“IF HOLLYWOOD ever decides to make a Cinderella-type movie about tennis – the kind where a poor but honest girl fights her way to the top, then meets and marries a handsome millionaire and lives happily ever after – whoever takes on the job had better clear it first with Margaret Osborne duPont … She played baseball and football with an older brother until she discovered tennis. … Once she hit her stride she and her sidekick, Louise Bough, were practically unbeatable…
“Mrs. duPont married William duPont Jr. of the duPont chemical empire in 1947. That same year she won the Wimbledon singles championship. Also in that year, Bough won the U.S. Open. For the next three years Mrs. duPont won the U.S. Open while Bough was winning Wimbledon …” (Note: Mrs. duPont also won two French Opens.)
DURING HER playing days Mrs. duPont met Margaret Varner Bloss of El Paso, a world-class tennis player herself, and after Mrs. duPont’s husband died in 1964 she decided to make our city her home.
“I don’t like the humid Eastern climate and California is too crowded,” Mrs. duPont, who was born in Joseph, Oregon, once told this writer in an interview. “I visited my good friend Margaret in El Paso several times and I liked it so I decided to settle down here.”
She may have settled down here but she didn’t stay inactive. Like true royalty, she took up the breeding and racing of horses. She also continued to keep her hand in tennis with memberships in the U.S. Tennis Association, the Greater El Paso Tennis Association and the El Paso Tennis Club.
She also wrote a weekly tennis column for the El Paso Herald-Post for years.
TO NOBODY’S surprise, her endeavors in the Sport of Kings were extraordinarily successful. Her thoroughbreds won many races, including some of the bigger ones, throughout New Mexico and other parts of the Southwest.
She was awarded many honors during her lifetime, including being inducted into the National Lawn and Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Needless to say, she was inducted into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame.
Live horse racing will return to Sunland Park Racetrack and Casino next month. It would be nice if the track would hold some event in her honor, like, perhaps, naming a race after her to perpetuate her memory.
Regardless, having Mrs. duPont, who passed away last month at the age of 94, living in El Paso was truly an honor and a blessing.
TRIVIA QUESTION: In 1984, the Boston Red Sox had an outfield in which all three players had 100 runs batted in. Can you name them? Answer at end.
OUR RECENT column about UTEP basketball coach Tim Floyd brought recollection of another anecdote to KROD radio sports talk show host Steve Kaplowitz. He emails:
“Tim told me that after his first year at UTEP he was making no money so he decided to explore other coaching jobs. St. Louis (I believe) was offering him $15.000 for an assistant position. When Floyd went to tell Haskins, his first reaction was ‘Who the hell would hire you?’ When he told Haskins about the (St. Louis) offer, Haskins responded with ‘I’ll give you $10k to stay,’ and Floyd did. ‘Master negotiator,’ Floyd told me.”
ANSWER to trivia question: Tony Armas, Dwight Evans and Jim Rice.