Note: While we take a significant break from present-day competition, we are afforded time to reflect on the past. Kenyon Classic will be a weekly feature that identifies and details some of the greatest moments in Kenyon Athletics history.
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In 1940, four decades before the Lords and Ladies swimming and diving programs began stockpiling a record number of national titles, Don McNeill became Kenyon College's first student-athlete to capture a collegiate crown.
A tennis standout from Oklahoma, McNeill whipped through the final match of the 1940 intercollegiate singles championship, held on clay courts at Merion Cricket Club in Haverford, Pennsylvania. As a senior and ranked No. 3 in the United States at the time, McNeill needed just one hour to upend Joe Hunt of the Naval Academy. His championship-winning score was 7-5, 6-1, 6-1.
Looking back, McNeill's title, although not NCAA sanctioned (NCAA men's tennis championship competition began in 1976), was the first piece of art in a Kenyon portfolio that now boasts 60 national team titles and 554 national individual titles. Both those totals are tops among all NCAA Division III colleges and universities.
While at Kenyon, McNeill went undefeated in three years of Ohio Athletic Conference competition, but his success was not confined to the collegiate scene. His 1940 season also included the United States' No. 1 singles rank after he won the U.S. National Championship at Forest Hill, where he rallied to drop Bobby Riggs 4-6, 6-8, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 in the final match.
One yea
r prior to those accomplishments, McNeill defeated Riggs 7-5, 6-0, 6-3 to become only the second American to win the French Open. He returned home with the French Open doubles title that same year. McNeill later went on to win the 1944 U.S. Nationals doubles title and took the U.S. National Indoor Championship in both 1938 and 1950.
Throughout his career, McNeill competed against such tennis greats as Don Budge, Pancho Gonzales, Jack Kramer, Pancho Segura and, of course, Riggs.
McNeill was inducted into multiple Halls of Fame, including the International Tennis Hall of Fame (1965), the Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame (1985) and the Kenyon Athletics Hall of Fame (1988).
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