The San Francisco Golden Gaters were a charter franchise of World Team Tennis (WTT). The Golden Gaters won two Western Division Championships and lost in the WTT Finals both times. The team was founded in 1973 and made the playoffs in each of the five seasons in which it participated in the league. Following the 1978 season, eight of the then 10 WTT franchises folded leaving only the Golden Gaters and the Phoenix Racquets prepared to participate in the 1979 season. WTT suspended operations of the league in March 1979, ending the Golden Gaters existence.
Team history Founding and inaugural season
The Golden Gaters were founded as WTT's charter franchise for San Francisco, California in 1973, by former tennis player Cathie Anderson and attorney Larry King, then the husband of tennis superstar Billie Jean King. Anderson was the team's first president. The team played its home matches at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California starting with the league's inaugural season in 1974 season. While the team was founded as a San Francisco franchise, it ended up playing its home matches across the San Francisco Bay in Oakland. The Golden Gaters' management sought to cultivate a San Francisco rather than an Oakland image for the team, and it did not put "Oakland" in front of its name. Nevertheless, the team did not want to alienate East Bay fans by using San Francisco as part of its name. The first name the franchise used was the Golden Gate Otters before settling on simply calling itself the Golden Gaters in its dealings with the general public. Since it would have been absurd to call the team the Golden Gate Golden Gaters, and the league used a location to identify all its teams, WTT reverted to using San Francisco, the location for which the original charter was issued, when referring to the team. They were listed in official WTT standings as the San Francisco Golden Gaters.
Jerry Diamond was hired as the Golden Gaters' general manager. Later in 1974, he would also become the first executive director of the newly formed Women's Tennis Association, a position he would hold for 11 years overseeing significant growth in the women's tour. The Golden Gaters opened their inaugural season with Frew McMillan as their player-coach and also featured Roy Emerson, Dick Bohrnstedt, Lesley Hunt, 18-year-old Ilana Kloss and Barbara Downs. Margaret Court was also on the team, but she did not play, because she was pregnant. Kloss would later go on to become WTT commissioner in 2001. With their 20th and final selection in the WTT's inaugural draft, the Golden Gaters (then still known as the Otters) selected co-owner and president Anderson who made the selection herself. She did not end up playing in WTT.
The Golden Gaters' inaugural match was a 35–26 victory at home over the Denver Racquets on May 8, 1974. Hunt split her two sets of women's singles but won 10 games and lost 7 against her opponents. Emerson won both of his men's singles sets over Andrew Pattison, 7–5 and 6–2. Kloss and McMillan played both mixed doubles set for the Golden Gaters and split them winning 12 games and losing 12. The Golden Gaters drew 4,012 fans for their opener at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena. Across the parking lot, the defending two-time World Champion Oakland Athletics were playing the Baltimore Orioles at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum and drew only 2,980 fans in head-to-head competition with the Golden Gaters for the attention of sports fans.
The Golden Gaters clinched a playoff berth with a 29–20 victory at home against the Hawaii Leis on August 15. Hunt suffered an eye injury in the opening set of women's singles when a forehand volley ricocheted off her racket and hit her right eye. She played two more points before being replaced by Downs and taken to the hospital with the score of the game tied 1–1. Downs won the set against Brigitte Cuypers, 7–5. Denise Carter-Triolo substituted for Hunt in women' doubles and teamed with Ilana Kloss for a 6–2 set win over Ann Kiyomura and Valerie Ziegenfuss. Bohrnstedt dropped a men's singles set to his former USC Trojans teammate Mike Machette, 6–3. With the match already decided, McMillan didn't play mixed doubles which was won by Kloss and Whitney Reed over Barry McKay and Ziegenfuss, 7–5.
The Golden Gaters finished their inaugural season with 23 wins and 21 losses, second place in the Pacific Section and qualified for the Western Division Semifinals against the Denver Racquets.
WTT playoff series in 1974, were played over two legs, one match on the home court of each team. The team with the best aggregate score over the two matches was the winner. As the higher seed, the Racquets had the choice to play either the first or the second match at home. The Racquets won both matches against the Golden Gaters, 29–17 in Denver on August 19, and 32–24 in Oakland on August 20, to end the season for San Francisco.
A division championship Following the 1974 season, Dave Peterson acquired a controlling interest in the Golden Gaters and became the team's president.
Just before the start of the 1975 season, the Golden Gaters traded Margaret Court with whom they were unable to reach an agreement on a contract to the Hawaii Leis for the rights to Chris Evert who had not expressed any interest in playing in WTT. Evert did not sign with the Golden Gaters.
The Golden Gaters added Tom Okker, Betty Stöve, 19-year-old Ann Kiyomura and Kate Latham. Kiyomura was from San Mateo, California, and Latham was from Palo Alto, California. Kiyomura had originally been selected by the Golden Gaters in WTT's inaugural draft but traded before the 1974 season to Hawaii for Dick Bohrnstedt and played for the Leis. The Golden Gaters also re-signed Whitney Reed and made him a player-assistant coach. Player-coach Frew McMillan teamed with Okker to lead WTT in game-winning percentage in men's doubles and with Stöve to lead in that category in mixed doubles. Okker's performance earned him the Male Most Valuable Player Award. McMillan was named WTT Coach of the Year.
