June 20, 2017
Butch Seewagen, a life-long Baysider, a United States Tennis Hall of Famer, US Open Doubles Semi-Finalist, and a former coach at Columbia University who holds victories over the likes of Jimmy Connors, speaks to BaysideLiveTV Executive Producer Gregg P. Sullivan about his life in tennis in this edition of the Living Legends of Bayside.
Seewagen was one of the biggest names ever to emerge from Bayside’s prestigious North Shore Tennis & Racquets Club. Seewagen is a second-generation tennis pro and coach. His father George Seewagen was the Tennis Pro at the original Bayside Tennis Club, and a coach at St. John’s University. Butch’s early life was very similar to that of many Baysiders today. He attended P.S. 41, which is celebrating its 100 year anniversary this year, Marie Curie M.S. 158, and then finally Bayside High School before taking up courses at St. John’s University. Among his many accomplishments in Tennis, Seewagen a semi-finalist at the 1966 U.S. National Doubles Championship in Forest Hills (U.S. Open), with Kathy Blake, the mother of the most successful doubles team in all of tennis Bob and Mike Bryan.
Butch’s story is truly inspirational, and it was the courts of Bayside’s North Shore Tennis & Racquets Club that truly catapulted him to success in professional tennis.
See what new history will be made this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, when 32-competetors will step out onto the historic courts of the North Shore Tennis & Racquets Club and fight for the $3000 Grand Prize at the 2017 Bayside Open.