CHUCK MCKINLEY

Chuck McKinley did everything in a hurry. 

At thirteen he picked up a ping pong paddle at the YMCA. He thought tennis was a sissy sport. Bill Price put a racket in his hands anyway. By 1960, at nineteen, McKinley was on the U.S. Davis Cup team, ranked number one in men's doubles with Butch Buchholz, and enrolled at Trinity University in San Antonio, where under coach Clarence Mabry he helped build what was widely considered the best collegiate tennis team in the country. He was doing all of that at the same time. 

The writers called him Slambang. His fellow players called him The Stump. He was short, powerful, and unpredictable. You never knew which shot was coming. Strong wrists. Big game. He lunged, dove, and rushed the net with a joyful aggression that delighted every crowd he ever played in front of. Tennis players don't stop to watch each other. McKinley made them stop. 

At twenty-two he won Wimbledon in twenty-one sets. He didn't drop one. Three times he reached the singles semifinals at Forest Hills. With Dennis Ralston he won three U.S. National Men's Doubles Championships. He played Davis Cup from 1960 to 1965 and delivered the decisive win over John Newcombe that helped the U.S. claim the Cup in 1963. 

At twenty-four he retired to join a New York brokerage firm. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1986. 

One month later, he was gone.  He was 45. 

(1990)