The Cal 100: No. 80 -- Bud Chandler

Chandler, a two-time NCAA tennis singles champion, is a story of what might have been

We count down the top 100 individuals associated with Cal athletics, based on their impact in sports or in the world at large – a wide-open category. See if you agree.

No. 80: Bud Chandler

Cal Sports Connection: He was a 1926 Cal graduate who was the star of the Bears’ outstanding tennis team

Claim to Fame: Chandler was a two-time NCAA singles tennis champion who led Cal to its only NCAA tennis championship.

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A question hangs over the tennis career of Edward Grove “Bud” Chandler: How famous would he have become if he had lived in today’s era of big-money professional tennis?

He lived in a different era, which is why you may not have heard of him. But he is the only Cal student to win an NCAA tennis singles title, and he did it twice, in 1925 and 1926. He won the 1926 NCAA doubles title with partner Thomas Stowe, and Chandler also led Cal to its one and only NCAA tennis team championship, doing so in 1925.

Bud Chandler / Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics

The 1920s are often called the golden age of American sports, when U.S. athletes became some of the most famous people in the country. Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones, Red Grange, Knute Rockne, and Bill Tilden were just some of the athletes who ruled the Roaring Twenties.

And as a two-time NCAA champ, Chandler seemed to be in line to join them. Afterall, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Arthur Ashe are just a few of the NCAA singles champions who went on to become famous professional tennis players.

However, big-time prize money did not exist for the top tennis players in 1926. Tilden ultimately earned about $500,000 after turning professional in 1930, but he officially made nothing while dominating the game in the 1920s.

Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals (later the U.S. Open) were amateur competitions, and the best tennis players were amateurs officially. Thus the image of tennis being a rich-man’s sport.

That was what Chandler faced. After winning his second NCAA title and graduating from Cal in the spring of 1926, he played on the tennis tour that summer, rising to a ranking of No. 5 in the United States, a few slots behind No. 1 Tilden.

Chandler was just 20 years old at the time, so a rise to tennis fame seemed within reach. But with no appreciable income in sight, he “retired” from the game in the fall of 1926, entered Harvard Law School and became a lawyer.

Chandler did win the California state championship in 1930 and 1932, and he also played one Grand Slam event, participating at Wimbledon in 1929. He lost in the first round but went on to win the All-England Plate, an award that goes to the winner of a consolation tournament consisting of first- and second-round losers of the main Wimbledon draw.

Could he have won Wimbledon if the lure of millions of dollars had kept him in the game fulltime?

---The Cal 100: No. 81 Jerome Randle

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Cover photo of Bud Chandler courtesy of Cal Athletics

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