Red Arrow Legends - The Early Days of Lowell Tennis (Up to the 1940’s)

1953-1936 Girls Tennis - Left to Right - Betty Hill, Dorothy Jean Goul, Beth Burdick, Virginia Hosley, Cassie June Lee, Ruth Houseman, Izetta Frost, Sarah Bannan, Coach Van Hoesen

Justin Scott - Sports Reporter

2/14/2024

Our newest weekly sports series, “Red Arrow Legends” is kicking off this week. The weekly article will highlight a historical Lowell High School athletics topic ranging across all sports and time periods. Lowell athletics has a history dating back to the first recorded athletics events, a baseball game against Grattan in 1900.

A multitude of these topics are covered in the Lowell High School Athletics archive which can be found on the TV in the LHS athletics hallway. Each of our articles will take a deeper dive into these topics, the research that went into archiving them, quotes, photos, and even some podcasts in the future. If you ask me, can you really fill 52 historical Lowell sports articles a week in all year? Oh yes. Yes we can. A couple of notes before we jump in. This is primary research. I did a majority of the research for the athletics archive outside of a select few sports, and will always notate outside research when I utilize it. So are you ready to jump in? Let’s begin.

Tennis is one of the oldest sports at Lowell High School and interscholastic athletics as a whole. Tennis originated in the 12th century in Northern France, though it of course took many centuries to develop into the game we know today. Rackets came into play in the 16th century and the “tennis” name originated. It came from the French “tenez”, to hold, meaning "hold!", "receive!" or "take!".

In the United States, tennis clubs were introduced in the 1870’s and these clubs were generally reserved for the upper class. Tennis has always been a sport embraced by the wealthy, odd considering today we can buy a tennis racket, some tennis balls at Meijer for under $30 and play for free at the high school courts or a local park any day. Of course, tennis as a sport at the high school level is dominated by schools with a higher average income. To become good at tennis, lessons, court-time, equipment, it all adds up.

High school sports in Michigan started to pick up speed in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s. Lowell established their first sports and school association in the year 1900. Sports like baseball, football, and track and field were quickly adopted but other sports like tennis began to be played. 

It’s important to note that research on this topic and generally any topic on early 20th century LHS athletics can be found in two places. LHS Yearbooks and Lowell Ledger archives. To complicate matters, the Ledger reported on both high school sports and social athletic clubs, clubs generally created for men outside of high school. Think of it as like a co-ed softball league today. One such team played baseball, the “Fallasburg Cubs”.  Also, the first yearbook we can find is from 1913. Most years have been archived, but some are missing. A sport like tennis doesn't get a lot of coverage. So some generalizations need to be made.

The first mention of tennis at Lowell High School came from the 1914 Lowell Ledger. “The tennis tournament at Rockford was won by Harold Behler and Bruce McQueen.” This isn’t a detailed article like something you would read today. High school sports received little fanfare, again it was the social clubs that drew crowds back then. We can deduce though, this was a high school tournament. Both McQueen and Dehler would have been seniors in the spring of 2014 at LHS. That fall, the football season was canceled due to “lack of material”. This is noted in Fred Lenger’s “A History of Lowell Football” (note, that’s my grandfather interestingly enough). Enrollment in these times would have been around the 150 mark depending on the year.

In 1916, the doubles team of Carl Horn and Theo Bank won the section championship. They played the same schedule as baseball, consisting of teams; Rockford, Grandville, GR South, Lake Odessa, and Belding. From there, we don't see anything on tennis until the 1930's.

The gap in the 1920’s is not specifically discussed but there are many potential reasons why there are no recorded results. No yearbooks even discuss tennis at this time, so it is most likely that there was no interscholastic competition. This is reinforced in the May 21st, 1931 edition of the Ledger. “The High school's first attempt at inter-scholastic tennis has proved very successful, and this success has been achieved with practically no coaching.” Now while individuals had played for Lowell in the 1910’s as discussed, this suggests that these were based on individual interest rather than putting a team together. Tennis could have taken place at the intramural level, but this is just conjecture. Baseball, football, basketball, and track were the dominant sports at that time. Interest simply may not have been there for a school with enrollment under 150. Enrollment is well over 1100 now and sports are struggling to grab students' interest at times, so this wouldn’t be surprising. Tennis was being played at neighboring schools during at least the late 1920’s.

