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The tennis world pays tribute to Bud Collins following the passing of one of the game’s most celebrated journalists and historians
Donald Dell: “I loved Bud Collins and he was a special friend. We shared the same birthday as well. He was one of my closest friends along with Jack Kramer and Barry MacKay. We worked five Wimbledons on Centre Court together with Dick Enberg. We called one of the greatest Wimbledon finals in 1980 with Borg-McEnroe. I was Davis Cup captain in 1968-69 and Bud was our official writer. You can’t say enough about him because in the 1970s, 1980s he was a big promoter of tennis and was a helluva commentator. He was by far and away the best historian of the sport. Bud was a very good writer and commentator and he always wanted to bring a different dimension to the audience. He was the best, period.”
Roger Federer: "I've done so many interviews over the years and a lot of the memorable ones were with Bud Collins. He was a major part of the fabric of our great game and he will be dearly missed. I was happy that I knew him."
Mark Stenning, former International Tennis Hall of Fame CEO: “Bud was a frequent guest at Newport, and never turned down a request to help in any way. He helped with appearances, presentations and with his friendship. When we were struggling to memorialize another Hall of Famer, Bud said, ‘Why don’t you just say that tennis never had a better friend.’ That is how I will remember Arthur “Bud” Collins – ‘Tennis never had a better friend.’”
Tony Trabert: “He did a great job writing and broadcasting and he was truly a Hall of Famer. He was popular with everyone and will be missed. He was a really good guy.
“One little story comes to mind is when Bud and I were doing commentary for the Italian Open in Rome. A baseline official missed a call and Bud said, ‘Luigi missed that call.’ We went to a commercial break and I asked him how he knew his name. Bud said to me, ‘it was an Italian name and nobody knows either.’”
Raymond Moore, BNP Paribas Open CEO: “Not only was Bud a legend, and the most knowledgeable person about our sport, but he was colorful on top of it. And when I say colorful I mean rainbow colorful; which was unique, special and encapsulated everything we loved about Bud. We will miss him dearly.”
Stan Smith, International Tennis Hall of Fame president: "Bud made such a huge impact on our sport because he was one of the most knowledgeable people in tennis and he was so committed to always learning more about the sport and its characters. By combining his knowledge with his one-of-a-kind color, he really made the game fun and interesting for the fans and the players. He was responsible for growing interest in our sport tremendously.
"On a personal level, Bud was partially responsible for launching my career and my partner Bob Lutz's career. One of our first big wins was in Boston and Bud never let me forget how much he talked us up on the air and how much great promotion he gave us. And every time he reminded me, I was grateful to have been part of Bud's memories. He was probably one of the most giving people that I met. He would do anything for people around the game, and he will be sorely missed."
Todd Martin, International Tennis Hall of Fame CEO: "Bud will be greatly missed, but his impact on the game will never be lost. He documented and commented on our sport's great moments and history every day, and in doing so, he made history himself. As a player, one could count on Bud to be fair, easy to speak with, and able to see past the surface on any subject. His heart and passion for the sport were just as great as his pants were bold. He drew fans into our sport and he kept every one of us in the industry engaged in the news.
"While we are saddened today, it is impossible to think of Bud and not smile. He will be greatly missed, but always remembered with happiness and admiration."
Jimmy Connors: “When Bud was around tennis was a lot more fun. He will be sadly missed.”
Chris Kermode, ATP Executive Chairman and President: "The ATP family is deeply saddened to learn of Bud's passing. Generous, gregarious and sharply witty, Bud was equally loved and respected by all in the tennis community. His impact on the sport was immense. His Encyclopedia remains to this day as one of the game's defining literary works and reference sources. Bud’s legacy will live on for a long, long time.”
USTA Statement: The USTA is deeply saddened by the passing of legendary tennis journalist Bud Collins. Bud was larger than life, and his countless contributions to the sport helped to make it the global success that it is today. Bud was a mentor to many, and a friend to many more. Our sport was most fortunate to be associated with a man of such character and class, and we were privileged to have had the chance to honor his lasting legacy to the sport by naming the US Open Media Center in his honor last year. He will be sorely missed by all of us who loved him—and by the sport he loved so dearly.
Ken Solomon, Tennis Channel president: “With the rest of our industry and tennis fans everywhere, we at Tennis Channel are saddened by the passing of our friend and colleague Bud Collins, the game’s most passionate, pioneering voice, and the gentleman who introduced this great sport to so many over the decades. Our network, televised tennis and sports coverage in general owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Bud’s effortless blending of traditional newsprint storytelling with a then nascent television medium as it gained ever increasing importance on the American cultural landscape. In doing so he elevated tennis to a previously unimaginable plane of awareness and enjoyment for fans the world over.
“Tennis Channel was blessed to have benefited from his professional expertise on our air and online, but even more fortunate to know his kindness, friendship and generosity of spirit. Our hearts and thoughts are with his wife Anita and their family and friends. Bud will be sorely missed, but his humanity and mountainous achievements remains with us, always.”
Joel Drucker, journalist & Tennis Channel field producer: “No one will ever bring more of his heart and soul to tennis than Bud Collins. A true original, Bud brought incredible passion and skill, bringing our sport to life in ways at once creative and insightful. But even more: He was kind to a fault, a true man of the people – a big-time person who never big-timed anyone.”
