Family History
Racquets to Riches
How Barber tennis went from the YMCA to UCLA
My dad, Bill Barber, steps up to return. The score is 6–3, 2–1, my dad is winning. It’s late at night, the stadium lights illuminating the the thousands of people in the stands that showed up for this late round of the Boston Challenger. However, my dad is focused on one thing only: the person on the other side of the net. You’ve probably heard of him, Pat Cash, a 2 time Wimbledon champion and the #4 tennis player in the world at the time. However, right now none of that matters. He’s down 15–40 on his serve, and a break here would likely secure the win for my dad.
Crack
Cash’s serve whistles past my dad for an ace, as the crowd goes wild.
“30–40” says the umpire. The fate of the match hinges on this next point.
Crack
Cash hits another massive serve, rushing to the net. But this time my dad returns it. The ball flies low, barely over the net, right at Cash’s feet. Cash barely gets his racquet out in time, and the ball ricochets off it, hitting the top of the net, seemingly balanced on the edge.
Flashback to 1870, my great-great grandfather is on a boat traveling across the ocean, hoping to create a new life in America for the Barbers. Tennis was on a similar journey, as the invention of vulcanized rubber balls created new opportunities for the sport to played outside on grass instead of being an indoor sport for only the wealthy. People like my great-great grandfather brought new ideas across the ocean with them, leading to innovations like the camera which brought tennis to a worldwide audience.
Almost a hundred years later, the Barbers had their second, much more impactful brush with tennis. My grandfather, Bill Barber Sr, first started playing tennis in high school, and even though he wasn’t the best player he still found a love for the game. When he had kids, he tried to get them into tennis, something that was a challenge as there was no real youth tennis in the area. He solved this problem by creating his own leagues and tournaments, building tennis in the area for his kids to play in.
My grandfather’s efforts paid off, as all three Barber kids were hooked on tennis. The two oldest, Bonnie and Cindy, both played junior and college tennis, while my dad took it to the next level. He trained with his siblings but was eventually doing so well in local tournaments that he was able to go to national competitions and train with better players. This allowed him to get a scholarship to play collegiate tennis at UCLA, letting him leave home to get a college education on the opposite side of the country.
Bill Barber didn’t start out playing on the team, instead starting at the #8 spot on the lineup. However, this changed when he and his partner beat the #1 doubles team from UCLA in a preseason national tournament, giving him the attention he needed to start moving up on the team. His senior year, he ended up winning the PAC-10 tournament with his partner, playing #2 on the team and was ranked top 10 nationally.
After college, my dad decided to play on the pro tour. This was no easy thing to get into, as simply getting ranked required a win in a main draw match at a big tournament. For someone just coming on the tour, wild cards into tournaments were limited so my dad had to build up his reputation with the USTA (US Tennis Association), or qualify for tournaments. Going around and traveling was expensive, so my dad went places where he could stay for cheap and he could make money. This meant he stayed a lot in France and Asia, as those were areas he could stay with host families and win money tournaments every weekend while building his ranking.
However, life on tour wasn’t always good. Life in the top 100 vs the top 500 is a lot different, as it is the difference between making thirty and three hundred thousand dollars a year, and my dad wasn’t eventually able to break into that top 100, instead choosing to go back home and start his life with my mom. At the same time, my grandfather’s involvement in tennis jumped up, as he had worked his way through the tennis community and was taking jobs to be head umpire at tournaments that included the US Open during his retirement. It was a great activity for him and my grandma to stay busy, and he loved traveling and officiating. Whenever we went to visit family, tennis was always the main activity that we did. Because the whole family plays, tennis is something that brings us together even though we all have completely different lives.
The reason I started playing tennis was my family, and it’s been so much more than a game for me. The opportunities that it has given me like going to New York to train at the site of the US Open or flying down with my doubles partner to Florida to play in a 32 team national championships simply would not be possible without tennis. It also brings me closer together with my family, whether it be training with my dad, getting college advice from my uncle who coaches at Dartmouth, or just playing for fun during the summer up in Cape Cod with the whole family. I have met many of my closest friends while playing tournaments, and tennis has opened doors for me in school and travel that would not be possible otherwise.
“They just supported us completely”
A conversation with Bill Barber
My dad always tells stories about his time on tour, ranging from almost getting shot to visiting crazy places to play tournaments. I think his tennis experience is something very unique that is definitely not the picture perfect life that most people think a professional athlete has. I got him to sit down for around 15 minutes to tell some stories and talk about the impact tennis had on his life.
Xander Barber
Okay, what was your first experience with tennis?
Bill Barber
The entire family played, including two older sisters, your aunts, they both played. And both my parents played. So I was playing when I was young, probably two.
