For her entire life, Phyllis Adler was a devoted athlete and dedicated sportswoman always competing in some kind of sport. 

The Boyle Heights native, who lived her entire life in Southern California, passed away from cancer on May 22nd at the age of 99 and just a little over two months shy of her 100th birthday. 

“She got her degree in Physical Education at UCLA (Class of 1946) and played softball, she played semi-pro baseball, she played basketball, she played badminton, and she taught archery,” said her son, Doug Adler, who was a USC All-American in tennis in the early 1980s. “Tennis was just one of the many sports she played. She loved baseball and was the one who taught me how to throw a ball.” 

Phyllis was inducted into the first class of the USTA Southern California Senior Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2000. 

Considered one of the most accomplished age group players in the world, Adler won an astonishing 58 USTA national titles and the coveted gold balls that come with winning the age-group titles. Including gold, silver and bronze, Doug said the prestigious national balls numbered over a hundred with Adler also making countless national finals and winning third-place matches besides the 58 tourney titles. 

Amazingly, Phyllis only started to play tennis at age 18 but didn’t hardly play at all until her new husband Joel Adler started pushing her to play more in her late 20s. 

Joel was the Parks and Recreation Director at Griffith Park so, naturally, Phyllis hung around the tennis courts during the boom of Southern California tennis that produced the likes of Pancho Gonzales, Billie Jean King, Stan Smith and countless of other Grand Slam champions.  

“The first gold ball came at age 40 in mixed doubles in La Jolla and the last one 50 years later when she won the women’s doubles at age 90,” Adler said, adding that her longtime competitive rival was on hand to watch the match – the legendary International Tennis Hall of Famer Dodo Cheney whose gold medal count reaches well over the 300s. 

A Hollywood Hills resident, Phyllis began to play singles in her mid to late 50s to challenge herself more and was a member of the Toluca Lake Tennis Club for the last 40 years where Ben Brunkow serves as the director of tennis. Brunkow spoke at Adler’s funeral. 

“She loved tennis so much,” Brunkow said at the funeral. “I was always amazed, especially more recently, at her memory. She could remember details from matches she played 30, 40, 50 years ago. She was brutally honest.  She was passionate. She liked to tell it like it is, she didn’t sugarcoat anything. Phyllis was a legend.” 

Brunkow met Phyllis 30 years ago while he was teaching at Racquet Center on Vineland and Ventura Blvd. “I was hired to coach a ladies 4.5 team,” Brunkow recalled. “At the first practice I noticed an older lady, about 70 years old, and I thought: ‘What? No way is she on this team, no way can she compete with 4.5 players!’ Wrong. She had touch. She had good hands. She could place the ball wherever she wanted it to go. Her volleys were a thing of beauty. She was a very smart, thoughtful tennis player.  That was the first of many lessons Phyllis taught me.”

Doug said nearly 100 people attended his mother’s memorial service, including former UCLA All-American Mike Harrington and Adler’s USC doubles partner Robert Van’t Hof. “If my mom was watching the service from up above, she smiled from ear to ear,” Adler said. 

The Agoura Hills resident Adler spent his post tennis career as a noted analyst for ESPN and Tennis Channel, among others. The past few years have been tough, he said, as he has focused on caring and assisting his mother. “Her body couldn’t keep up any longer with her strong mind and desire to do the physical things she always did,” he said. “But she fought hard to the very end, always pushing herself to do better.” 

“Funerals are always sad,” Adler said. “But it was an amazing turnout of a lot of family and so many friends who loved my mother and celebrated her amazing life.”