Former KIAC Tennis Player Inducted Posthumously Into Hall of Fame
Former KIAC Tennis Player Inducted Posthumously Into Hall of Fame
John Evans Jr. and William Cooper Sr. will be honored for accomplishments and contributions to Kentucky tennis, spokesman Brandon Feusner said.
Evans won five Kentucky high school tennis championships at St. Xavier High School in the 1950s. He also won four straight Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Singles Championships at Bellarmine University.
Evans was later a tennis coach at Northern Kentucky University where he led the men's team to the Great Lakes Valley Championship in 1986. The following year, he led the men's and women's teams to a conference title. He was named Great Lakes coach of the year in 1987.
Cooper helped bring the pro tennis tour to
Louisville
in 1955, Feusner said, and was responsible for opening the first indoor courts in Louisville.
Also in the 1950s, Cooper was founding member of the Kentucky Tennis Patrons Foundation and was instrumental in launching a top junior tennis program in Louisville that later produced three U.S. Junior Davis Cup members.
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