Xander Barber
When did your father start umpiring? Was that something he did before you were born? Or did he start when you were growing up,
Bill Barber
He created a junior tennis team and JTL(Junior Tennis League) in our area for us to play in but then realized that there was no junior tournaments for my oldest sister to play. And so he started creating a junior tennis tournament circuit. So they had rankings, which ended up becoming the Mid Atlantic tennis section, which is Maryland, Virginia, Washington, DC.
Bill Barber
Yep. Now there’s a big office of people that run it. And he used to run out of the basement.
Xander Barber
Did you play any sports other than tennis when you’re growing up?
Bill Barber
Yes. Your grandmother had us play everything. We played soccer, basketball, and we started playing some golf in high school. But if it was an a sport, and we could be outside playing, we did it.
Xander Barber
What’s your favorite memory from playing tournaments as a kid?
Bill Barber
As a kid? I’d probably say some of the national tournaments. My doubles partner and I won the boys 12 National doubles. And we celebrated it by chartering a plane and flew us to the beach for a week after that. So that was pretty exciting for a 12 year old kid.
Xander Barber
Can you describe your general progression through junior, college, and pro tennis?
Bill Barber
Sure. As a junior I was one of the best players in the Mid Atlantic area. And it put me at about in the top 30 of the country and I played all the way through from age 10 until age 18. My highest ranking was probably around 21 in the country. That got me a college scholarship to go to UCLA, I played there for four years, had a good college career, and ended up being in the top 20 by the end, which gave me the confidence to go out and try playing professional. I traveled around the world playing tennis for two and a half years playing pro.
Xander Barber
How do you think tennis allowed you to further your education?
Bill Barber
As I tell the kids I coach now, I use tennis to open doors for me that weren’t open before. Coming in from a small town in Maryland, I would have never been accepted to UCLA but with tennis. I was able to get into the school and get my education there. And tennis opened up the options to travel around the United States in the summertime for tournaments to then travel internationally in the summer during college and internationally on the pro tour.
Xander Barber
What people have you met through tennis that have had a big impact on your life?
Bill Barber
I would say definitely my coach growing up was a great guy. Both coaches that I had when I was a kid were very influential as far as me growing up, helping mold my character and behavior on court and handling adversity. My college coaches were also very impactful as well.
Xander Barber
Did having parents that were highly involved with your tennis make it easier, tougher anything for you with like your family life and then as well as stuff.
Bill Barber
Your grandma and grandpa were actively involved in my tennis but they weren’t overbearing, athletic sport parents. They were there all the time. And they were very supportive, but they were not demanding we we played tennis because we enjoyed it. If we didn’t enjoy it, I think they would have found another sport for us. So where we were it was rare for a kid to have an experience like me where it was almost completely my choice to play competitive tennis and they just supported us completely.
Xander Barber
Do you think that’s changed at all thirty years later?
Bill Barber
It’s the same. Like I’ve told you in the past, I grew up knowing some kids with crazy tennis parents like the Menendez brothers and other ones like that, that are quite, you know, sensational and really the extreme of the situation but there’s always intense tennis parents or sports parents and the parents are trying to live vicariously through their kids and that’s always the problem, it’s supposed to be about the kid enjoying the sport.
“It’s very tough. It’s a tough road.”
— Bill Barber
Xander Barber
How difficult do you think it is to make it in pro or college tennis?
Bill Barber
Incredibly tough. Same as anybody I think what is it 10% of high school athletes go on to play in college and 1% not even that go on to play professionally. It’s very tough. It’s a tough road, but just your as long as you use each step of the way to what it’s for, you go to college to get an education and you happen to be able to play college sports. If you can then turn that into a career fantastic. If not, you move on.
Xander Barber
How close were you to the highest level? Did you make a good living doing tennis and what was some of that highest level stuff you got up to?
Bill Barber
For me professionally, I was able to make a tiny, tiny bit of money while I was traveling around the world, it paid for my travel expenses, hotels meals. So I didn’t go into debt, traveling around and playing professionally, which is the goal most times and you don’t usually start making a living until your top 150 in the world, I got up to about 245 and was knocking on the door of being successful but didn’t quite make it through highlights of pros was playing in the qualifiers for all the Grand Slams, and just getting to travel to some very unique places in the world.
Xander Barber
What’s your favorite place you got to play a tournament at?
Bill Barber
I got to play in a little tiny island called Reunion Island off near Madagascar. Oh, that was cool.
Xander Barber
Can you describe how you lived and like your sort of daily schedule during your time traveling and playing?
