The Jones Boys

Unlike most top-notch junior tennis players from Southern California, Herbie Flam has a clumsy-looking cramped stroke, often hits his forehand while awkwardly facing the net. Last week at Kalamazoo, Mich., skinny, 17-year-old Herbie did something more characteristic of his region: without dropping a set, he won the National Junior Championship for the second straight year, beating Floridian Buddy Behrens in the final, 6-3, 9-7, 6-2. He also kept a record straight: since 1933, only Southern Californians have won the National Junior.

It was an occasion for Southern California to recapitulate what it has that makes champions: 1) cement courts, which favor an aggressive game and teach youngsters to hit hard; 2) year-round sunshine; 3) Perry Jones.

Jones, a well-to-do former Hollywood lumber executive, looks like the epitome of all the crotchety, middle-aged men in dark glasses and white flannels who hang around junior tennis tournaments. Officially, he is secretary of the Southern California Tennis Association; actually, he is dictator of his region's junior tennis. Jones decides which youngsters are invited to the important tournaments, which are sent on all-expense-paid tennis trips. (Most of the revenue comes from the big Pacific-Southwest tournament; occasionally Jones quietly helps boys out of his own pocket.) Among his ex-proteges: Ellsworth Vines, Don Budge, Bobby Riggs, Jack Kramer, Ted Schroeder.

Old-maidish, a stickler for "gentlemanly" conduct, Jones insists on immaculate all-white court clothes, impeccable court manners. Of his boys he says: "I'm more interested in how they live than in how they play." When he refused to back a Mexican lad named Gonzales, who could beat Herbie Flam, Jones was called a snob. He countered: "That's not true. I dropped him because he wouldn't go to school."

One of Jones's boys, cocky little Bobby Riggs, insisted on taking money beyond expenses for amateur tennis--the unforgivable sin in Jones's eyes. "If you persist in this sort of thing, you're on your own," warned Jones. "Okay," said Bobby, "I'm on my own." He became national pro champion.

But Jones has the permanent gratitude of most of his former proteges. Before Jack Kramer and his wife sailed for Wimbledon this spring, they wired him: "We want you to know that we realize you have done this for us." Ex-Jones boys who become champions are usually glad to reciprocate by teaching old tricks to his new prospects. Jones, who has seen six national amateur champions roll off his production line, now has one all picked out for 1950: Herbie Flam.

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