Phil Azar Sr. has always said he’s proud of what his children have accomplished in tennis. Now it’s his children’s turn to be proud of him.
Phil Azar Sr., 86, has been inducted into the Greater El Paso Tennis Association Hall of Fame.
Not that it’s any surprise. Mr. Azar was not only a pretty good hand in playing the sport but helped develop his son, Phil Azar Jr., and his two daughters, Peggy and Pam, into top ranked players in the Southwest and beyond. Phil Jr. played during the Jimmy Conner years, participated in tournaments throughout the country and was ranked No. 4 in the nation three consecutive years. Peggy played during the Chris Evert era and also entered national meets. She was rated as high as 14th in the country.
NO TELLING what Phil Sr. could have accomplished in tennis as a player himself were it not for World War II. He took up the sport at the age of 10 and won his first tournament on the old Memorial Park courts. He continued sharpening his game when El Paso Tennis Club opened with four clay courts at its original site on Nevada Street. By the time he got to Austin High School he was so good he made the Texas State Tournament his first three years. He was seeded No. 1 at the State meet his senior year but, alas, he came down with the mumps.
He enrolled at Texas College of Mines (now UTEP) but was there only one semester before he was drafted into military service. He was sent to Europe where, as an infantryman, he was attached to General George Patton’s 3rd Army and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
DURING HIS Army service he was stationed in Fort Benning, Georgia, and that’s where he met his wife, Bette.
After the war, he returned to El Paso and joined his father and two brothers at Azar Nut Company. But the tennis bug had not left him, and he joined the El Paso Tennis Club again. He became president and director of the club and served in those positions for years. He took up playing tennis again but his personal ambitions were put on the back burner and his focus shifted to his children. He became their coach and was constantly on the courts with buckets of balls throwing to his children to hit.
And other kids, too. He helped many another youth sharpen his or her game.
BUT MOSTLY tennis became a family affair. His wife also took up the sport and she and her husband would play mixed doubles while their children began to enter tournaments.
Bette, like her husband, also became involved in the running of the club and she and Carolyn Driver formed the Ladies Tennis Association there. They arranged housing for young out of town players who came to play in meets and took care of social events.
In 1966, Texas Tennis Magazine featured the Phil Azar Family on its cover and in 1967 the Southwest Tennis Association voted the Phil Azars as its “Family of the Year.”
In 1972 the Azars were in USTA Magazine along with former Wimbledon champion Margaret Osborne duPont who was then president of the Southwest Tennis Association.
And in 1978, Tennis West Magazine of Phoenix had the Azar family on the cover with the title, “Tennis & Christmas – A Family Affair.”
PHIL AZAR SR. has received honors in the business world as well as in tennis but, he says, seeing his children accomplish what they did in tennis is his greatest thrill.
And, he adds, being voted into the Greater El Paso Tennis Association Hall of Fame by his peers and tennis friends is “icing on the cake.”
His family, peers and friends couldn’t be happier.