John W. "Jack" Frost (born October 23, 1934, in Monterey, California) is a
scholar
A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...
and former touring
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 ...
player.
Tennis career
In 1949, Frost won the U.S. National Boys' (15-and-under) Championships at
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolit ...
[Monterey Peninsula Herald Aug 8, 1949] and the U.S. National Juniors' (18-and-under) three years later(1952).
[Kalamazoo Gazette Aug.4, 1952] Following his win, he was awarded a spot on the four-man U.S.
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...
team to play against Canada.
[Chicago Daily News. Aug 4, 1952] In the Fall he entered
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, and in his senior year, 1956, he played in the final of the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
Singles Championship, losing to
Alex Olmedo
Alex is a given name. It can refer to a shortened version of Alexander, Alexandra, Alexis.
People
Multiple
* Alex Brown (disambiguation), multiple people
* Alex Gordon (disambiguation), multiple people
* Alex Harris (disambiguation), multiple ...
of U.S.C.
[Kalamazoo Gazette Aug.1, 1956] A decade later he was inducted into the
Stanford Athletics' Hall of Fame.
Following military service, Frost played the international tennis circuit between 1958 and 1963, competing in six
Wimbledon Championships
The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, All England Club in ...
and getting out to the 4th round in 1960, before losing to Nicola Pietrangeli. He won the Irish
[Irish Independent July 13, 1959] and Wiesbaden
[Naugatuck Daily News May 19, 1958] (including the mixed doubles with Maria Bueno) and was in the finals of the South African,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald April 14, 1960,] the Canadian,
[L'Action Catholique July 30-Aug. 5, 1953,] the Norwegian
[Aftenposten June 6, 1959] and the Good Neighbor.
[Miami Herald April 11–13, 1959] During the course of his career he had singles wins in major grass court tournaments over all-time greats
Rod Laver
Rodney George Laver (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former tennis player. Laver was the world number 1 ranked professional in some sources in 1964, in all sources from 1965 to 1969 and in some sources in 1970, spanning four years befor ...
,
[Irish Times July 11, 1958] Roy Emerson
Roy Stanley Emerson (born 3 November 1936) is an Australian former tennis player who won 12 Grand Slam singles titles and 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, for a total of 28 Grand Slam titles. He is the only male player to have completed a caree ...
[San Francisco Chronicle June 18, 1960] and
Vic Seixas
Elias Victor Seixas Jr. (; pronounced SAY-shus; born August 30, 1923) [Los Angeles Times August 12, 1954] and over numerous international Davis-Cup mainstays on various surfaces:
Luis Ayala,
[Newport Daily News August 12, 1954] Thomaz Koch
Thomaz Koch (born 11 May 1945) is a former tennis player from Brazil, who was a quarterfinalist at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. National Championships.
He won at least 14 singles titles (three in the Open Era) and three doubles ti ...
,
Mario Llamas
Mario Llamas (30 March 1928 – 17 June 2014) was a tennis player from Mexico.
Career
Llamas was a regular fixture on the Mexico Davis Cup team, appearing in a total of 21 ties during his career. He won 21 of his 44 rubbers, 15 of them in single ...
,
[The Florida Times-Union April 11, 1958] Antonio Palafox,
[San Francisco Examiner August 13, 1959] Giuseppe Merlo, Istvan Gulyas, Bob Mark, Frew McMillan, Christian Kuhnke,
[San Francisco Chronicle July 5, 1959],] Bob Hewitt,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald July 22, 1960] Gordon Forbes,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald April 14, 1960] Warren Woodcock,
[Miami Herald April 12, 1959] Billy Knight,
[San Francisco Chronicle August 8, 1956] Ron Holmberg,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald July 28, 1961] Dennis Ralston,
[Monterey Peninsula Herald July 27, 1961] Barry Mackay,
[http://www.tennisarchives.com."Jack Frost" (1957)]"Jack Douglas"
[Aftenposten June 6, 1959,] and Tom Brown.
[http://www.tennisarchives.com."Jack Frost" (1957).]
Frost beat Whitney Reed at Newport on grass in 1961, the year in which Reed achieved the number one ranking in the U.S.,
[Newport Daily News Aug. 17, 1961] and in 1954 he defeated Straight Clark at Forest Hills in one of the longest matches played there in the
Major professional tennis tournaments before the Open Era, pre-open era.
[Tennis U.S.A. March 1969]
Frost participated in the winning of several major doubles titles: Southampton (with Giammalva over Richardson and Holmberg),
[Monterey Peninsula Herald Aug. 3, 1958] Puerto Rico (with Richardson over Contreras and Llamas), and a semi-final win with John Cranston over Laver and Neale Fraser at the Irish Championships.
[Ulick O'Conor, The Fitzwilliam Story p. 86.]
A top 10 player in the United States in 1961,
[USTA Yearbook-top 10 US men's rankings] Frost was also ranked number 1 in Northern California in that year.
[Redwood City Tribune Jan. 22 1962,] He was subsequently inducted into the Northern California Tennis Hall of Fame.
In 1964 Frost conducted a four-month good-will tennis program in Ghana
[''The Ghanaian Times'', Dec. 11, 1964] on behalf of the U.S. Government and did another one in India in 1990.
[Indian Express(Pune) July 15, 1990]
Jack is retired and lives in Palm Desert, CA.
Academic
Frost received a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. from the
Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies, and a Ph.D. from the
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...
(June 15, 1974). Simultaneously, through a series of National Defense Foreign Language grants, he was able to become proficient in
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and
Swahili and eventually was awarded a
Fulbright Fellowship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
to cover a year abroad, some four months of it to be spent in
Khartoum
Khartoum or Khartum ( ; ar, الخرطوم, Al-Khurṭūm, din, Kaartuɔ̈m) is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing n ...
(Sudan). Later he participated in writing an academic history of the British in the Sudan. and contributed a review to the journal of the American Historical Association. More recently he published a specialized history of the Monterey Peninsula.
[John W Frost. Monterey Peninsula's Sporting Heritage. Arcadia Press, 2007.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frost, John W (Jack)
1934 births
American male tennis players
University of California, Santa Barbara alumni
Living people
Tennis people from California
Stanford Cardinal men's tennis players