Oregon Tennis Historical Society

07/27/2025

The 126th Oregon State Tennis Championship is now in the books. Will Semler won his second Oregon State Championship after winning last year. University of Portland junior tennis star Alaia Rubio Perez is this year's women's open champion. Ryan Pang was honored as the first Harry Merlo Sportsmanship Award Winner. https://www.oregontennishistoricalsociety.org/news

05/30/2025

This year the Oregon State Tennis Championship will present the first Sportsmanship Award in honor of Mr Harry A. Merlo. Harry played a huge role in bringing championship tennis to Portland. Harry insisted that players, including Jimmy Conners and John McEnroe, conformed to a sportsmanship code of conduct in events that he sponsored. That legacy will become a part of this years and future championships that we organize and promote. Registrations are open. https://playtennis.usta.com/competitions/oregontennishistoricalsociety/Tournaments/overview/48A6DD9A-14D4-4E71-83E9-2866DEF2EA4C

05/03/2025

Celebrating my 9th year on Facebook. Thank you for your continuing support. I could never have made it without you. 🙏🤗🎉

03/18/2025

The board of the Oregon Tennis Historical Society met yesterday. We updated some pictures which we thought you’d love to check out. And, we are picking up the pace on the planning for the Oregon State Tennis Championships! Check it out. Donate.

https://www.oregontennishistoricalsociety.org

03/12/2025

Member update. Join today for exclusive opportunities. Profile of John Popplewell joined the board of the Oregon Tennis Historical Society last fall. From Coos Bay Oregon, he is in the Southern Oregon University Hall of Fame as one of the members of the tennis team that beat Oregon State U in the 60s, Since college, and still ranked nationally, in his 80s, he was a finalist for the first Hank Marcus lifelong athlete award elected by the members of the Multnomah Athletic Club. On the board, he is the liaison with the Irvington Tennis Club which houses the archives the historical society. The board meets this Tuesday, March 17 to assume their role as the organizers and planners of the 126th Oregon State Tennis Championships https://www.oregontennishistoricalsociety.org/projects Members of the society are always welcome to attend the board meetings. You can join the society here. https://www.oregontennishistoricalsociety.org/membership-donat

The Oregon Tennis Historical Society curates the rich archives of Oregon tennis history displayed and stored at the Irvington Club in Portland, Oregon

01/13/2025

Our website is up! Become a member. Make a donation. Stay tuned for 2025

The Oregon Tennis Historical Society promotes and maintains the tennis history in. Oregon

10/27/2024

This post is triggered by the news that John Hart, the CFO/Chief Financial Officer for Louisiana-Pacific. This is the inside story of the Davis Cup Code of Conduct LP and Harry Merlo called for after the Davis Cup Final in Sweden in 1984.

John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors were representing the USA in the '84 Davis Cup Final in Gotenburg, Sweden. LP was sponsoring the team.

In the first match, Jimmy told the British umpire to "stick it up your ass"....twice! The remark was picked up on ESPN's courtside microphone and went round the world. (I heard it in Portland, Oregon).

Alan Mills was the Head Umpire and considered defaulting Jimmy out of his second singles. The John behaved like six year old, cursing the court and destroying flowers and throwing the fishnets the Swedes used at one of the ballkids.

When the LP Chairman, Harry Merlo returned to Portland, he wanted to see JOHN HART, LEE SIMPSON, JERRY GRIFFIN and me in the LP Boardroom as soon as he got back to the LP offices in the US Bank Tower.

After Harry explained some other things to us, such as disrespecting the Swedish flag being raised during their anthem, Harry wanted to know what we thought about pulling the 3 year sponsorship with the USTA which was in it's first year.

The first two to speak were Jerry Griffen, the Communications Director for LP and Lee Simpson, the VP of Operations for the 12,000 employee Fortune 200 company.

Both suggest pulling out of the sponsorship.

Then it was my turn to speak, as I was the Director of Staging and had brought this million dollar sponsorship idea to Harry and LP.

"I think we should call for a Code of Conduct....four or five specific things to go over before playing US Davis Cup. This could help Arthur."

John Hart said...."I agree with Brian. Let's call for a Code of Conduct and if they (USTA) don't put it in, fair enough, we'll get out".

Harry looked at me and said...."I'm not sitting on this, I want this to go out tomorrow" So I drafted a letter, read it to Tom Gorman that night and we sent it to the USTA this next day, with copies to Jimmy, John, Arthur, Peter Fleming, Aaron Krickstein, Jimmy Arias and a copy to NEC's Chairman, the Worldwide Sponsor at the time.

Had it not been for John Hart's recommendation to accept my suggestion, there may never have been a US Davis Cup Code of Conduct.

There is more detail to this story, but I was just thinking about John Hart as I sadly learned yesterday that he has passed.

A good man.