Tom O'Neil saw problems and fixed them. That was his thing. 

He came to tennis the way a lot of parents do. His kids were playing, so he started playing. He didn't become a member of the tennis community. He became the organizer, founder, fixer, negotiator, promoter. 

O'Neil noticed that St. Louis had plenty of kids playing tennis but nowhere to watch the pros. He complained about it to Jack Levitt. Levitt told him to stop complaining and do something. So they did. Together they co-founded the St. Louis Aces, landing a franchise in Billie Jean King's World Team Tennis and bringing John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Venus Williams, Andy Roddick, Patrick Rafter, Ken Flach, Lindsay Davenport and Anna Kournikova to St. Louis. 

He served as president of the Triple A Youth Foundation for 10 years, building out clinics, tournaments and junior programs across the city. As president of the Triple A Club, he negotiated a deal with the city of St. Louis to convert their remaining hard courts to clay, giving the facility 13 clay courts in all and making it one of the preeminent clay court venues in the Midwest. 

He founded the St. Louis Tennis Hall of Fame and ran Hall of Fame Festivals that brought Rod Laver, Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King and Pancho Gonzalez back to the city. In 1993 he won the Missouri Valley Distinguished Service Award. 

"Part of my mission in life," O'Neil said, "is to leave the campgrounds I visit better than I found them. If you're blessed with a good education and good health, you need to get into the community and do your fair share." 

He did. 

(2019)