Boris Becker (tweet): RIP my friend! Your were the first man I spoke after my Wimbledon victory #85...will always remember!!!
Mary Carillo, Tennis Channel, NBC commentator: “I just keep telling people that no one I've ever worked with ever made tennis or television more fun.”
Dick Enberg, former broadcast partner at NBC: “He’ll be the voice of tennis forever. He taught us all, he was the encyclopedia. He not only wrote the book, The Encyclopedia of Tennis, but he was the encyclopedia of tennis. He took a lot of people like me, a lot of reporters and broadcasters, by the hand and if we showed any affection for the sport he loved, he guided us and allowed us to see it in its deepest and finest points. He could never give you enough.”
Steve Flink, tennis historian, Tennis Channel contributor: “I was among many journalists who were guided immeasurably by Bud Collins during the formative stages of our careers. No one in our field had more generosity of spirit. He inspired all of us with his infectious enthusiasm and deep appreciation of the game. In my view, he was a towering figure because his impact was felt so widely across the world of tennis. In many ways, he was misunderstood because casual observers thought of him mainly as an entertaining individual with his incomparably colorful pants. But the larger truth is that Bud was the single most important American tennis commentator and journalist of this or any era because he was a crucial historian and writer who believed tennis was as important as anything in life.”
John McEnroe: “He was certainly a character, and in a sport like ours, it’s pretty evident that we need more of those these days. From that standpoint alone, he was someone who loved tennis, lived and breathed it, and we don’t have enough of those people, either. He was championing our sport, was a pioneer; he did some wacky things. I was always thankful that he was the only guy in the world that I knew who wore brighter pants than my father. If it wasn’t for him, my dad would have the worst pants in the world.
“He was a historian. He wrote pretty extensively, he was very thorough. His books were extremely thick and had every result imaginable. He was definitely doing his homework. He loved every second of what he did, and that came across.”
Richard Evans, tennis writer: “When Bud Collins broke his leg a few years ago, setting off a series of medical problems that ultimately forced him away from the game he loved, media centers across the tennis tour suddenly became about 50 per cent less amusing, boisterous and well informed. The man in the silly colored pants was no longer there to answer all questions that came to people's lips about the history of the game - questions that were always answered with generosity, accuracy and humor.
“Bud was a welcoming figure when I first turned up at his home stomping ground, the Longwood Cricket Club in the mid 1960's and he quickly became a dear friend and occasional doubles partner. We played together at John Newcombe's Tennis Ranch in Fiji and, of course, Bud played in bare feet.
“In recent years everyone connected with the game came to recognize Bud as a brilliantly inventive writer; a pugnaciously amusing interviewer and commentator and a wonderful personality in his own right. But it should be recorded that he and his producer at WGBH-TV Boston, Greg Harney, played an enormous part in the tennis boom that took off at the end of the sixties and early seventies. In 1963, Harney persuaded the public broadcast station to cover the US National Doubles at Longwood, live. No one in America had really had the opportunity to see tennis live on TV before and the innovation took off largely to the dynamic and frequently hilarious presentation of the sport by its first commentator - Bud Collins.
“Anyone clinging to the notion that tennis was a stuffy, tradition-bound sport was quickly disabused. Bud could get away with offbeat commentary, laced with all manner of nicknames and jokes, because he knew what he was talking about. He was a good player and a part time coach and understood every tactical nuance the game had to offer.
“Not many people can be called unique but there was only one Bud Collins. We miss him already.”
Jim Courier, US Davis Cup captain: “Bud meant an immense amount to the sport of tennis and touched so many people. The things I remember about Bud were his generosity to everyone and general enthusiasm for life. Not just for tennis, but for travel and for learning and for sharing his stories. He was so kind and super positive. I had the privilege of working on television with Bud for NBC for several tournaments, so I go to know him and his lovely wife Anita very well. It is definitely a sad day.”
John Barrett, former BBC announcer, member of International Tennis Hall of Fame & All England Club: “The time has come to say a final goodbye to one of my oldest friends and highly respected colleague. My memories of Bud go back to the 1950s and a match we played in the US National Doubles at Longwood. He was playing with Sidney Schwartz and my partner was Roger Becker. Bud was playing barefoot. "It's easier to grip the grass with my toes" he insisted. Just one of the many delightful eccentricities, along with the colourful trousers and colourful prose that flowed from him effortlessly throughout a brilliant career as writer, broadcaster, historian, counsellor, companion, family man and dearest of friends. The tennis world has lost one of its giants.”
Cliff Drysdale, ESPN announcer: “Boom Boom Becker, Fraulein Forehand, breaker, just a few new words from the man who gave tennis a new innovative dictionary.
“Tennis, by its nature, breeds champions who dominate the scene. Laver, Gonzales, Borg, Sampras, Federer. If these stars didn't show for an event it was diminished. In the same way that if Bud Collins passed on an event, it lost its heart....”
Bob Bryan: “It’s obviously a sad day, the guy meant a lot to tennis. He was so colourful and a positive part of our sport. We knew him pretty well and he was always so kind to us and gave us great advice. He was such a veteran and had been around this tour for so many years and he was a very familiar face at every tournament and we’ll definitely miss him.”

