Bob Ryland (June 16, 1920 – August 2, 2020) was an American

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

player and coach, known for having been the first African-American to play professional tennis. Ryland coached some of the world’s top-ranked professionals, including;

Harold Solomon Harold Solomon (born September 17, 1952) is an American former professional tennis player who played during the 1970s and 1980s. He achieved a career-high world ranking of No. 5 in singles in 1980, and of No. 4 in doubles in 1976. Over the cours ...

, Renee Blount, Leslie Allen,

Arthur Ashe Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. (July 10, 1943 – February 6, 1993) was an American professional tennis player who won three Grand Slam singles titles. He started to play tennis at six years old. He was the first black player selected to the Un ...

, Bruce Foxworth,

Venus Williams Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open. She is ...

and

Serena Williams Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) fo ...

. Ryland also taught and coached at clubs in

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Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

, St. Alban’s Tennis Club in Washington, D.C. and the Mid-Town Tennis Club in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Ryland was inducted into the Wayne State University Athletic Hall of Fame (1991), Black Tennis Hall of Fame (2009), and the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame in 2002, where he also received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.

Early life

Ryland was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1920. After his mother and twin brother died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...

when he was a baby, his father Robert sent him to live with his grandmother in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 census. It is the fourth-most-populous city in Alabama ...

where he helped his great grandfather pick cotton. When Ryland was 10 years old, he returned to Chicago to live with his father and started playing tennis. Ryland attended Tilden Tech High School in Chicago, and while a student there won both the Illinois State and junior ATA singles titles.

College years

After graduating from high school, Ryland received a scholarship to

Xavier University Xavier University ( ) is a private Jesuit university in Cincinnati and Evanston (Cincinnati), Ohio. It is the sixth-oldest Catholic and fourth-oldest Jesuit university in the United States. Xavier has an undergraduate enrollment of 4,860 stud ...

, a

Historically Black College and University Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. M ...

(HBCU) in

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where his college tennis career started. After leaving Xavier, Ryland served in the U.S. Army from 1941 to 1945 and after an honorable discharge, received another tennis scholarship to

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

, playing there for two years. While at Wayne, Ryland broke the color barrier by becoming one of the first black players to compete in the NCAA championships making it to the semifinals. Ryland was eventually inducted into the University’s Hall of Fame. In 1947 Ryland moved to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, where he played tennis with

Pancho Gonzalez Ricardo Alonso "Pancho" González (May 9, 1928 – July 3, 1995), known sometimes as Richard Gonzales, was an American tennis player. He won 15 major singles titles, including two U.S. National Singles Championships in 1948 and 1949, and 13 P ...

. Ryland also broke another barrier at the

Los Angeles Tennis Club The Los Angeles Tennis Club (LATC) is a private tennis club opened in 1920 that was the host of the Pacific Southwest Championships from 1927 until 1974 and 1980 until 1983. It is located at 5851 Clinton Street, between Wilcox and Rossmore, one ...

, when he played and lost to

Ham Richardson Hamilton Farrar Richardson (August 24, 1933 – November 5, 2006)"Former tenni ...

in the

Pacific Southwest Championships The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, 6–4 and 7–5. In 1954 Ryland was offered a scholarship to Tennessee A&I in Nashville. Ryland was a player and a coach at Tennessee and twice led his team to the small college national championships. Ryland left Tennessee with a Bachelor of Science degree.

Later years

After leaving Tennessee, Ryland moved back east and became the physical education director of the YMCA in Montclair, New Jersey, but left there in 1957 to teach tennis in New York. In 1958, Ryland became the first African-American to play professional tennis when promoter Jack March brought him to the World Pro Championships in Cleveland. Ryland was paid $300 for his appearance. During the early 1960s Ryland was in Washington, D.C., where he taught tennis to the Kennedys and Robert MacNamara at the St. Alban’s Country Club. Ryland later moved back to New York City and started coaching at the Mid-Town Tennis Club, where he worked from 1963 to 1990. During his coaching career, Ryland taught and coached many professionals, including;

, Renee Blount, Leslie Allen,

, Bruce Foxworth,

and

. In addition to coaching professionals, Ryland also taught several celebrities, including;

Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers awar ...

Bill Cosby William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric ...

Tony Bennett Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American retired singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a painter, having created works under his birt ...

Mike Wallace Myron Leon Wallace (May 9, 1918 – April 7, 2012) was an American journalist, game show host, actor, and media personality. He interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers during his seven-decade career. He was one of the original correspo ...

, Eartha Kitt,

Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is ...

David Dinkins David Norman Dinkins (July 10, 1927 – November 23, 2020) was an American politician, lawyer, and author who served as the 106th mayor of New York City from 1990 to 1993. He was the first African American to hold the office. Before enteri ...

and

Mary McFadden Mary McFaddenCharlotte Curtis, "Mary McFadden Married to Philip Harari at St. Bartholomew's; Former Dior Aide is Wed to Director in De Beers Group", The New York Times, 26 September 1964 (born October 1, 1938) is an American art collector, editor ...

. Ryland lived with his partner, Nancy. He died of

aspiration pneumonia Aspiration pneumonia is a type of lung infection that is due to a relatively large amount of material from the stomach or mouth entering the lungs. Signs and symptoms often include fever and cough of relatively rapid onset. Complications may inc ...

at his stepson's home in

Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...

on August 2, 2020 at the age of 100.

Legacy

Ryland was the first black tennis player to compete in the NCAA National Championships, the first black player/coach to lead a college team twice to the small college national championships, the first black tennis player to play at the Los Angeles Tennis Club and the first African-American to play tennis professionally. He was inducted into the Wayne State University Athletic Hall of Fame (1991), the Black Tennis Hall of Fame (2009), and the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame in 2002, where he also received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. In 2019, Ryland was inducted into the USTA-Midwest Hall of Fame. Ryland also gave lectures at the Harlem Armory, the Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education and the

USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is a stadium complex within Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City, United States. It has been the home of the US Open Grand Slam tennis tournament, played every year in August ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ryland, Bob 1920 births 2020 deaths Sportspeople from Chicago Tennis people from Illinois African-American male tennis players African-American tennis coaches American male tennis players Wayne State University alumni Tennessee State University alumni Xavier University alumni Sportspeople from New York City American centenarians African-American centenarians Men centenarians 20th-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American people Tennis players from Chicago Professional tennis players before the Open Era