The Golden Gaters raced to the top of the Western Division standings in 1975, with 29 wins and 15 losses. The first-place finish earned the Golden Gaters a bye in the Western Division Semifinals and set up a matchup with the Phoenix Racquets in the Western Division Championship Series.
Because the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena was booked by a circus in late August, the Golden Gaters 1975 home playoff matches were played at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California.
The Golden Gaters took the first match of the best-of-three series in Phoenix, Arizona, 25–24, on August 18. They returned home for their first-ever match at the Cow Palace on August 19, to complete the series sweep with a 26–20 victory which made the Golden Gaters Western Division Champions and sent them to the WTT Finals against the Pittsburgh Triangles who had WTT's best regular-season record in 1975. The Racquets led the second match, 18–17, after the first three sets, when Stöve came up with a dominant 6–1 set win over Françoise Dürr to give the Golden Gaters a 23–19 lead heading to the final set of mixed doubles which matched Stöve and McMillan against Kris Kemmer Shaw and Tony Roche. After holding in their first two service games, Stöve and McMillan broke Shaw's serve in the fourth game for a 3–1 lead in the set ending the match.
The Golden Gaters squeezed out a win in the opener of the best-of-three finals series at the Cow Palace, 26–25, on August 21. The Triangles won a tight second match in Pittsburgh on August 24, in front of 2,182 fans which set up a deciding third match. The win clearly inspired the Triangles' fans. On August 25, the Pittsburgh Civic Arena had 6,882 spectators walk through the turnstiles to see the Triangles dominate the rubber match, 21–14, and win the WTT title. Two sets in the deciding match were key to the Triangles' victory. Vitas Gerulaitis notched a 6–1 set win over Okker in men's singles, and Evonne Goolagong Cawley topped Stöve by the same score in women's singles.
Back to back division titles On October 29, 1975, the Golden Gaters announced that they had traded the rights to negotiate with superstar Chris Evert to the Phoenix Racquets. Under the terms of the deal, the Racquets would send a player to be named later and undisclosed cash consideration to the Golden Gaters if they were able to sign Evert. If the Racquets failed to sign Evert before the 1976 season, the rights to her would revert to the Golden Gaters. The Golden Gaters had tried unsuccessfully to sign Evert after the 1975 season. When the trade was announced, Golden Gaters owner Dave Peterson said, "Chris indicated she had a strong preference for starting her World Team Tennis career in Phoenix. I feel her decision was greatly influenced by the fact that her closest friend, Kris Shaw, is on the Phoenix roster. We hated to make the deal. If it were just a matter of money we would have signed Chris, but money wasn't the major factor."
After signing Evert, the Racquets sent Françoise Dürr to the Golden Gaters to complete the deal. The Golden Gaters signed Dürr to a two-year contract. Dürr was an All-Star with the Racquets in 1975. Golden Gaters returning players Frew McMillian, Tom Okker and Betty Stöve were all All-Stars in 1975, as well. This made the Golden Gaters the only WTT team with four All-Stars from the previous season on their roster. Ilana Kloss announced just before the 1976 season that she was leaving the team in order to fully participate in clay-court tournaments in Europe which conflicted with the WTT schedule.
The signing of Dürr united her with Stöve with whom she had frequently and successfully partnered on the pro tournament circuit. Dürr said, "I’m very happy to be in San Francisco and with the Gaters." Then, looking in the direction of Stöve, she added, "I’m looking forward to playing doubles with Betty." When the Golden Gaters acquired Dürr, they also acquired her Airedale Terrier Topspin who served as her valet carrying her racquets. Topspin had a winning pedigree having served as the mascot of the 1974 WTT Champion Denver Racquets.
The Golden Gaters reached a deal with KTVU-TV Channel 2 to broadcast four of the team's road matches live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
For the 1976 season, the Golden Gaters added Jeff Borowiak and Raquel Giscafré. For the second time, Ann Kiyomura was shipped away, this time to the Indiana Loves. With the Loves, she teamed up with Ray Ruffels to lead WTT in game-winning percentage in mixed doubles in 1976. Two-sport star John Lucas was signed by the Golden Gaters during the season.
Controversy arose before the start of the 1976 season when Golden Gaters co-owner Larry King acting in his capacity as WTT president changed the date of a match between the Pittsburgh Triangles and Boston Lobsters from May 8 to May 16, to free up Evonne Goolagong for a promotional event. Triangles owner Frank Fuhrer protested the change and called for a vote of the owners to overrule the decision. The Golden Gaters abstained from voting. The Lobsters, who were hosting the match in question, voted to accept the schedule change. However, Fuhrer got six other owners to side with him to overrule King's decision. Later, the sponsor of the promotional event appealed to Fuhrer personally and bought $10,000 worth of tickets to two Triangles matches resulting in Fuhrer accepting the schedule change. The conflicts of interest that were pervasive throughout WTT clearly caused dissent among some owners. Fuhrer was quoted as saying, "We're the defending champs, and I'm not having Larry King change my schedule on me to accommodate his own interests. We're going to get all the conflict of interest out of this league."