Whitson entering state hall

Susan Hill Whitson is going into the Tennessee Tennis Hall of Fame in February as a tribute to a dazzling decade of dominance.

The three-time Clemson University All-America player from Signal Mountain gave up competitive tennis to be an All-American wife and mother the past 27 years, but from 1974 to 1983 she was virtually unbeatable at the city, state and college conference levels.

Her Red Bank High School and Clemson accomplishments have not merely stood the test of time but become even more brilliant in the reflection.

In 1986 she became the first female in the Clemson Athletic Hall of Fame. When Red Bank later started a hall of fame, she was among the first inductees, and she went into the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame as soon as she was eligible, four years ago.

She was the first girl to win three Tennessee high school singles championships (1975-77), a feat still not surpassed, and she and Beth Dixon won doubles titles in 1975 and '76, leading Red Bank to state team supremacy.

Whitson played No. 1 all four years at Clemson, winning four Atlantic Coast Conference singles championships and a doubles title with her sister, Carolyn. Susan remains the only four-time ACC player of the year and lost just one league singles match, and her .863 overall singles winning percentage (126-20) is the best in Clemson history, even better than two-time Olympic gold medalist Gigi Fernandez compiled in one year there.

At the 1981 national college team tournament, Whitson won 6-4, 6-3 over a UCLA player, Kathryn Kyle, who had never lost a college match and had played on the professional tour as an amateur. Kyle was ranked No. 55 in the world at the time.

Whitson won Chattanooga Women's titles six times from 1974 to '81 and finished third in the National 18s indoor singles tournament in '76. She was ranked No. 1 in the South in 16s in 1975, in 18s in '76 and in Women's Open in '83, won the Southern Women's Open in 1983 -- defeating Southern Tennis Hall of Famer Ann Etheridge in the final -- and won Atlanta Open titles in 1982 and '85.

"A lot of my contemporaries, even teammates at Clemson, went on to play pro. It just never was my goal to play pro tennis. The idea of tour life was not appealing to me," Whitson, 50, said from her home in Conyers, Ga., where she and her husband, John, have raised five children.

She met John at Clemson, and their three oldest children have followed them there. The other two are still in high school. The ages range from 15 to almost 23.

"They know I played tennis, and I taught them how to play, but now I just play for fun," Susan said. "Tennis did a lot of great things for me. It got me to Clemson, which is where I met my husband, who is the most important thing in my life."

John, who came to the South Carolina school from Jacksonville, Fla., works in retail management for Marshall's. They began married life in Marietta and moved to Conyers a few years later. Susan's parents, are still in good health and living on Signal Mountain.

Her dad, Frank Hill, has been working with promising girls' tennis players, at no charge, since he stopped playing competitively in 1972. She and Carolyn were among his earliest proteges.

"The three I'm working with now make about 35 over the years," said Hill, now 78. "I usually start playing tennis with them once a week for about two and a half or three years. I start usually when they're just turning 14, and the good ones get too good for me when they're about 16.

"Susan got too good when she was 14."

He then started setting up practice matches for her with men's players at Manker Patten. Clive Kileff, Chris Brown and Tom Qualey each played "about 50 matches over time" against her, and Jack Stephenson played a bunch as well.

"I think those practices set her apart from all those girls who just took lessons and played in tournaments," Hill said.

His own work with Susan focused on three things, he said.

"We approached it from involving her entire self in the game -- her head, her heart and her stroke," he explained. "From the head part, we looked at having a fighting spirit, emotional control and mental discipline."

Brown, who still works at Manker Patten, said Thursday that Susan "was definitely very mentally tough, and she was in great shape. She was a baseliner, and it was her philosophy to keep the ball in play and let her forehand control the match. She had a great forehand. She could hit it from just about anywhere, and she could hit it down the line or she could hit it inside-out to the opponent's backhand.

"All of us guys who played her were baseliners, too," Brown said. "If she was going to beat us, she had to beat us at the baseline. And she did as time went on. She just got better and better."

Whitson's emotional control remains reflected in her modesty about being remembered as one of the best ever in Tennessee tennis. She'll be one of two inductees Feb. 27 in Nashville.

"It's a great honor for me," she said, "and I'm very appreciative of it -- to be grouped with all those people across the state who made just great contributions to tennis."