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USPTA Hall of Fame
Grand Inductees
This is the Association's highest honor afforded any person, national or international, living or deceased. Inductees have given exemplary service to the tennis-teaching profession. Inductees must have momentous international and/or national tennis industry or teaching service, be well known by name to teaching professionals in the country in which they reside and fulfill various other requirements.
Bill Tym, inducted in 2007
 Bill Tym will join the ranks of only seven others as a grand inductee in the USPTA Hall of Fame. Tym, a USPTA Master Professional and past USPTA national president, has been involved in tennis as a coach, player and administrator for half a century. He coached the Vanderbilt University men's tennis team to its first NCAA tournament. Tym has had a 25-year association with the Indonesian Tennis Association and coached Yayuk Basuki, the first Indonesian player to reach the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. He also coached USPTA Professional Bryan Shelton, who became the first black player since Arthur Ashe to win an ATP event. As a player, Tym was a Southeastern Conference singles champion at the University of Florida. He also competed on the international tour and won 10 national and international titles. Tym has made significant contributions to the USPTA. As executive director of USPTA he helped create a standardized certification test. Tym was named USPTA Professional of the Year in 1982, College Coach of the Year in 1989, and Touring Coach of the Year in 1997 and 2002. He also received the George Bacso Lifetime Achievement Award from the USPTA in 2001 and the International Tennis Hall of Fame Tennis Educational Merit Award in 1981.
Alex Gordon, inducted in 2007
 Alex Gordon will also join the ranks of only seven others as a grand inductee posthumously in the USPTA Hall of Fame. Gordon made great contributions to the game of tennis as a coach, player and USPTA member. As a coach, he was first hired on as head professional at Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego in 1946. He taught there for 10 years and then returned again in 1960 and remained there until 1976. While at Hotel Del Coronado he also coached at Bishop's School in La Jolla, Calif. As a player, while attending UCLA he was captain of the men's tennis team and the school's No. 1 singles player. He was also the two-time Southern California Interscholastic doubles champion. He was a runner-up at the National Senior Hard Court Mixed Doubles and the National Senior Indoors in the men's 50 and 55s. He was also the USPTA national 45 doubles champion in 1969, '71 and '72 (with Ben Press). Gordon also made tremendous contributions to this country and the USPTA. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He was the president of the USPTA San Diego Division in 1969-1974. He was also president of the USPTA national Board of Directors in 1976, but passed away during his presidency. He is credited with holding the Association together in the 1970s, when it struggled with internal political turmoil. For that and his other contributions, the Alex Gordon Professional of the Year award was named in his honor. The award recognizes outstanding performance as a teacher, coach and player, as well as contributions to the Association and the tennis industry as a whole.
Clarence Mabry, inducted in 2006
 Clarence Mabry is both a respected player and tennis-teaching professional. As a player, he was nationally ranked and a state champion, winning the Southwest Conference singles and doubles title while at the University of Texas at Austin in 1946. In 1955 he established the Trinity University's men's tennis team and went on to develop a nationally recognized program. He led them to the NCAA championship in 1972, and for 18 of his 19 years as coach, his team ranked in the top four NCAA teams, giving him an impressive win-loss record of 319-36.
As coach of the San Antonio Racquets, he led the team to its first professional national tennis championship in 1986. He is also co-owner of the John Newcombe Tennis Ranch, which opened in 1968.
Mabry's other honors include induction into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Men's Tennis Collegiate Hall of Fame, Texas Tennis Hall of Fame, San Antonio Hall of Fame, Trinity University Hall of Fame and the University of Texas Hall of Honor.
 Tut Bartzen, inducted in 2003
Tut Bartzen was one of America's top amateur tennis players, ranked in the U.S. top 10 from 1953-62. He was unflappable on clay courts, achieved a national ranking of No. 2 in 1959 and reached as high as No. 3 in 1961. He was 15-0 as a Davis Cup player and also served twice as assistant captain. He competed with players like Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and Chuck McKinley and won.
Bartzen joined USPTA in 1961 and a year later turned professional as a player and became a tennis professional at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth. The native Texan also was a charter member of the Texas Professional Tennis Association.
After the 1998-99 season and 25 years as head men's tennis coach, Bartzen retired from Texas Christian University. He had built the program into a national force. Starting with a group of walk-ons and one scholarship, Bartzen did not experience a losing season until his last. With a winning record of better than 70 percent, only three times between 1977 and 1998 did his team not finish in the nation's top 20.
 Tim Gullikson, inducted in 2001Tim Gullikson, a USPTA member from 1989 until his death in 1996, was a teaching professional, playing professional and coach to other world-class playing professionals, including Pete Sampras.
