Sports
Jean Hoxie
1898–1970
· tennis coach
Hamtramck tennis coach who turned the children of Polish immigrant autoworkers into state and national champions, producing more than 300 national titlists.
- Born
Grout Township, Michigan- Died
Midland, Michigan
aged 72- Detroit years
- 1920s–1970
- Field
- Sports
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Hoxie built her legendary program in Hamtramck, the working-class Polish enclave surrounded by Detroit, beginning in the Depression years when Mayor Rudolph Tenerowicz backed tennis as a way to keep children off the streets; players who practiced were given a meal at the end of the day. Coaching with her husband Jerry at Hamtramck High School, she was the first woman to coach a Michigan high school boys' tennis team, and her teams won 18 state boys' championships between 1949 and 1969, along with 16 state singles and 13 doubles champions. Her pupils included Peaches Bartkowicz, the 1964 Wimbledon girls' champion, and Fred Kovaleski, and in all more than 300 of her players won US national junior titles. The Hoxies also started one of the first tennis camps in the country in the 1940s. She died in a car accident in 1970 and was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.
Highlights
- Coached more than 300 US national champions
- 18 Michigan boys' state titles for Hamtramck, 1949–1969
- Coach of Peaches Bartkowicz, 1964 Wimbledon girls' champion
- First woman to coach a Michigan high school boys' team
- Michigan Sports Hall of Fame, 1965
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1940s–1969
Hamtramck High School
Home of the Hoxie tennis program, whose Cosmos teams dominated Michigan boys' tennis.