This book is a photographic celebration of early lawn tennis, Lawn tennis in the 19th Century was essentially a game played by the upper social classes, although some homeowners of moderate income did build tennis courts on their property. Courts at the large country manors and estates were established on or near the croquet lawns and often provided a reasonable surface for play. The courts of lesser houses often were sloped, had uneven surfaces and included hazards such as boulders, shrubbery and trees. Players would wear their ordinary every-day clothes to play a game. The photographs in this book show a game very different from that of today. We will look into the faces of these departed people and enter the sunny landscapes of their distant years. Enjoy your journey back through time.

A critical look at the tension between the larger role of the university and the commercialization of college sportsUnwinding Madness is the most comprehensive examination to date of how the NCAA has lost its way in the governance of intercollegiate athletics and why it is incapable of achieving reform and must be replaced. The NCAA has placed commercial success above its responsibilities to protect the academic primacy, health and well-being of college athletes and fallen into an educational, ethical, and economic crisis. As long as intercollegiate athletics reside in the higher education environment, these programs must be academically compatible with their larger institutions, subordinate to their educational mission, and defensible from a not-for-profit organizational standpoint. The issue has never been a matter of whether intercollegiate athletics belongs in higher education as an extracurricular offering. Rather, the perennial challenge has been how these programs have been governed and conducted. The authors propose detailed solutions, starting with the creation of a new national governance organization to replace the NCAA. At the college level, these proposals will not diminish the revenue production capacity of sports programs but will restore academic integrity to the enterprise, provide fairer treatment of college athletes with better health protections, and restore the rights and freedoms of athletes, which have been taken away by a professionalized athletics mentality that controls the cost of its athlete labor force and overpays coaches and athletic directors. Unwinding Madness recognizes that there is no easy fix to the problems now facing college athletics. But the book does offer common sense, doable solutions that respect the rights of athletes, protects their health and well-being while delivering on the promise of a bona fide educational degree program.