Colourful media legend was walking encyclopedia of tennis; made mark on sport in print, on air
Bud Collins, the multi-faceted wordsmith who for more than five decades was as synonymous with the world of professional tennis as Breakfast At Wimbledon and the Continental grip, passed away on March 3 at his home in Brookline, Mass. He was 86.
A singular figure in his signature Day-Glo slacks and bow ties, baldpate and seemingly ever-present smile, Collins remains the most recognisable media personality the game has ever known. Equal parts broadcaster/writer/historian, he helped popularise the sport and for his efforts was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1994, joining only a handful of journalists enshrined at the Newport Casino, including Allison Danzig, Al Laney, Lance Tingay and David Gray.
Harvey Araton wrote in the New York Times, “In the press box, Collins was Google before it existed.”
Fellow broadcaster Dick Enberg once told Chris Evert, “Bud Collins remembers more about your life than you do.”
The tennis industry was quick to weigh in on Collins' passing. Said Donald Dell, "You can’t say enough about him because in the '70s, '80s, he was a big promoter of tennis and was a hell of a commentator. He was by far and away the best historian of the sport. Bud was a very good writer and commentator and he always wanted to bring a different dimension to the audience. He was the best, period.”
"Bud made such a huge impact on our sport because he was one of the most knowledgeable people in tennis and he was so committed to always learning more about the sport and its characters," said International Tennis Hall of Fame President Stan Smith. "By combining his knowledge with his one-of-a-kind colour, he really made the game fun and interesting for the fans and the players. He was responsible for growing interest in our sport tremendously.”
Tennis Family Pays Tribute To Bud
Born in Lima, Ohio, on the eve of the Great Depression on June 17, 1929, Arthur Worth Collins, Jr. graduated from Baldwin-Wallace College and went on to serve with the U.S. Army. While a graduate student at Boston University in 1959, he began a five-year stint coaching the men’s tennis team at nearby Brandeis University. Among his players was future social activist/anti-war icon Abbie Hoffman. He officially launched his tennis journalism career in 1963, when he joined the Boston Globe, and later worked his way into radio with Boston’s PBS affiliate WGBH.
Collins broke into television with CBS Sports in 1968, regularly joined in the broadcast booth by serve-and-volley extraordinaire Jack Kramer. In 1972, Collins moved over to NBC, where he would become a staple over the next 35 years. Generations of Americans welcomed him into their living rooms through the tennis-boom years of the 1970s and beyond via his Breakfast At Wimbledon broadcasts, as NBC brought live coverage of the fortnight across the Atlantic. Collins made us feel as if we there alongside him at the All England Club, and he was as much a part of the most prestigious of the four Grand Slams as a tumbler of Pims or a bowl of strawberries and cream.
He developed a unique rapport with players that allowed him to go beyond the usual post-match fodder. After falling to longtime rival Martina Navratilova in the Wimbledon final, Evert famously quipped, “Nice pants, Bud.” Before Collins could get off a question to Pam Shriver in 1978, the future Hall of Famer insisted, “First, turn off those pants.”
NBC cut ties with Collins in 2007, but he remained on the scene, working with ESPN and the Tennis Channel, while continuing to contribute to the Globe. At the 2011 US Open, he suffered a fall in his New York hotel room and was unable to cover the second week of the event. Although he was less visible in the ensuing years, in 2015, he attended his 61st U.S. Open along with his wife, the photographer Anita Ruthling Klaussen. He has covered more Grand Slam events than any other American reporter.