Bill Barber
I lived very simply, we would have 2/3/4 of us in a hotel room, trying to make ends meet to keep it as cheap as possible. We would practice twice a day and then everything else was if we had time to go sightsee wherever we were we were. When I had my time off, which wasn’t very much my first year playing pro, I traveled 49/50 weeks out of the year and the few weeks I had off, I went and visited your mom down in North Carolina to see her.
Xander Barber
What are some of your most memorable stories from our time traveling?
Bill Barber
Well I’ve got a lot. We were caught in the riot in France when we were traveling in Cherbourg. We turned the corner and then ended up being into being in the city square with a huge riot going on with tear gas flying, that was a little scary. Another good one was when we were in Israel during just after the Hebron massacre. So tensions were very high. And it was a very interesting thing. Everyone carrying guns around town everywhere we went. So that was a little intense. So those are the more scary ones. But then the fun ones were traveling in Seoul, Korea or Taiwan and being just the absolute freak show since I’m so tall, and everybody was totally amazed with me.
Xander Barber
I heard you mentioned you were held at gunpoint once, can you tell that one?
Bill Barber
Had forgotten that one. That was when we were I was traveling in France playing money tournaments in a summer during college and some crazy came up to me on the metro subway and stuck a gun on my head asking me if I was fascist and yelling at me in French. And I played the dumb American tourist and pretended not to know what he was saying. Meanwhile, I was carrying $10,000 in my underpants. So it was a little scary.
Xander Barber
Was that all from playing tournaments over the summer?
Bill Barber
Yes. And it was the last day of summer and I just cashed out all my money at the bank and was just carrying a lot of cash, which was a little scary to think I might get held up and lose it all.
Xander Barber
Why do you decide to go to France to play over the summer?
Bill Barber
they have a really good money tournament system that you could play a lot of tournaments and make some good money in the summertime. And it was great in the sense that I could go play I was I went over there for 10 weeks and I played 20 tournaments. You can’t find that the United States.
Xander Barber
Also for the United States. I know now that it’s definitely very competitive with all the junior players, pro players, college players all going to these tournaments, how did international stuff compare in difficulty level
Bill Barber
No I mean, it was still a tough circuit over there. I was one of the elite players no matter where I went, I would have been one of the top guys playing all the time. However, playing in the US is incredibly tough because there are so many American tennis players. France had many great players but maybe not the quantity of the US.
Xander Barber
How do you think collegiate or pro tennis has changed from what it was 30 years ago?
Bill Barber
I think now it’s unfortunate the prize money hasn’t increased that much. So the guys are trying to travel the world on very little money for the lower tier players. And that’s the biggest complaint you hear from guys who aren’t in the top 100 is just how expensive it is. I mean, there was that Italian woman who said who was 50 in the world and said she was barely making any money at all.
Xander Barber
How did you adjust after you stopped playing competitively?
Bill Barber
I started teaching tennis and was trying to figure out if I was going to go to med school. So I taught tennis and my situation teaching was relatively low-key and my boss would let me go and play money tournaments all the time. So I actually played a lot of money tournaments throughout the south and still got to fulfill that competitive edge.
Xander Barber
How do you think tennis overall has impacted your life and is part of the Barbers?
Bill Barber
I’d say of most of my friends from high school rarely moved or left the area. It was a very small town, very rural. So tennis gave us options to leave the area go to college on scholarships, far away from our home and get away and it gave us lots of opportunities to travel and earn livings and find spouses. As you know, your aunt’s husband’s a college coach and your other aunt’s husband was a tennis umpire. So everybody somehow met their significant other through tennis.
Xander Barber
How do you think tennis impacted your dad and mom?
Bill Barber
It gave them an activity to do together. They played a lot socially. They weren’t amazing players but they had fun with it. Most of their friends were all from tennis, their vacation that they found they went to in Cape God that they went to from their honeymoon until they bought a house there and died there. They all their friends up there were from tennis. So it gave them an identity and something fun to do though their entire lives while their umpiring/organizing work created programs that are still here to this day.
Reflection
Overall, I thought the stories my dad told were very entertaining but at the same time did a great job putting his accomplishments into perspective. It also inspired me to look at some of the other work my grandfather did, as I ended up finding out a lot about the programs he made and the massive impact he had on the tennis community. The biggest challenge I faced was probably balancing a history and showing my dad’s story as I only interviewed my dad. If I could do it differently I would have liked to talk to some of my dads friends from his time traveling and it would have been great to have been able to talk to my grandfather instead of just relying on other people’s accounts of the tennis league he set up.
In the end, that shot Pat Cash hit ended up hitting the net and rolling over, leading him to a hot streak that ended up with him winning in three sets. However, tennis is more than fame or money for the Barbers, instead a way to make lifelong friends, travel the world, get an education, or most importantly strengthen the bond that holds the Barbers together.
