Mary Greef
Alias: Harris
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| Bio | Greef was a rare top flight player from the midwest of United States, being a native of Kansas City, Missouri. She was a long-time Kenilworth resident who from 1929 to 1935 ranked among the top women's tennis players in the United States. Later after marriage she spent many years in Chicago. She grew up at a time when tennis was only a summer game in most parts of the United States because there were no indoor courts to practice on during the winter. She played in an era when women's tennis whites were skirts that tickled the knees and the phrase Grand Slam was not yet part of the tennis vernacular. After high school, she earned a scholarship to play at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1931, she was the singles and doubles champion in the National Intercollegiate Women Championships-what eventually would become the NCAA championship. Mary had an all around game, often seeking the net to utilize her deadly volleys. Off the ground her backhand was the better side. 1929 and 1932 quarterfinalist at the US Nationals. For much of the early to mid 1930s she was in the lower half of the US top 10. Mrs. Harris was a member of the five-player British Wightman Cup tennis team in 1930, competing in the United States and Europe with tennis luminaries Helen Wills Moody, Helen Jacobs, Sarah Palfrey and Edith Cross. She also played in Wimbledon in 1930. Midway through her tennis career, Mrs. Harris married John W. Harris, a regional sales manager for Procter & Gamble Co. The job would bring them to Illinois, where for more than 20 years, Mrs. Harris volunteered at Evanston Hospital. Sports - especially golf - always remained important in her life, said her daughter. "Most tennis players were from California and had a jump-start on anyone from the Midwest because [Midwesterners] couldn't play in winter," said Mrs. Harris' daughter, Linda Fix. Still, it was a game Mrs. Harris loved and in which she excelled. After high school, she earned a scholarship to play at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1931, she was the singles and doubles champion in the National Intercollegiate Women Championships-what eventually would become the NCAA championship. "She was ahead of her time," said her daughter. "She was a very gifted athlete at a time when women's sports were just coming into vogue." A 1938 newspaper feature story looking back at Mrs. Harris' career described her during a practice: "As the set progressed and the games piled up in Mrs. Harris' favour with monotonous regularity, we learned further that her service was well-hit and well-placed, that her more than occasional sallies to the net were well-timed and that her volleying was with a note of devastating finality." In 1991, Mrs. Harris was inducted into the Kansas City Sports Hall of Champions. |
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