Also an accomplished player, Collins won the U.S. Indoor mixed doubles championship (with Janet Hopps) in 1961, and was a French Senior doubles finalist (with Jack Crawford) in 1975. He delighted in playing barefoot.
While Collins’ vibrant personality made him an ideal fit for TV, it was perhaps in his writing that his talent shone through the most. His prose often spoke as loudly as did his trademark Technicolor attire. He is credited with coining a host of player nicknames, including Basher of Belleville (Jimmy Connors), Bucharest Buffoon (Ilie Nastase), Fraulein Forehand (Steffi Graf), Ice Maiden (Evert) and Lithuanian Lion (Vitas Gerulaitis). In addition to his work with the Boston Globe, he authored three books, The Education of a Tennis Player, Evonne On the Move, and My Life with the Pros. In 1999, the Associated Press presented him with the Red Smith Award for his contributions to sports journalism. He was elected to the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame in 2002.
A cub reporter approaching his first-row desk in the media center at the US Open — a facility now named in his honor — would find an accommodating sage who regardless of deadline was rarely too busy to offer an obscure tennis factoid or a go-to quote, or even sign the latest update of his Tennis Encyclopedia, as essential a desk-side companion for tennis writers as a thesaurus or the AP Stylebook.
When the United States Tennis Association (USTA) unveiled the Bud Collins US Open Media Center last summer, Patrick McEnroe reflected, “He was so far ahead of his time in understanding that tennis was a great game, but that tennis also needed to be entertaining, and make the personalities and players entertaining. His passion for the game was second to none.”
ATPWorldTour.com presents a sampling of Collins’ colorful quotes from over the years:
• “The Bryans aren’t surface-nervous. Put them on flypaper, peanut brittle, steaming coals, a plowed field.”
• “Looking like a guy at a fraternity party (green madras Bermudas, polo shirt, baseball cap labeled ‘G — National Champs’), John Isner is as happy as a keg-tapper.”
• “I'd say he went from punk to paragon.” — On Andre Agassi
• “Stick a feather in your cap and call it McEnroni.” — After John McEnroe lost the 1980 Wimbledon final to Bjorn Borg in five thrilling sets
• “Federer left town feeling as though he’d fallen down the Spanish Steps, wondering if he’d encountered a lion left over from the Coliseum.” — After Italy’s Filippo Volandri upset Roger Federer at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Rome in 2007
• “Whenever I think about Timothy Henry Henman the Crimean War comes to mind, and I picture him as the latter day, one-man Charge of the Light Brigade. Into the Valley of Centre Court he bursts: Roddick to the right of him, Hewitt to the left of him, Federer in front of him volleying and thundering. Stormed at with shots from hellish racquets. Is he ever dismayed? Never. His is not to reason why…but to do or be hung out to dry…Charging gallantly, failing nobly. ‘Our Tim’ nonetheless.”
• “My uncle always described an unforced error as his first marriage.”
• “Rodney the L is what’s happening in tennis these days. He goes into the Longwood veldt this afternoon to resume a rain delayed pursuit of another professional singles championship, and if he wore a top hat you’d think he was Mandrake the Magician. Instead he’ll be wearing a crinkled white cloche that looks as though a flapper had slept in it. It was probably willed to him by Clara Bow, but it does the job…His eyes seem like a pair of blueberries in a tureen of borscht.” — On Rod Laver
• “It’s the only tropical forest in the Northern Hemisphere.” — On rainy Wimbledon

