American Colossus: Big Bill Tilden and the Creation of Modern Tennis

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American Colossus: Big Bill Tilden and the Creation of Modern Tennis
Book cover of "American Colossus: Big Bill Tilden and the Creation of Modern Tennis". Cover is over a photograph of Tilden wearing a suit, white collared shirt, and necktie with people standing out of frame holding tennis rackets arrayed around Tilden. In the lower half of the image is text that reads as follows: AMERICAN [line break] COLOSSUS [line break] Big Bill Tilden and the Creation of [line break] Modern Tennis • ALLEN M. HORNBLUM [line break] FOREWORD BY JOHN NEWCOMBE
First edition cover
AuthorAllen M. Hornblum
GenreBiography
PublishedMarch 2018
PublisherUniversity of Nebraska Press
Pages512
ISBN9780803288119

American Colossus: Big Bill Tilden and the Creation of Modern Tennis is a 2018 hardcover biography of American tennis athlete Bill Tilden written by Allen M. Hornblum, a journalist who considered Tilden a great athlete and wrongly forgotten by history. The book mostly focuses on Tilden's life as a very successful athlete who won the Wimbledon Championships, Davis Cup, and U. S. Open all multiple times. American Colossus credits Tilden with tennis' popularization and attributes his consignment to obscurity to Tilden being shunned for his sexual behavior. The Telegraph called the book "excellent", and the Northeast Times praised its narration of tennis matches. The Times Literary Supplement thought Tilden "remains in shadow" in American Colossus.

Development[edit]

Journalist Allen M. Hornblum believed that American tennis athlete Bill Tilden was wrongfully, in his words, "the most forgotten great athlete in American history" and "washed out from the sport's history book".[1] Tilden slipped into obscurity after being convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a case that Hornblum reported he attempted to look into but was able to discover little about, as the courts lost the case files and little documentation survives.[2] Hornblum wrote a biography of Tilden, and in 2016 (while his biography was in press) he advocated for Tilden's hometown of Philadelphia to establish a public commemorative plaque memorializing Tilden.[3] The University of Nebraska Press published Hornblum's biography, American Colossus: Big Bill Tilden and the Creation of Modern Tennis, as a 512-page hardcover book in March 2018.[4]

Content[edit]

Bill Tilden standing on a tennis court in front of a tennis net holding two tennis rackets. He wears an uncollared, long-sleeved shirt and white pants and white shoes.
Bill Tilden in 1921

American Colossus is a biography of Bill Tilden (nicknamed "Big Bill"), an amateur tennis athlete who Hornblum argues was "the greatest athlete the upper classes ever produced", "may be the greatest gay male athlete produced in America",[5] and one of four "great athletes" in the history of sport.[6][a] The biography principally focuses on Tilden's life as an athlete.[5] After becoming the first American to ever win the Wimbledon Championships in 1920, he went on to win Wimbledon twice more, the Davis Cup seven times American singles tournaments seven times,[5] and the U. S. Open seven times (six times in a row).[1] During the 1920s, Tilden "was the most famous sportsman in the world", in reviewer Simon Briggs's words.[7] Hornblum credits Tilden with turning tennis from an elite lawn activity to a heavily watched popular sport.[6] In addition to being an athlete, Tilden wrote more than 24 books, including novels[8] and nonfiction books about tennis.[4] Tilden's attempts to popularize tennis brought him into conflict with the United States Lawn Tennis Association, which tried to guard tennis' status as a sport for upper classes.[5]

American Colossus also narrates the decline of Tilden's reputation and popularity, attributing it to the circulation of news about two convictions he received (in 1946 and 1949) after being twice found making intimate advances to male teenagers.[5] Hornblum argues Tilden's public standing never recovered from this news.[6] American Colossus reports several theories about Tilden's sexuality, including possible asexuality,[b] hero syndrome, or being "deep in the closet", in Hornblum's words.[5] Tilden defended himself to the public afterward but was ostracized, both generally and in the tennis community.[2] Tilden was written out of history,[3] and he died in obscurity when he was sixty years old.[7]

Reception[edit]

The Library Journal recommended American Colossus to "people involved in the business of sport and the role of the NCAA".[4] The Telegraph called the book "excellent".[7] The Northeast Times wrote that American Colossus "captures the athlete's life with bountiful zeal" and that its narrations of tennis games "move with the intensity of a ball slicing across the court".[6] The Times Literary Supplement praised American Colossus as "diligently researched" but thought the match reports were "wearying" and that in the book Tilden "himself remains in shadow".[5] Interviewer Anna Farktovich averred that American Colossus "seem[s] to side with" Tilden.[2] According to the Northeast Times, "Hornblum never attempts to defend Tilden’s actions in his personal life".[6]

By June 2018, the Northeast Times reported that Hornblum's campaign to establish a plaque commemorating Tilden in Philadelphia had turned out unsuccessfully.[6] In April 2019, Hornblum gave a speech about American Colossus at the Cynwyd Club, a Philadelphia sports club for tennis.[9]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Hornblum considers the other "great athletes" in sports history to have been Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and Bobby Jones.[6]
  2. ^ Hornblum reports that Tilden's tennis protégés attested that he never made advances to them and was "the model of decorum" and that some of Tilden's friends thought he had no interest in sex at all.[2]

Sources[edit]

  1. ^ a b Wolken, Dan (October 16, 2019). "Tennis Legend Bill Tilden's Controversial History Resurfaces in a Suitcase". USA Today.
  2. ^ a b c d Faktorovich, Anna. "Interview with Allen M. Hornblum, Journalist and Activist". Cinema Codes Review. Anaphora Literary Press. Retrieved May 19, 2024.
  3. ^ a b Cornwell, Rupert (June 7, 2016). "The Story of Bill Tilden and the City Torn over Whether to Forgive Great or Not". The Independent.
  4. ^ a b c Silkunas, Steven (January 26, 2018). "American Colossus: Big Bill Tilden and the Creation of Modern Tennis by Allen M. Hornblum". Library Journal.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Leader, Zachary (October 12, 2018). "See You in Court: The Shadowy Life of a Transgressive Tennis Player". The Times Literary Supplement. No. 6028. p. 15.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Krum, Logan (June 29, 2018). "Returning Ace". Northeast Times.
  7. ^ a b c Briggs, Simon (February 23, 2018). "Brilliant New Biography Underlines Debt Tennis Owes to Big Bill Tilden". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235.
  8. ^ Atkin, Ross (March 22, 2018). "9 Sports Books for Spring: 5. American Colossus: Big Bill Tilden and the Creation of Modern Tennis, by Allen M. Hornblum". The Christian Science Monitor.
  9. ^ "News Briefing: April 5–11, 2019". Philadelphia Gay News. April 4, 2019.
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