Helen Wong Lum

Helen Wong Lum was a notable American tennis and basketball player who was born and raised in Chinatown, San Francisco. She was inducted into San Francisco Prep Hall of Fame in 1988 and the US Tennis Association's Northern California Hall of Fame in 1996.

Helen Wong Lum
Born(1931-09-13)September 13, 1931
Died (aged 84)[1]
San Francisco, California
NationalityAmerican
Occupationtennis player, basketball player
Known fortennis, basketball player
Spouse(s)Charlie Lum
Childrennone
RelativesWillie "Woo Woo" Wong, brother

Career

Helen Wong grew up with her siblings near Chinese Playground, and received her first tennis racket as a donation from the local playground director. One of her siblings, Willie "Woo Woo" Wong would go on to earn fame as a basketball player in the 1940s.[1] Like her brother, Wong attended St. Mary's Chinese Catholic School and played basketball for the Chinese Saints; her teams won the Catholic youth league championships in 1947 and 1949.[2] In an exhibition game in 1947, the Saints lost to a team from Letterman Hospital, but Wong scored 19 of the team's 34 points.[3]

Wong was also an avid tennis player, winning a local junior tournament in 1949.[4] She pursued her passion for tennis with the help of Charles Harney, who paid for her lessons for approximately a year, and Father Donal Forrester, who drove her to tournaments.[2] In 1965, Wong was billed as the national Chinese tennis champion and won a tournament in Santa Cruz.[5][6] She stopped playing tennis in her 40s after being diagnosed with lupus, but resumed playing a decade later once the disease was managed; she would go on to be ranked first nationally in the 50s, 55s, and 60s women's divisions, and won seven national senior tennis titles,[2] including the Women's 55 Singles title in 1988.[7]

Wong went on to earn a master's degree in counseling from the University of San Francisco and worked as an advisor and counselor at City College of San Francisco and as a physical education instructor at Galileo High School.[1]

Wong was inducted into the San Francisco Prep Hall of Fame (for basketball, tennis, and volleyball) in 1988,[8] and the Northern California United States Tennis Association Hall of Fame in 1996.[2][9] Dr. Kathleen Yep compared her feats to those of Babe Didriksen.[10]

gollark: Milo's GUI is literally what I based Monopsony's on.
gollark: Monopsony is written for native ComputerCraft™.
gollark: It uses Opus APIs, I believe.
gollark: Again, *why* are you so obsessed with my somewhat flaky and incomplete storage system?
gollark: That's not what you said earlier.

References
  1. Veklerov, Kimberly (29 December 2015). "Helen Wong Lum, S.F. native tennis star, dies at 84". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  2. Lam, Charles (December 30, 2015). "Helen Wong Lum, Barrier Breaking Tennis and Basketball Star, Dies at 84". NBC News. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  3. "Wacs Defeat Chinese Girls Here 52 to 34". Santa Cruz Sentinel. 23 March 1947. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  4. "DeWitt, Wong Win M.F. Jr. Singles Titles", Mill Valley Record, 28 June 1949, retrieved 7 April 2020
  5. "Big Field Opens County Open Tennis Tournament". Santa Cruz Sentinel. 30 July 1965. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  6. "Dr. Jue Loses In Finals; Ray Wins Tennis Singles". Santa Cruz Sentinel. 9 August 1965. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  7. Franks, Joel S. (2000). "From Duke to Tiger and Kristi". Crossing Sidelines, Crossing Cultures: Sport and Asian Pacific American Cultural Citizenship. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. pp. 148–149. ISBN 0-7618-1592-9. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  8. "San Francisco Prep Hall of Fame – Historical List". San Francisco Prep Hall of Fame. 1988. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  9. "USTA NorCal Hall of Fame". United States Tennis Association. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  10. Yep, Kathleen. "5. Helen Wong and the 'Muscle Molls'". Outside the Paint: When Basketball Ruled at the Chinese Playground. Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-59213-944-6. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.