Davida Dinerman

On Friendships, Fighting for Equality, and Living the Questions

One Google search using “Judy Dixon Tennis” as the keyword phrase, and you have enough material to read, watch and listen to for a week.

This is a woman with several personas:

Touring Pro
Tennis Coach
Businesswoman
Advocate
Journalist
Commentator

I spoke with Judy in May when she was relaxing on the porch of her home in Amherst, MA. She had just returned from the national hardcourt tourney in Kentucky where she won gold in the 75s singles and doubles. A successful day at the office you’d say. 

As much as I wanted to go off script from all-things tennis, it’s hard to do that with Dixon who started to play tennis at age nine and has been an influencer in the sport ever since. But I’ll spare you the suspense of waiting for a phrase Dixon said at the end of our conversation which resonated and ties it all together: “I’m not looking for answers, but rather living the questions.”

You’ll understand what I mean as you read on. Let’s cover a few stats first. 

Deep breath, here goes…

Dixon graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1973. A three-year letterwinner for the Trojans, she played first singles and doubles at USC. The 1967 Junior National Champion claimed the 1973 Pacific Eight doubles title.

Prior to coming to UMass, Dixon served as the Coordinator of Women's Athletics and head tennis coach at Yale University from 1973-76. She compiled a 40-14 record at Yale, leading the Elis to the 1976 Ivy League championship. 

Away from the tennis scene, Dixon enjoyed a career as a journalist. In 1975, she became the first woman nominated for an Emmy Award in Sports Broadcasting for her PBS color commentary at the Spalding International Mixed Doubles Championship. She was also the first woman to do color commentary for a professional sports team -- the Boston Lobsters of World Team Tennis. Dixon served as the play-by-play announcer at NBC for the 1976 NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship. 

In her 24 years coaching at the University of Massachusetts, from 1992 – 2017, Dixon rose to the top of the UMass coaching charts and was deemed the winningest tennis coach in UMass history. In 2003, she coached the Philadelphia Freedoms of World Team Tennis.

Along with a successful coaching career, Dixon also spent time as a touring professional. From 1969-1973, Judy played on the professional tour, playing singles, doubles, and mixed doubles at the U.S. Open, and singles at Wimbledon. At 17, Judy was invited to be then #1 Billie Jean King’s doubles partner on the Virginia Slims Tour. They played two tournaments together, including the New England Indoors and the National Indoors. 

On June 21, 2008, Dixon was one of six inducted into the USTA New England Hall of Fame.

Exhale.  

And that’s just scratching the surface. 

Growing up in NJ, her older sister of seven years was taking tennis lessons but hated it. So, she paid Judy to take the clinic in her place. At one point, the pro met with their parents and said, “Judy has talent.” The parents were confused… “You mean Pam, right?” Nope, it was Judy. 

Tennis was love at first forehand for Judy, who would ride her bike to the nearby courts and wait to play with someone but, as she put it, “I spent a lot of time on the backboard.” The coach put together team matches with other clubs. And when she was 10 years old, Judy consistently beat a 15-year-old. Bored with the light competition, she asked the pro if she could have another opponent. That pro happened to be THE Doris Hart, who became Judy’s one and only coach from ages 11 – 18. 

Judy said, “Doris taught me everything – from the way I presented myself on court to the history of the game.” During the summer, Judy worked as a pro at Spring Lake Bath and Tennis. Her father then bought the Hillsborough Club in Florida and hired Hart as a tennis pro. Judy also spent summers at New Haven Lawn Club where she took lessons and played doubles with Hart and Shirley Fry. 

Dixon talked about three reasons why she plays tennis. First, the friendships. Second, the ability to participate on a team. She added that when she was playing for USC, Title IX was not yet in existence, so she did not have the kind of team experience she has when she plays on senior cup teams. And third, having something to practice for; a goal to achieve. 

Something magical happens when Judy Dixon touches something. She affects change because she’s not afraid to live the questions. There are multiple examples of this. 

