Talk:Helen Wills Moody

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tennis
Tennis
 This page is within the scope of WikiProject Tennis, which collaborates on Tennis-related subjects on Wikipedia, such as players, tournaments and rules. To participate, help improve this page or visit the project page for details on the project.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.

Article Grading:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by the Sports and games work group.
Photo request It is requested that a picture or pictures of this person be included in this article to improve its quality.
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
Version 0.7
 This article has been selected for Version 0.7 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.

[edit] Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Edofedinburgh 04:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Move and Copyright

I discovered that the original article was copied from InfoPlease, a copyrighted source, which is forbidden on Wikipedia. However, I have already modified it somewhat and will soon rewrite more substantially, so I am not raising a Copyright objection at this time.

However, I intend to move the article to "Helen Wills Moody" because that is the name by which she is most well known these days. This even applies to her entry in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, even though she had already remarried, to Roark, much earlier than her induction. Of course, a redirect from "Helen Wills" will be automatically created.
Any Objections?
Joe Kress 01:53, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

I would have kept it as "Helen Wills." (but I'm not going to change it unless there is a strong groundswell). It's like Chris Evert or Chris Evert Llyod. Facts are: (1) She called herself Helen Wills in all of her books and most of her magazine article, (2) Her legacy gift to Cal-Berkeley was as Helen Wills, (3) Her intros vivos scholarship at Cal-Berkeley was as Helen Roark, (4) local monuments such as playgrounds, etcetera, established in her lifetime are as "Helen Wills" (5) The majority of her wins (just slightly) were as Helen Wills or Helen Wills Roark, (6) Her Wimbledon records list her as Helen Wills, (7) Although the International Tennis Hall of Fame article Headline is as "Helen Wills Moody," it refers to her exclusively as "Wills," likewise the NYTimes Obit. Further the ITHF alphabetizes her as "Wills (Moody Roark), Helen", (8) Britanica lists her as "Helen Wills," and (9) the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame lists her as "Helen Wills Roark" (I know its a big honor amongst all her other achievements, but she was inducted during her lifetime and with her blessing).

There is a lot of stuff out there which refers to her as "Helen Wills Moody," but Wills' choice appears to have been to drop the "Moody," and should be honored unless there is a definitive reason why not. Swlenz 21:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure what to believe. Helen Wills may not have been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1969, but in 1959 together with Bill Tilden?? I´am writing some tennisarticles in the Swedish Wikipedia and found both years. User:Rapsodin18.50, June 11, 2005

It was 1959. Swlenz 21:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro

Recent edits have caused the Introduction to be clunky. The article now starts off with a name 'Helen Newington Wills Moody Roark' which Wills never used. I realize that it is nice to get all the aka's in. But the previous intro did a better job. Additionally, stating the various names Wills used in her lifetime makes that article more searchable. In other words, someone knowning just a little bit can find her more easily on the Web. It is important that the two names she was best known as (and all the historic records refer to), 'Helen Wills' and 'Helen Wills Moody' be featured prominently.

This also comports with Wikipedia naming standards, i.e., how best known, how did she refer to herself, etcetera. Regarding how she referred to herself, see my previous comments in the above section.

I am accordingly going to revert the intro to its previous form. Swlenz 23:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Let me try one more time. Wills was a dominate player from 1922 until her retirement in 1938. Even though she lost twice in 1924, once in 1925 and three times in 1926 (twice after her appendectomy), she was dominating, although not so much as her complete dominance between 1927 and 1932. Between 1922 and 1938, Wills played in 23 major tourneys and the Olympics (which replaced the French in 1924), she won 20 times, finshed second three times, and had an appendectomy. (I am excluding Wimbledon 1926 because although entered, she did not play, again because of her appendectomy). That Lenglen dominance overlaps the early years and that Wills didn't play much after 1933 does not alter the fact that she was a dominating player until she retired.

Thinking a bit more, I guess what piques me was word choice and the multiple meaning of the word dominate. I know what was intended, but saying Wills "dominated" women's tennis for a particular period which excludes a large portion of her career is like saying that Tiger Woods only dominated the golf world in years that he is ranked number 1 when in fact he is the dominant golfer of this era. That Lenglen was also a dominant figure for part of this era is not a problem. They both dominated the Tennis landscape: They were superior to their cohorts. Swlenz 20:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)