Tim Heckler USPTA Master Professional
April 20, 2012
Tim Heckler has worked as USPTA’s CEO since 1982. Previously, he served eight years on the national USPTA Executive Committee, including four years on the national Board of Directors. He was elected USPTA president in 1980 and 1981, and was USPTA Professional of the Year in 1979 and is a Master Professional.
While attending Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, on a tennis scholarship, he played the international circuit, including Wimbledon in 1959 and 1961, and the U.S. Open in 1960.
Heckler assumed a full-time tennis-teaching position in 1970 at Houston’s Westwood Country Club. He was elected president of USPTA’s Texas Division in 1974.
Since 1972, Heckler has been a consultant to the tennis industry. His work as a coach and a speaker, and his experience in designing, managing and programming several large recreational facilities, has given him the background to deal with all situations related to tennis.
In 1973 he was the consultant and tennis director for the Bobby Riggs vs. Billie Jean King “Match of the Century” held in the Houston Astrodome.
As CEO of USPTA, Heckler has guided the Association through a period in which it has increased its membership fivefold, its annual income sevenfold and established USPTA as the foremost organization of teaching professionals in the world. He has revolutionized USPTA’s operations through computerization and continually strives to introduce tennis professionals to the tools of the information age.
Heckler’s personal passion is his involvement in USPTA Little Tennis® and its potential to increase tennis play among children and families. Having developed a similar program for his club in the early ’70s, he was able to bring it to national prominence with USPTA’s introduction of Little Tennis in 1994.
The USPTA honored Heckler in 2000 by naming him a grand inductee in the Association’s Hall of Fame. He also received the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s Tennis Educational Merit Award in 2002 and was inducted into the Texas Tennis Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2008 he received the highest honor awarded by the United States Professional Tennis Association, the George Bacso Lifetime Achievement Award.