Gullikson and his brother Tom were doubles partners in high school and college, and then club teaching professionals before joining the pro tour in 1976. Tim Gullikson was the ATP's Newcomer of the Year in 1977 and reached 11 finals and won 16 doubles titles. Ten of those came when playing with Tom, with whom he reached the doubles final at Wimbledon in 1983.
After 10 years on the tour, Gullikson became a coach to stars including Martina Navratilova, Aaron Krickstein, Mary Joe Fernandez and Justin Gimelstob. He is most known for coaching Pete Sampras to six Grand Slam singles titles.
As a USPTA member, Gullikson was generous with his time as a speaker at educational events and a promoter of the association.
In 1995, less than one year before his death from brain cancer, the Tim & Tom Gullikson Foundation was incorporated at Tim's behest, to assist brain tumor patients and their families. To date, the foundation has raised more than $2 million.
 Tim Heckler, inducted in 2000
Prior to becoming CEO of the USPTA in 1982, Heckler served nine years on the national USPTA executive committee and four years on the national board of directors before being elected USPTA president in 1980. He was USPTA Professional of the Year in 1979 and is a Master Professional. While attending Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, on a tennis scholarship, he played the international circuit, including Wimbledon in 1959 and 1961, and the U.S. Open in 1960. Heckler assumed a full-time tennis-teaching position in 1970 at Houston's Westwood Country Club. He was elected president of USPTA's Texas Division in 1974.
Since 1972, Heckler has been a consultant to the tennis industry. His involvement in designing, managing and programming several large recreational facilities has given him the experience to to deal with all situations related to tennis.
In 1973 he was the consultant to and tennis director for the Bobby Riggs vs. Billie Jean King "Match of the Century" held in the Houston Astrodome.
As CEO of USPTA, Heckler has guided the Association through a period in which it has increased its membership fivefold, its annual income tenfold and established USPTA as the foremost organization of teaching professionals in the world. He has revolutionized USPTA's operations through computerization and continually strives to introduce tennis professionals to the Information Age.
Heckler's personal passion is his involvement in developing USPTA Little Tennis and its potential to increase tennis participation among children and families. Having created a similar program for his club in the early '70s, he was able to bring it to national prominence with USPTA's introduction of Little Tennis in 1994.
 Paul Xanthos, inducted in 1999
The late Paul Xanthos amassed a 550-94 win-loss record during a 28-year career as tennis coach of Los Angeles Pierce College. During Xanthos' tenure at Pierce College, he led teams to 23 conference championships, and experienced winning streaks of 96, 50, 37 and 27 wins in a row. Xanthos died June 12, 2006.
Xanthos wrote numerous articles and books on tennis, and conducted tennis seminars worldwide. He was a charter member of the USPTA Education and Research Committee, and was instrumental in founding the U.S. Tennis Association's National Tennis Teachers Conference.
His awards include the USTA Award of Merit in 1974, the California Coaches Association Tennis Coach of the Year in 1979, the USPTA California Division Coach of the Year in 1981-84, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Community College Coach of the Year in 1988, and the National Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas in 1989. In 1994, he was named USPTA Coach of the Year and was also inducted into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Hall of Fame. Xanthos was also a USPTA honorary member and Master Professional.
 George Bacso, inducted in 1994
The late George Bacso served as USPTA's Director of Certification and Academies before his death in November 1998. In this capacity, he traveled the world conducting Certification Exams, Tennis Teachers' Courses and Certification Training Courses. He was also a popular speaker and clinician in the United States and was the guiding force behind many young tennis professionals' careers.
Bacso also was instrumental in developing the current USPTA certification process and worked with USPTA's national tester network.
From 1978 to 1980, he served as USPTA's national president. He also served several years as the president of the USPTA Eastern Division. He received the USTA National Education Merit Award and the national USPTA Professional of the Year Award. Bacso also received the inaugural George Bacso Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and he held a Master Professional rating.
 Arthur Ashe, inducted in 1993
The late Arthur Ashe was the first inductee into the USPTA Hall of Fame. Ashe's tennis accomplishments, including Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles, earned him the world's No. 1 ranking on two separate occasions -- 1968 and 1975. He was instrumental in the founding of the ATP Tour and the National Junior Tennis League.
Ashe, who died of AIDS complications in 1993, is also well remembered for his off-court activities, including his outspoken support of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, a writing career that earned him an Emmy award and his publicized battle with AIDS. He was also active in bringing inner-city children into the sport of tennis through programs such as USPTA's Tennis Across America.
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