Tennis Analyst Bud Collins Is Dead at 86

Sad to hear about the passing of legendary sports writer and television analyst Bud Collins. He was a true original -- "Nice pants, Bud," Chris Evert would always say during interviews, never letting his loud trousers go unnoticed -- and one of the game's most knowledgeable pundits.

I'll miss him, as will the Fortesque family and my brother Bill, who shared this memory on his Facebook page:

It was in 1977, during the Summer of Sam and the summer of Vilas, that I became a tennis nut, and Bud Collins was a big part of that.

Every Monday night, my brothers and I would sit in front of the TV at the Willow Hill condominiums in Madison Heights, Mich., and tune the UHF dial to Channel 56, where Bud and Donald Dell were on PBS bringing us the final of that week's American clay-court tournament. 

And every Monday night, Guillermo Vilas would grind a hapless opponent into the Har-Tru-brand green grit and end up holding the trophy on his march to the U.S. Open title at Forest Hills. Washington, Louisville, South Orange, Columbus. Brian Gottfried, Eddie Dibbs, Roscoe Tanner and Brian Gottfried again. And then some combination of Kenny and Terence and Paul Olsztyn and Michael Polan and Barry Surman and I would hit the courts at John Page Junior High or Village Racquet Club and try to be Vilas or Borg or Connors. Bud was a little over the top. You could call him the Howard Cosell of tennis, though Bud's obnoxiousness was far more good-natured. 

But he was a great character and, by all accounts, a kind and generous man. He knew his stuff. I miss those days, and I'll miss Bud.

Read Bud's obituary from The Boston Globe, where wrote about tennis in the early 1960s, HERE. The game'll never be the same again.

UPDATE

From Chris Evert:

From Billie Jean King:

From Martina Navratilova: