 This is Jimmy Powers, and I've got a most interesting story for you today. Hey there, this is Jimmy Powers again, and now let's discover who Granny Rice considered the greatest tennis star of all time with another chapter from the tumult and the shouting. Now in first person, I'll tell you about another champion. In tennis, I covered a distance of ground. I was conscious of the court game, in fact, played it back in 1900 while an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University. Malcolm D. Whitman was the national champion. I followed it down the years watching the best. Maurice McLaughlin's, Little Bill Johnston's, LaCoste's, Vinny Richards, Vines, Fred Perry, Don Budge, Bobby Riggs, Jack Cramer, Tony Trabert, and the rest. I've seen the gals come and go all the way from Eleonora Sears. She was the first female who invaded a man's game. On through Susan Longlan, Helen Wills, Helen Jacobs, Alice Marble, Sarah Cook, and up to Maureen Little Mole Connolly. Now that's a lot of names, a wealth of talent and dedication, but one name stands head and shoulders, at least to me, above this crop of the racket world, Big Bill Tilden. In my opinion, Big Bill was the greatest player who ever stepped on the court. In September 1919, I went to Forest Hills to cover the national tennis championships. I was after a column on the singles between Tilden and Little Bill Johnston. That day, I had lunch with Little Bill in the dining room of the clubhouse. He was no bigger than a sack of peanuts. Weight, 121 pounds. After a long match, he weighed as little as 112 pounds. His right arm, the one that propelled his famed forehand, was no bigger around than a billiard cue. The little guy ate calmly and talked objectively of the coming match. He seemed to be in a grand frame of mind. Tilden, on the other hand, was cage walking like a tiger around the clubhouse. Finally, as Johnston was toying with a glass of iced tea, Tilden walked over and said, Come on, Bill, let's get this over. I'm ready, Bill, replied Johnston. The match went down as one of those day-with-and-goliath things. If ever an adversary seemed outmaned for sheer size and outgunned and stroking ammunition, it had to be Little Bill Johnston, the California half-pint who never knew when he was licked. Little Bill whipped Tilden three sets to one. His forehand was devastating, an attacking weapon that swept Tilden before it. That marked the first and last time Johnston defeated Tilden in a title match. Big Bill won the cup from 1920 straight through 1925 and again in 1929. Big Bill Tilden was born in Germantown, a suburb of Philadelphia in February 1893. His father was a giant physically, a robust swashbuckler and enormously successful in business. He was the leader of the Republican machine in Philadelphia and also president of the Union League Club. His mother was beautiful, tall, and refined, a completely artistic woman whose voice had been trained for opera. Bill's brother, Herbert, followed his father while Young Bill followed his mother. Bill was just 18 when she died. Then four years later, both his father and brother died. Tilden won his first national singles title in 1920 at the age of 27, considered late for an athlete to make his big move. At 28, Bobby Jones had declared himself through with competitive golf. But when Bill finally did arrive with both big feet planted on the emerald turf of Forest Hills in 1920, the sports world knew that this fellow Tilden was about to become a second rock of Gibraltar. One spring day in 1930, Ty Cobb and I watched Tilden practicing at Augusta, Georgia. Bill had been having trouble with his cut shot. We watched him work for one solid hour on that one particular shot. That Tilden's quite a fellow, remarked Ty. He's not afraid of work. Like Tommy Hitchcock in Polo, Willie Hoppe in Billiards, Cobb in baseball, and Pudge Heffelfinger in football, Big Bill was the notable exception to the adage that time and tide wait for no man. Vinnie Richards, who played Tilden in more than 1,000 singles matches and teamed with him in doubles many times, recently said to me, Granny, we know that scientists, writers, and other creative persons reached the peak of their productivity between 35 and 45. Statesmen and top professional people frequently come into their own much later. But the headliners and physical skills ordinarily are at their peaks at around 27 or thereabouts. But rarely past 30. From there on, the process of their bodily decline takes its toll. By this reckoning, Tilden was nearly a quarter century past due in his field when he passed away. Yet he persisted in meeting any challenge up to the very end. After winning every tournament of importance, both here and abroad, he maintained in the twilight of his days a standard of play for at least one set that thrilled fans and experts alike. Competitive guts, Big Bill had his