer would make his last appearance there in 1947, Collins had to see it for himself, so he and two friends made a 26-hour drive to the West Side Tennis Club. It didn’t disappoint.

Twenty-one years later, Collins returned to Forest Hills and joined Kramer in the CBS booth to call the first US Open. His life had been pointing in this direction all along. In the 1950s, Collins moved to Boston, where he became the city’s lone tennis reporter and its pioneering tennis broadcaster. Each summer, he did commentary for WGBH’s coverage of the National Doubles at Longwood Cricket Club.

Until his death in 2016 at 86, Collins, with his bow-ties, loud pants and gift of gab, would be the voice of tennis. He was an excitable proselytizer for the sport, who could make a “net cord!” sound like an earth-shattering event. In 2016, the US Open press room was named the Bud Collins Media Center. The boy who was hooked on tennis by a broadcast would hook millions of others with his own well-chosen words.