GAME, SET, MATCH

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GAME, SET, MATCH

Brookhavenite reflects on first women’s tennis team at MSU on the golden anniversary of Title IX

BY JULIA V. MILLER PHOTOS BY BILL PERKINS

Barbara Davis sports her letter sweater she earned as the captain of the first MSU Women’s Tennis Team.

TThis year marks 50 years since Title IX of the Education amendments providing women protections to equal access in educational settings that receive federal monies. As part of this groundbreaking legislation, colleges across the country began creating women’s athletic teams. Brookhaven’s Barbara Davis, who began at Mississippi State in the fall of 1972, helped jump start MSU’s women’s tennis team, which got its start in the spring of 1974.

Davis began her tennis career on Brookhaven High

School’s tennis team, where she played singles in the

No. 1 slot, and she spent most of her free time on the tennis court. Back then, Mrs. Fox was the tennis guru in town, but Davis would pick up a few individual lessons at the Country Club on weekends. During the summers, she would spend all day out on the court four or five hours a day during the summer with another couple hours with her peers.

Once Davis was at State and talk began of putting together a new women’s team, she quickly jumped on board helping to identify other potential players based on who she played against in high school. The school supplied MSU warm ups and a coach, Peggy Wehr, but everyone used their own rackets, and they would car pool to their tennis matches at other schools.

“Now they have jets,” she said with a laugh. “But you’ve got to walk before you can run.”

At that time, each player played both singles and doubles matches. They consisted of the best 2 out of 3 sets, and tiebreakers were 7 points with a 2 point lead

“And of course [the tiebreakers] could go on for a long time,” she said.

There was one match in particular that Davis remembered because of a unique injury. She had to stay up the night before working on an art project for school, and she fell asleep in her contacts. When she woke up, she had an abrasion on her eyes. She visited the infirmary for some eye drops before they left for Memphis.

“It was extremely windy that day, which made it worse.” she said. “It was horrible. I think I won that match, but I don’t know how.”

One of their opponents that Davis recalled vividly was Candy Reynolds. She went on to become a major female tennis player in the ‘80s, but in the ‘70s she was playing the college circuit and was the best women’s tennis player in the South.

“We all knew her name, but back then, you didn’t see much women’s tennis on TV until after Title IX happened,” Davis said. “It increasingly got better and better.”

The 1976 Women’s Tennis Team from that year’s Reveille.

State’s No. 1 player faced off against Reynolds and managed to win two games off of her, which Davis thought was a huge feat considering Reynolds went on to play professional doubles.

“She hit like a men’s Davis Cup player,” she said. “Hard as can be.”

Later in life when Davis lived in Houston, she met the cousin of Chris Evert, another big tennis player of that decade. Evert’s cousin invited Davis to the last Virginia Slims that Evert played in.

“On the way over there, I was like please don’t talk about how I played tennis,” she said timidly.

But of course he did as they sat next to Evert’s mom during the tournament, so Mrs. Evert invited them to a reception afterwards. After the match, the players iced down their shoulders for an hour. Finally Evert and Reynolds show up, and Mrs. Evert proceeds to introduce the players to Davis.

“She says ‘Oh Candy, you might remember Barbara.’ I was like she’s not going to remember me. First of all, I didn’t even play her, and second, she probably didn’t even remember Mississippi State,” she said laughing. “But she ended up being real nice.”

Because of Title IX, Davis remembers that all major universities were starting women’s tennis teams at the same time. The one team she remembers playing against that already had a team established was Mississippi University for Women, which was still a women’s only college at the time.

“We went to The W for a tournament,” she said. “They were good, really good. There was one girl that played on their team that played with Chris Evert in Florida.”

Davis also recalled several of the men’s tennis players that would practice on the court at the same time. One of them, Raul Espinosa, who was from Bolivia, played in Florida in the Juniors tournaments. She actually brought Espinosa down to Brookhaven and taught a few lessons to some local tennis players.

“Our No. 1 tennis player was fun to watch,” she said. “His strokes were so fluid.”

Now, nearly 50 years later, tennis is coming full circle for Davis as she watches her nephew play for Oak Grove’s team. Earlier this year, he actually played in

Brookhaven against BHS winning in a tiebreaker, and hanging on his wall is Davis’s tennis wooden racket from her days on Mississippi State’s first women’s tennis team.