Hall of Fame tennis writer and TV commentator Bud Collins, who helped popularise the sport during his decades-long career, died at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts on Friday after a long illness.
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Former NBC Sports journalist Bud Collins passed away in Brookline, Mass. Friday, according to the Boston Globe.
Collins wrote 10 books, including the 1980 tome “Bud Collins’ Modern Encyclopedia of Tennis”, which, along with subsequent editions, stands as the authoritative history of the sport. Collins introduced the intricacies of the simple yet complex game, its heroes and the unrelenting rivalries they produced: Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert.
Last year, the U.S. Tennis Association named its media center at Flushing Meadows, NY, as the Bud Collins U.S. Open Media Center. He wrote the encyclopedia; he was the walking encyclopedia of tennis.
When Collins was inducted into the tennis hall, he quipped: “I’ve been hanging around there so much, they figured they had to let me in”.
PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) – Dick Enberg only followed tennis casually before NBC sent him to Wimbledon in 1979 for the first live coverage of what would become “Breakfast at Wimbledon”.
– Bud Collins was known for bow ties and loud trousers, for bringing tennis to the masses, first through the written word, later from the television booth. His final article for the paper appeared in September 2011, when he was reporting on the U.S. Open. “In doing so he elevated tennis to a previously unimaginable plane of awareness and enjoyment for fans the world over”.
Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated writes of him: “He covered the sport like no one before or since”.
Details on a memorial service for Collins will be announced soon.
He also coached the Brandeis University tennis team, whose roster included Abbie Hoffman, destined for far greater notice in the counterculture movement of the 1960s.
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He is survived by his wife, photographer Anita Ruthling Klaussen, who illustrated many of his travel columns.