Friday, March 04, 2016 /by Cindy Shmerler

Some called him an icon, others a legend. Everyone marveled at his zany pants, his on-air vocabulary, his extraordinary way with words and his willingness—even desire—to be accessible.

But to me he wasn’t Bud Collins, tennis historian and all-around bon vivant, Hall of Famer and the greatest promoter the game has ever known. To me, he was simply Arthur, my mentor, my longtime colleague and, most important, one of my dearest friends.

I don’t know when we first started calling each other by our given names, but I do know that we always greeted each other as Arthur, as in Arthur Worth Collins Jr., and Cynthia, my seldom-used birth name. It was sacred and secret, as if no one else was in on the joke.

I first met Arthur in back in 1979 when I was a college student and summer intern at World Tennis magazine in New York. Like he has done for so many others, Arthur took me under his wing without even knowing me, taught me the proper etiquette for my profession and how to be heard while asking a question in a crowded press room.

Arthur included me in dinners at Santa Croce in London after a long day at Wimbledon, and picnics on an outdoor porch that once existed just outside the press room high atop Louis Armstrong Stadium. He showed me the sunset over the ocean at the Colony Club in Longboat Key, Fla., and taught me how to play grass-court tennis—even though I always kept my sneakers on and Arthur preferred to play barefoot.

Arthur introduced me to every top player and official in the game, as well as to the best journalists in the world, many of whom, like George Vecsey and Neil Amdur of the New York Times, Bill Dwyre of the LA Times, Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News, John Feinstein of the Washington Post and famed player/commentator Mary Carillo, have become lifelong friends.

n 1981, while we were covering the U.S. Pro Championships at the Longwood Cricket Club outside Boston, Arthur suggested I join him and then-fellow Boston Globe reporter Lesley Visser for drinks and spare ribs at China Sails, a restaurant across the street from his most beloved tennis venue. For years thereafter, Lesley and I would fight over who got to sit next to Arthur at dinner and in the press room. He made us both feel like the most important person in the room, as he did for everyone else around him.

Thanks to Arthur, I had a long stint covering Wimbledon and the U.S. Open for the Boston Globe alongside the greatest mind our sport will ever know. But it wasn’t always easy. Back when there were landlines at our writing desks, Arthur’s phone would ring off the hook. When he was at his seat, he would answer with a quippy retort, often in an exaggerated phony English accent. But because he was rarely around—always off discovering the latest phenom, hawking books around the grounds or dining in coveted places with so many who just wanted to bask in his glory—I had the privilege of answering those calls. Friends wanted tickets, local television stations wanted interviews and fellow journalists needed historical data that wasn’t readily available in the pre-internet era. Arthur accommodated all of them, even if he was five minutes away from deadline.

Arthur and I once did a radio gig together during the Miami Open in Key Biscayne. He was ripe with anecdotes and nicknames that day, calling Steffi Graf “Freulein Forehand”, Marat Safin the “Headless Horseman”, Pam Shriver the “Whomping Crane” and Gabriela Sabatini the “Pearl of the Pampas.” He also coined Chris Evert “Chris America”, Rosie Casals “Rosebud”, Billie Jean King “Mother Freedom” Vitas Gerulaitis the “Lithuanian Lion” and Venus and Serena Williams “Sisters Sledgehammer.” His monikers made me laugh so hard I had to constantly cover my microphone so the audience wouldn’t hear my guffaws. Every time we saw each other after that broadcast we swore we would do radio together again some day. Sadly, we never got to.

Almost 25 years ago, I married my beloved husband, Ford Levy, but I spent my wedding day with Arthur. As tradition held, I wasn’t supposed to see the groom before the ceremony, which worked out well because Arthur and I had an important tennis and lunch date. It stretched deep into the afternoon until I thought it best to go get dressed. Later, during the reception, Arthur and I danced together and he whispered in my ear, “By the way, I met someone special last week and I think I’m going to marry her.”

That special someone was Anita Ruthling Klaussen, whom Arthur married in a magnificent ceremony in Boston in 1994. Anita became Arthur’s rock and his soulmate, traveling the world with him and taking care of every minute detail so that he could do what he did best—entertain and educate the masses. She was his most devoted caregiver when he fell ill, and the love of his life until his very last breath at this morning at age 86.

So, while the tennis world mourns the passing of one of the true heroes of our sport— Arthur’s famous trousers hanging quietly at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I.—I say goodbye to one of my best friends. Arthur’s voice may be silenced but it will forever ring loud and clear in our minds and our hearts. I’ll never hear the word “Cynthia” said quite the same way again.