share plus. Few knew that long before he became a tennis headliner, Bill won his spurs in a bodily contact sport as one of the best hockey players ever to represent the University of Pennsylvania. But to me, the Big Fellow never showed more intestinal fortitude than in the Davis Cup matches at Forest Hills in 1921. I covered those matches. Zenzo Shimazu, greatest of the Japanese, had Big Bill down two sets to love and was within two points of taking set game and match when Tilden put on one of his historic rallies. The crowd and most of the press, including yours truly, thought Big Bill Tilden deliberately let the Jap push him to the wall so he might make the most out of a dramatic comeback. Vincent Richards again straightened me out some 30 years later when he said, Bill was an agonizing pain during those first three sets. He'd gone into action that afternoon with a boil as big as a walnut on his right instep and it had burst during that third set. At intermission time, a physician decided the infection had gone so deep he would have to lance the foot from the underside. Bill submitted to the painful incision without flinching and then insisted on resuming play. With the foot tightly bandaged and wincing at every step, he limped back to the court and crushed Shimazu in the next two sets while losing but three games. That granny took guts. At the age of 60, Big Bill Tilden played in the professional championships, defeating Wayne Saban in an early round and had Frank Kovacs hanging on to whip him in the next round. And that's quite a span of tennis. He passed away a year later. The last time I saw Big Bill was in January 1953. Kit and I were spending a few weeks at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills and our fifth floor rooms overlooked the tennis courts. Down on the court below Tilden, a gaunt, bespectacled figure in shorts would work out with Frank Feltrop, the professional. One morning, while I was watching Bill work out, Kit stood by my shoulder. Granny, she reflected, somehow it's a tug watching Bill down there, isn't it? He's still magnificent in spurts. But compared to the Bill we knew, it's like watching a scarecrow going through the motions. Well, here in the studio today is the man who battled Big Bill Tilden in singles and teamed with him in doubles for a lot of years, Vinny Richards, the boy wonder of the golden 20s. Vinny, it's good to see you. Well, it's good to see you too, Jim. I'm getting quite a jolt out of Granny's life and the treatment of Big Bill Tilden. I understand and appreciate the summation of Tilden, both as a person and as the all-time top in tennis. Vinny, I know you and Tilden won the National Doubles crown. What year was that, by the way? First time we won at the gym was in 1918. And when did you team together for the last time? The last time was in 1945. In 1945, Jim, we teamed together in the National Pro Championship at Forest Hills. And we won that event and that incidentally was 25 years to the day that we won the amateur tournament in Boston. That's a truly remarkable performance. Now, can you give us something that typifies Tilden's greatness, you know, as well as his humorous side or eccentric side? Well, there's so many stories about him, as you know, Jim. And I live so many stories with him that you could be here all day reciting him. But I think one of the funniest ones was the time I was playing him down at Jacksonville, Florida. And there was a big tree right in the side of the court. And we'd been playing there all week, of course. It was a good tournament. Everybody was in it. Johnson, Tilden, Williams, Alonzo, all the first ten players were in the tournament. And came Sunday until I were in the finals and I said to Bill, Bill, you know, we're going to go five sets this afternoon. So you ought to remove the limbs of that tree because the sun will hit it. And there'll be shadows on the court. And he, of course, insisted immediately that the limbs be taken off, which was an impossibility because they were there for years and years and years to take all day to do it. But that was typical of Tilden. Have you anything to tell about your association with Granny Rice? Well, it was a lovely friendship, as you know, Jim. And I think I was one of the first ones to welcome Granny to Forrest Hills. Many years ago, and as I recall, we named them at the time, the International Sportsman. And he certainly deserved that title. Well, thanks, Vinny Richards. A true credit to the Golden Age of Sports. And today, Vice President of the Dunlop Rubber Company Sports Division. It must be a very satisfying job. It certainly is, Jim. Well, this is Jimmy Powers transcribed, closing another chapter in Grantland Rice's best-selling autobiography, The Tumult and the Shouting. Next time, we're going to meet another of Granny's extra special favorites. And until then, au revoir.