George Bacso
George Bacso served as USPTA's Director of Certification and Academies before his death in November 1998. In this capacity, he traveled the world conducting certification exams, tennis teachers' courses and certification training courses. He was also a popular speaker and clinician in the United States and was the guiding force behind the careers of many young tennis professionals.
George also was instrumental in developing the current USPTA certification process and worked with USPTA's national tester network. The award given to the National Tester of the Year as well as the Eastern Division Tester of the Year, is named in his memory.
From 1978 to 1980, he served as the USPTA's national president. He also served several years as the president of the USPTA Eastern Division. He received the USTA National Education Merit Award and the 1984 national USPTA Professional of the Year Award. George also received the inaugural George Bacso Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and he held a Master Professional rating. He was the second grand inductee into the USPTA Hall of Fame in 1994 behind Arthur Ashe and is now in the first class of inductees into the Eastern Division Hall of Fame.
George Agutter
George Agutter was a charter member and one of the pioneers that formed the Professional Lawn Tennis Association of the United States. He served as the first president of the association in 1927. Through the efforts of Agutter and the PLTA's, tennis emerged as an extremely important national sport.
At the age 10, George learned to play tennis at the Queens Club in his native London. He was a ball boy at the club, earning a few bob shillings a week retrieving balls for the great English players, Reggie and Hugh Doherty. But George was doing more than shagging balls, he was taking in the tennis knowledge of the Dohertys and also fine-tuning his strokes.
George never thought about doing anything other than teaching tennis. When he was 16, he had his first job teaching at a club in Wales. At 18, George was hired as a tennis professional at the Tennis Club de Paris (France) and the occasional instructor of royalty. When he was 19, George came to the U.S. with a wealthy American international lawyer who hired him to be his personal tennis professional. It was fairly common in those days for a man who had the means and was a good player to have a personal tennis professional. For 8 years, he worked the summers at the Homestead in Hot Springs, Va., and the winters at the Royal Poinciana Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla.
In 1913, when the West Side Tennis Club was planning its move from Manhattan to Forest Hills in Queens, George was hired as the club's tennis professional. He opened the facility in 1914 by winning an exhibition match against the club's reigning champion. Mr. Agutter spent 46 years at the West Side Tennis Club, and helped to turn it into the No. 1 tennis club in the United States. As such, many people considered him to be the No. 1 tennis teaching professional of his time.
Mr. Agutter was a mine of tennis information, lore and anecdotes, and a man of firm opinions on the game and the way that it should be played and taught. In the 1930s, his book "Lessons in Tennis, A Textbook of the Game" was the bible for tennis teachers and tennis players.
George understood the importance of setting an example of what the tennis professional is and should be. He set the standard by which they all should be judged.
After his 46 years of service at the West Side Tennis Club, Mr. Agutter retired at the age of 73. He taught thousands of boys and girls the fundamentals of sound tennis, and coached many famous players including Helen Wills. At his retirement dinner, the club extolled that if all the people who esteemed George were to come to bid good luck to him, they would have to hold the celebration in Yankee Stadium.
