The Brock Racquet Center
Why a Brock Racquet Center at Summit Park?
The Brock Foundation is engaged in a major capital campaign to raise funds for a Brock Racquet Center to be named
after James E. (Jack) Brock, 1927-2018, a third-generation Glendale, OH resident who was a phenomenal athlete, an extraordinary coach, and a life-changing mentor. He brought tennis to the diverse communities of Glendale and the Cincinnati area at a time when African Americans were forbidden from playing at major tennis clubs. The site for the Racquet Center is at Summit Park, a public park that Brock helped to desegregate in order to teach tennis to all young people of Glendale, regardless of race. It is because of the generosity of spirit of Coach Brock that many Glendale residents, Black and white, developed a love of tennis. His sons Reggie and Tony Brock played tennis in college and Tony went on to become a professional player.
Who was James (Jack) Brock?
Born and raised in the historic town of Glendale, OH, Brock broke athletic records and was known as a phenom from a very young age. He holds the record for scoring 7 points in 10 seconds in a high school basketball game and in 1946 he led the state of Ohio in scoring an average of 23.5 points per game.
At eighteen, he received a rare scholarship from Tuskegee University to play on its famed Golden Tigers Basketball Team. During his years at Tuskegee, the Golden Tigers won two Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles in 1946 and 1947.
In 1989, he was inducted into the Tuskegee University Sports Hall of Fame. Some of Brock’s awards are: 1989 Black Hall of Fame of Covington, Kentucky, 1999 Northern Kentucky Athletic Directors Hall of Fame, and in 2000 the Dawahares Kentucky High School Athletic Directors Hall of Fame.
It was at Tuskegee that Jack Brock continued to build upon his tennis game. Like all sports he played, he excelled quickly and learned it both technically, tactically, and intellectually. In fact, Tuskegee was known for producing some of the best tennis players in the country. There, Jack Brock met and played with a young Althea Gibson in 1946 and with tennis greats, Margaret “Pete” and Roumania “Repeat” Peters, both of whom were recently recognized by the USTA in 2003 with Achievement Awards. The Peters twins were top tennis players during the 1930s and 40s during segregation and thus were not able to compete professionally.
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Jack Brock’s first Head Coaching job was in basketball at the William Grant High School in Covington, Northern Kentucky from 1955 to1965. At coaching, he excelled as well. Brock’s record was 185-84 losses.
Importantly, like many of the Black segregated schools with teachers who cared, Brock was beloved; so much so, that in 2018 a basketball court at Randolph Park across from the old Grant High School was named in honor of him.
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When William Grant played Central High School in Louisville, he connected with a young Cassius Clay (Muhammed Ali) who was a high school student tasked with cleaning the court before and at half time of the basketball game. In addition, it was Jack Brock who helped basketball coaches of the University of Cincinnati get the young Oscar Roberson to become a Bearcat. And, in 1969, he hosted Arthur Ashe at Summit Park in Glendale.
During the 1957-58 basketball season his team was the first African American team to win a District Tournament. The next season, William Grant went on to become the first African American team to win a Regional Championship. In all, Mr. Brock’s teams won 4 Regional and 5 District Championships. One of his players went on to win back-to-back NCAA Basketball Championships with the University of
Cincinnati while several went on to play professionally.
During the 1950s and 60s, Jack continued to make history in multiple ways. On January 23, 1957, his team broke the color barrier when Northern Kentucky’s first integrated high school basketball game was played between William Grant and Dixie Heights High Schools.
As schools were desegregating, Jack was offered a job at Princeton High School, the school district in which Glendale was included, and his eldest son, Reggie Brock, played on the team.
He was the first African American coach hired at the school. While there (1965-1973), he was head coach of the Men's Tennis team and assistant coach of basketball.
A head coaching basketball position opened at Hughes High School in downtown Cincinnati; Jack was recruited and took it in 1973.
Brock was a successful coach and mentor at Hughes High School until 1983 when he retired. He was so well respected that he was often invited to class reunions even in his later years.
When he passed away, the Hughes High School Class of 1975 asked to be the official pallbearers at his funeral in 2018. They were joined by dozens of former basketball and tennis players who showed up, shared stories, circled the coffin, and became the actual pallbearers.
The Brock Racquet Center will be composed of tennis courts and pickleball courts and will be placed in Glendale’s Summit Park.
HELP US celebrate the legacy of James Brock while creating a safe place for children & adults by PLEDGING or DONATING to the funding and construction of community tennis & pickleball courts in Glendale, Ohio. We will offer a range of options and supportive staff to make your Tennis & Pickle Ball journey a success.
COMING SUMMER 2022!
