'Tennis preacher' Dan Sullivan dies

ST. PETERSBURG - Dan Sullivan spent the last day of his life teaching tennis, just as he had for the past half-century. He spent the last night of his life having a beer with one of his daughters at Harvey's Fourth Street Grill, where he had a beer almost every night.

On Saturday morning, Mr. Sullivan's family found him dead in his bed at the age of 83.

Mr. Sullivan, a respected St. Petersburg tennis pro, had been something of an evangelist for tennis for 50 years. He trained and developed hundreds of people into outstanding tennis players over the decades. Some of them reached the highest levels of the sport, and nearly 300 earned tennis scholarships.

"I guess you might call me a tennis preacher," Mr. Sullivan once said, "and I'm proud of it. Ever since I heard the sound of the ball hitting the racket, I have loved it."

Mr. Sullivan was the head pro at the St. Petersburg Tennis Center for 25 years. He was also the first St. Petersburg tennis player to be nationally ranked (29th in 1954).

He helped found St. Petersburg's first tennis-country club complex, the Northeast Racquet Club, in 1968. And some of the more well-known local players who got their start with him were Betsy Nagelsen, Ed and Larry Turville, Tom James and Jeff Davis.

"Dan has touched a lot of lives. He was a wonderful teacher. He taught every day," said his sister, Jean Sullivan Tucker. "He was a remarkable man who lived his life the way he wanted to. He was witty and charming, a typical Irishman who got along with everybody. He was young beyond his years."

Mr. Sullivan started tennis at age 14, late by today's standards. Day after day in the mid-1930s, the teenager would dash around the tennis courts that then stood at Spa Beach. His first tournament was at the St. Petersburg Tennis Center in 1935, where he won a year's membership to the center. It changed his life.

In 1941, at age 21, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. During World War II, Pvt. Daniel J. Sullivan served with ski troops in the 87th Mountain Infantry and fought in Italy, where he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantry Badge. After the war, he returned to tennis. He worked at Webb's City drug store in St. Petersburg in the mornings and evenings and played tennis in the afternoons.

He played in tournaments and was ranked 29th in the nation in men's singles. He battled some of the game's greatest players, such as Bobby Riggs, Roy Emerson and Jack Kramer, before he became a teaching pro at the St. Petersburg Tennis Center in 1954.

He was director of the Tennis Center from 1954 to 1968, then help found the Racquet Club and worked there from 1968 to 1972, then returned to the Tennis Center until 1980. He left to become touring coach for Nagelsen, a St. Petersburg native who played in 23 Wimbledon tournaments.

"I think the best part of my day," Mr. Sullivan once said, "is giving a tennis lesson."

Mr. Sullivan is survived by his three children, Gloria Jean Watkins and Shirley O'Sullivan, both of St. Petersburg, and Daniel J. Sullivan IV of Tampa; and three grandchildren. Plans for services will be announced soon through Anderson-McQueen Funeral Homes' chapel at 2201 Dr. M.L. King St. N.

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