Sam Lee - Tennis

Sam Lee played his way from Oregon to the top of the college tennis ranks and left a legacy as an adult player and administrator across the Northwest. Lee was a nationally-ranked played as a youth and won the NCAA Doubles title with partner Joe Coughlin in 1933 while at Stanford University. He won the Oregon doubles title with partner Elwood Cooke in 1936 and the state singles title in ’37. He won the state doubles title seven times with varying partners. Following World War II, Lee and partner Emery Neale, another inductee in the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, played in the Wimbledon doubles tournament twice. The represented the U.S. in 1947-48. In 1950, a poll conducted by the Oregon Journal named him as the top male player in the Pacific Northwest. Off the court, Lee was president of the Pacific Northwest Tennis Association from 1946-58 and a past president of both the Irvington Tennis Club and Multnomah Athletic Club. He co-founded the Northwest chapter of the Portland Rotary Club. Lee was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the USTA Pacific Northwest Region Hall of Fame in 2000. He is also a member of the Stanford University Hall of Fame.