Mike McCormick
Special to the Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
Seven immortals were enshrined recently during ceremonies at the International Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum in Newport, R.I.
Three were Australians. One was an American. The others were from Belarus, England and Puerto Rico.
The sole American is Brad Parks. Now residing with his wife and two children in San Clemente, Calif., he is the son of Dr. William T. and Larrie (Hope) Parks, Jr., Terre Haute natives and Indiana State graduates. Bill Parks, a dentist, and Larrie live in Laguna Niguel, Calif.
Thurston Parks and James P. Parks — Dr. Parks’ father and grandfather — founded Parks Purity Pies at 2002 Wabash Ave. during the 1920s.
An extraordinary all-around athlete, Brad played basketball, football and baseball and liked to surf, water ski, scuba dive, swim and do flips off the diving board. He also enjoyed snow skiing at Big Bear, Mammoth and Park City, Utah. After watching acrobatic skiers perform tricks, he refined his skills at a summer camp at Crystal Mountain, Wash.
As an 18-year old freshman at the University of Utah in 1976, Parks was participating in a freestyle skiing tournament in Park City when things went awfully wrong. While executing a back flip, he landed awkwardly on the hard-packed snow.
“I just felt a snap and that was it,” he told a few journalists later. “I did not lose consciousness but I knew immediately that I was paralyzed from the waist down, that it was irreversible and that I would never walk again.”
After spending time in a Utah hospital, Parks went to Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center for rehabilitation. Upon being discharged, Brad visited Aunt Margie Bopp — Larrie Parks’ sister — and other relatives in Terre Haute. According to writer Peter Bodo in the July/August 2010 issue of Tennis magazine, the visit had enduring significance:
“ … a local tennis enthusiast took him out on the court to hit a few balls. Parks was a little surprised by how satisfying it was.
“‘You know how it is,’ he says. ‘Hitting the ball, making contact, is fun. I was paralyzed from the waist down but there was nothing wrong with my arms. You hit a ball, it feels sweet.’
“Parks was hooked even though he was playing in a wheelchair he described as ‘something you’d see in an airport.’”
Now, 34 years later, Parks, 52, is being inducted into the most prestigious tennis hall of fame in the world as “the pioneering founder of wheelchair tennis.”
The tennis enthusiast who inspired him was Duane Klueh, legendary Indiana State athlete and basketball and tennis coach. Klueh went to college with Brad’s parents.
Upon returning to California, Brad met recreation therapist Jeff Minnenbraker and the two united to design an ultra-light sport wheelchair. Before the year was over, Parks was obsessed with helping people with spinal cord injuries.
John Chambers and Mary Kay Gerski, two recreational therapists, held the first-ever organized wheelchair tennis tournament at Griffith Park in Los Angeles in 1977. Parks and 28 others competed.
Though he was deeply involved in several wheelchair sports, that event convinced Parks that he wanted to be an ambassador for wheelchair tennis. The rules needed fine-tuning but Brad looked forward to the day when wheelchair athletes could compete against able-bodied people.
On several trips to Terre Haute, Parks reunited with Klueh.
“Brad was very athletic and a great competitor,” Klueh recalled recently. “We would play tennis for an hour or two and then go over to Marks Field and race at full speed for several miles in his wheelchair.”
In August 1979, the Saturday Spectator, a popular Terre Haute weekly, did a feature story about Brad as he began preparations for the 1980 National Wheelchair Games in Champaign, Ill., and the 1980 Paralympics in Arnhem, Holland.
At the U.S. meet, Parks won every race he entered: 100 meters, 800 meters, Mile run and 4 x 100-meter relay. In the 1980 Paralympic Games, he won three medals in racing: two gold medals (100 meters and 1600 meters) and one silver (800 meters).
WTWO covered the Champaign meet and Parks spoke to the Terre Haute Rotary Club on June 3, 1980, a week after winning four titles and setting two American records.
He also gave a local wheelchair tennis exhibition. Greg Hulbert — oldest son of former Rose-Hulman president Sam Hulbert and a good college player — was his opponent.
Though labeled by some as “the best wheelchair racer in the world,” Parks abandoned track for the tennis court. In 1980, he founded the National Foundation of Wheelchair Tennis to promote the sport worldwide through clinics, camps, exhibitions and tournaments. As more athletes became involved in the sport, the Wheelchair Tennis Players Association was organized.
Parks also founded the U.S. Wheelchair Tennis Open in 1980 at Irvine, Calif., the sport’s first international event. In 1981, Jean Pierre Limborg of France was the first international player to compete in the Open. Brad was tournament chairman for the first 18 years of the U.S. Open’s existence. He also won three of the first seven singles titles ihn the Open and 10 doubles titles.
Today the Wheelchair Tennis Tour consists of 157 tournaments in 41 countries. More than $1.5 million in prize money is distributed annually.
As a result of increased international participation, World Team Cup competition was launched in 1985. The Davis Cup-style event has been contested by 52 countries and boasts men, women and junior competition.
Labeled “The Godfather of Wheelchair Tennis” by Sports ’n Spokes magazine in November 2008, Parks has conducted clinics throughout Europe, Asia and the Pacific.
When the International Wheelchair Tennis Federation was formed in 1988, Parks was chosen its president. In 1998, the IWTF was merged into the International Tennis Federation, the first disabled sport to become a part of its international counterpart.