First, even in her early 20s and managing her first full-time job in collegiate athletics, Dixon took on a behemoth – Yale University – and used Title IX to gain more equality within a women’s sports program. In 1981, Yale agreed to provide full-time coaches for women athletes and upgraded budgets and salaries for women’s athletics. “I was young, but I knew what was going on at Yale was not fair. I sued Yale, naively so. It became historical only I did not think of it that way then,” she said. 

As the UMass tennis coach, she instilled in the players how to focus on improving and staying the course, even when hardship got in the way. She taught them to “do the right thing – practice right, eat the right food, respect themselves, each other and the program,” as she put it. This philosophy was the bedrock of the team’s turnaround story- from a losing cause to three-time Atlantic-10 Championship qualifier. The seeds she planted enabled the teams to blossom. Dixon commented on the wonderful times she had with the teams, and it fills her heart knowing that many on the team stay connected with each other and her. 

And the crazy thing is that she almost didn’t take the job at Yale or UMass. After college, she gave the tour a go and played for two years. She got through the Wimbledon qualifiers and into the main draw. 

To Dixon, “That was as good as it was going to get.” Life on the tour was lonely and she wanted to move on. She received a call from Yale to coach the women’s tennis team, but she declined at first as she didn’t want to leave LA. Then she changed her mind and a week later she became the coordinator of women’s athletics at Yale and coach of the women’s tennis team – at the ripe age of 24. While at Yale, PBS hired Dixon to do color commentary for tennis tournaments. 

In the early ‘90s, Dixon owned a health club in Amherst, but the club was closing, and she was planning to move and return to corporate marketing. But in the knick of time, the UMass AD called to offer her the coaching position for the women’s team, which Dixon promptly declined. The AD then called back a few days later and asked if she could coach both the men’s and women’s tennis teams. Now that was something she could sink her teeth into -- coaching a program vs. one team. She accepted for one year, which turned into 24 years. “It was more fun to take nothing and turn it into something,” Dixon said. Again, lots of questions to live.

According to Dixon, “Tennis should be a sport that is accessible to anyone who wants to play.” She ran a youth tennis summer camp at the UMass courts for nearly 10 years and has been involved with many USTA efforts to improve how tennis is taught to young children and to increase access for children who want to play but do not have the opportunity.

In the summer of 2017, she started working with a newly formed western Massachusetts USTA/Springfield partnership program called Moving On Up. This offers tennis clinics to youth in Springfield, most of whom had never picked up a racquet. It did not take long for the program to reach capacity and require additional funding to build programming, and it is running strong seven years later.

Over the past decade, Dixon has also been competing in the US and abroad, most recently this past March in the ITF Senior Masters’ World Championships in Turkey. Dixon and her teammates on the Queens Cup earned a bronze by beating South Africa, Ireland and Australia.

What would Dixon have done if tennis was not in her life? That was a quick and easy response, “Something with music,” she said. Fun fact #1: When she was younger, Dixon played the accordion. Fun fact #2:  When she was living in LA, she befriended Marilyn and Alan Bergman. You might know them for writing that little song called The Way We Were? This relationship grew beyond simply tennis; the Bergmans became her surrogate parents. In September, Dixon will fly to LA for Alan’s 99th birthday.

Really, her most special part of life was adopting two children – a boy and a girl. They came within one week of each other. Her son was four years old, and her daughter was six weeks old. Daughter Mariah is 41 and a social worker. Her son Selin works at a university, is married and has a 16 year-old son named Devin. Dixon raised the children on her own for many years and later with her partner Suzanne. 

Despite all that Dixon has accomplished, she is still focused on the journey – whatever the journey and whatever questions fall in her path. She loves spending time with her family and talking with friends from all over the country, whom she met through tennis. “I don’t run my life as it’s a big deal,” she said. “My goal is to get into the next tournament in one piece, do my best, and see my friends.” 

What questions are out there for Judy Dixon? Wherever they are, she’ll find them and tackle the solutions, and we’ll all be better off for it.