Little Mo
On this day 53 years ago, the career of arguably the most talented women’s tennis player ever to pick up a racket was tragically and prematurely ended, as 19-year-old Maureen Connolly, Little Mo, was thrown to the ground while horseback riding. Her right leg was completely crushed. She would never play competitive tennis again.
Little Mo was the tennis phenom of phenoms – she won the U.S. Championships in 1951 at the age of 16, and would remain the youngest player ever to win that title until Tracy Austin bested her in 1979. After her auspicious debut, there was simply no stopping Connolly, and one can only imagine what she might have achieved had she not been injured. In her brief time as a professional, she won three straight U.S. Championships (1951-53) and three straight Wimbledons (1952-54) and in 1953 she became the first woman ever to win the Grand Slam. In all, she won nine straight majors before her accident.
The nickname “Little Mo” was a reference to a famous battleship, the U.S.S. Missouri, known as “Big Mo” – the point was that Connolly, 5’4″ and 115 pounds, packed a hell of a punch. I became fascinated with the Maureen Connolly story as a young boy because of a popular TV movie, “Little Mo” that first aired in 1978. It featured some big-time stars in early incarnations – Mark Harmon, Anne Baxter and Leslie Nielson – and Tony Trabert made a cameo appearance as himself. The movie, as did many a TV movie of that period (for some reason it is linked in my mind with a Jan and Dean TV biopic), presented Connolly as a determined and super-talented but also bratty, self-centered adolescent who ultimately is humbled, first by her famous coach (the great Eleanor “Teach” Tennant, played by Michael Learned) and then by fate. I remember that the end of the movie shows a once-embittered Connolly coming on to a court to help a young player who is struggling with her serve, a scene which is evidently not too far from the truth – Connolly went on after the accident to become a great coach herself and guide the career of many a young player at the time.
But tragedy stalked her like a u-boat. She died of cancer at the age of 34. Today, sadly, in the era of the Williams and with Steffi and Martina in our rear-view mirrors, you rarely hear much talk about Little Mo, although there is a tournament named in her honor, The Maureen Connolly Brinker Cup, an international team competition between the U.S. and Great Britain.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:14 am
I first fell in love with Little Mo about 9 years ago. I was doing research for a piece on her. I saw her picture. She was a bit of a tweener. But attractive enough as an athlete to keep you interested.
The bigger things are her stats. Not her measurements, but her numbers. And as they say, the numbers don’t lie.
I used to have this hypothetical argument with people at work. It was mainly aimed at people who were being hyped before their time. For example, Derek Jeter, Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. People would say ‘jetahh is a hall of famer.’ I would say, ‘if a sniper took him down tomorrow, would he make the hall of fame.’ This was 2 years ago and I think we all know the answer to that. A couple of years ago, people had the nerve to say that Tiger was better than Jack. Again, I bring in our ever popular rifleman. Well, today, if Tiger goes down, then Jack still is the greatest. I don’t need to belabor the point with Roger, but I’m getting back to Little Mo. She was indeed struck down by a sniper. If she hadn’t have been injured, everyone else(yes Fraulein Forehand, you too), then everyone would have been chasing second place.
We can’t underestimate the greatness of Maureen Connolly.
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I watched that movie about 10x when I was a kid. I cried each time too. I wonder if I was gay for doing that?
July 24th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I’m with you G, and you make an interesting point about the sniper – here is one of those cases where the figurative gunman did step in and all that’s left is for us to speculate on what might have been. Obviously there are all sorts of infamous early career endings in sports – and the Monica Seles situation leaps to mind as a corollary – but I wonder if there has ever been one so dramatic as this. I mean, the fucking girl had just won the last nine Grand Slams in a row. This point is worth a post of its own – the greatest career tragically cut short – but just doing a quick mental search of the landscape, I think Little Mo is going to be a tough one to beat on that list.
But G, you failed to mention – did you you ever see that movie son? Shit was right.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
I did see the movie. And I think Michael Learned is one of the most underrated actresses of our time. That role as Teach Tennant(by the way, the real Tennant wasn’t quite as easy on the eyes as Learned) launched her into the Waltons. As an aside, my mom was friends with Tony Trabert in the late 70s when we lived in LA. So I remember him slightly. Not much of a zinger to that story, but I do likes my Trabert.
On the sniper theory, does Pelle Lindbergh count? I’ve always thought Prefontaine was a bit overrated. Not that he was great, but everyone assumed he would win Olympic gold. Hard to assume. Gale Sayers belongs in this equation.