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Monday, March 04, 2002

By Phil Axelrod, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Correction/Clarification: (Published March 6, 2002) In our story Monday about the late Paul G. Sullivan, we said that he worked for the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph "until it closed in the late 1960s." In reality, the Sun-Telegraph ceased to exist as an independent entity when it was absorbed by the Post-Gazette in 1960.

Paul G. Sullivan, the iron-willed force behind the longest-running public tennis tournament in Pittsburgh, one of the oldest practicing lawyers in Allegheny County and a sports writer for the Sun-Telegraph, died Wednesday at Mercy Hospital. He was 98

When he was asked over the years to pick the accomplishment that gave him the most satisfaction, Mr. Sullivan would answer, "Going to work every day."

Until failing health forced him to retire last year, Mr. Sullivan was a tenant for 50 years in the Frick Building, Downtown. When he left his office on the eighth floor for the final time, management gave him a plaque with a brass door knob on it as a going-away gift.

Mr. Sullivan was a lifelong tennis enthusiast, a throwback to the more genteel days of the sport. He was director of the Pittsburgh Parks Tennis Championships at Frick Park for 68 of the first 69 years of the annual event. He missed it in 1946 when he was an officer in the Navy in the Judge Advocate General's office and participated in the atom bomb tests on Bikini in the Marshall Islands.

The tournament wasn't held this past summer because the clay courts were being renovated.

"It's fair to call it Paul's tournament," Jim Rudolph, director of Citiparks Tennis Academy, said last year. "He's always been Mr. Sullivan to me. He made me call him Paul, but that was really hard."

Mr. Sullivan, a nonpaid volunteer worker, was a lovable curmudgeon who conducted the tournament the same way for almost seven decades. He never allowed tiebreakers, corporate sponsorship and age-group categories of competition. The entry fee was always $2 for singles.

Tennis changed through the years, but Mr. Sullivan didn't.

He had no use for high-tech metal rackets and always championed open tournaments for public players.

"Why do they keep fooling around with the game?" Mr. Sullivan often said. "Why couldn't they leave things the way they were? Tennis is a great game."

Mr. Sullivan, who played in the tournament at Frick Park until he was in his late 70s, also ran the Duquesne Plaque Tennis Tournament for high school students.

Leo Sweeney, who reached the men's single final five times and won his only championship at Frick Park in 2000, was one of Mr. Sullivan's most ardent admirers.

"It meant a lot more to me to win it under his tenure," Sweeney said. "Everybody knew it was Paul Sullivan's tournament. He always spoke his mind. He was the original icon, the image of what tennis was in the 1920s. He didn't deviate from the rules.

"He went strictly by the book. ... It was his book. He was one of the true greats in Pittsburgh tennis. He was old school and enforced the rules as they originally were written."

Mr. Sullivan began writing sports for the old Pittsburgh Gazette Times and continued for the Sun-Telegraph until it closed in the late 1960s.

"Dad always said he became a lawyer because he knew he had to make a living," said his youngest daughter, Mary Beth Poremski of Brookline, "but writing sports was his first love."

His two favorite beats were tennis and hockey.

Mr. Sullivan was born at home on Millvale Avenue in Pittsburgh. He completed his bachelor's, master's and law degrees at Duquesne University, and served as president of Duquesne's Alumni Association and Century Club.

He was a member of the University Catholic Club and the Concert Society, and served as chairman of the city's zoning board and as a member of the planning commission, appointed to both by Mayor Pete Flaherty. Gov. David Lawrence appointed Mr. Sullivan chairman of the Pennsylvania Athletic Commission. Mr. Sullivan was a lector, reading scriptures at St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland until recently.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Sullivan is survived by his wife of 57 years, Virginia Harnell Sullivan; son Paul G. Sullivan Jr. of Annandale, Va.; other daughters Virginia Berger of Baldwin and Kathleen Nolan of Kennedy; sister Marian E. Zeithami of Cleveland; and nine grandchildren.