Enter the 1930’s where yes, Lowell Boys Tennis were state runner-ups in this decade. Now, when you see the signs entering Lowell on state championships and runner-ups, this isn’t noted because the MHSAA as we know it today wasn’t around, but it was a very real runner-up finish we will dive into. Tennis took place in the spring, with baseball and track. 

In 1931, there is the following excerpt from the 1931 girls tennis season “The Lowell High girls tennis team defeated Belding Monday afternoon in both matches. Maxine Simons played Marjorie Johnson. of Belding. winning two out of three sets, the set scores were 6-2, 4-6, 7-5. Jane Runciman and Gladys Armstrong were teamed against Jeannette Berry and France s James, of Belding. The set scores were 6-1, 6-1. Last week at Lowell, Belding won the singles, Lowell captured the doubles in two love sets.”

What this tells us is, tennis today, nearly 100 years later, isn't that far off of what it was back then. The scoring is the same, just with more updated equipment and facilities. The uniforms are not the same, as you can see by the team pictures. Certainly more formal, the boys wearing long trousers and the girls wearing blouses.

Spring 1937-1939 was a golden three years for the boys tennis program. A 24-2 record over those three years. In 1935 through the 1940’s you played to a best of three team score. It is unclear why this is, but it could have been some sort of state mandate. You had two singles players, one doubles team. Lowell had plenty more than that. 13 players during the 1938 season, only four of which won varsity letters. Those four were Philip Althen, Fineis, Linsday, and Dolan.

So let’s start though with the spring of 1937. The Ledger makes very few notes about the team, but in the few words mentioned, they confirm the starting lineup of Linsday/Althen, Gotfredson, Fineis . They played the quartet of Lee High, today’s Wyoming Lee, Grandville, Rockford, and EGR twice and beat them both times. Won the regional and in the state finals tied with Dearborn St. Alphonsus, lost to East Tawas. Today you know East Tawas as Tawas Area, and Dearborn St. Alphonsus who were actually known as the “Arrows” ended their sports programs in the 2000’s and the school no longer exists.

Off that year in 1937, another run at a state title in 1938, only to finish 2nd at regionals after a 10-0 dual record. There’s no state result noted.

In 1939, Lowell was overtaken by East Grand Rapids who won both duals 3-0, Philip Althen and William Lalley, the Lowell doubles team, finished as state runner-up. The MHSAA only keeps records dating back to the late 70’s and this wasn’t an MHSAA event anyway, but it is entirely possible that EGR’s doubles team won the state championship that year. Althen in particular was mentioned all four years of high school and undoubtedly had one of the best careers of an early LHS tennis player. The son of Phillip Charles and Beatrice Ann (Van Dyke) Althen II, he died in 2009 at the age of 87. Notes like that, remind us of how the LHS Athletics Archive is such a cool thing. Althen’s achievements were not known or recognized by Lowell High School at the time, but now that history is being archived for generations to come. Names like Althen’s, Lalley, George Gotfredsen, Keith Kerr, Richard Peckham, Giles Sinclair, Carlton Runciman, Betty Hill, Jane Runciman, Maxine Simons, they were just playing a game in the 1930’s. They were having fun and enjoying extracurricular activities but are some of the pioneers of the sport at LHS. Not until 2011 would another state runner-up walk the halls of LHS, nearly 80 years later.

On the girl’s side, only six results were recorded in the 1930’s. All the matches were against Belding and Ionia, perhaps the only schools around that had girls tennis. Lowell recorded a 5-0-1 record, no state or regional results were mentioned.

Women’s sports, of which we will dive into more deeply in another article, has its own unique history. It would not be until the early 1970’s that girls tennis came back to Lowell High School. The women’s suffrage movement in 1920 paved the way for renewed emphasis on women’s freedom, and thus more participating in interscholastic sports. The 1930's participation at LHS reflected that. The Great Depression as it went on negated those gains, the last mention of girls tennis at LHS before the 70's was 1936.