Thursday, October 1, 2026
Nancy Gill McShea, an award winning tennis writer, co-author of the book “Tennis in New York” and a 50-year resident of Rockville Centre, will be inducted into the U.S. Tennis Association Eastern Section’s Hall of Fame on April 27 at Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt Hotel.
McShea will be honored with three other Long Island natives at the hall of fame’s 25th anniversary — Ron Rebhuhn of Jericho, a Master Professional of the U.S. Professional Tennis Association; Peter Rennert, formerly of Great Neck, a quarterfinalist at the Australian Open and founder of The Spirit of Adventure, a company dedicated to wellness and longevity; and Molly Van Nostrand Rice, formerly of Brightwaters, a 1985 Wimbledon quarterfinalist.
Proceeds from the annual dinner benefit the Junior Tennis Foundation, which provides scholarships for junior players and special populations throughout the tri-state area.
McShea calls herself a 99 percenter. She has worked at many jobs since she delivered newspapers at the age of 9 in her native Long Beach, and includes two stints as a secondary English teacher, librarian and tennis coach at the Long Beach Junior High School and St. Mary’s High School in Manhasset. She competed in baseball leagues and in varsity high school basketball at St. Agnes and in college, all before she jumped on the tennis bandwagon in the early 1970s at the beginning of the Open era. She played tennis at the RVC Recreation Center and coached the Junior Team Tennis there.
The timing was perfect. Tennis coincided with her commitment to the young feminist movement and her volunteer work in Rockville Centre politics as a Democratic committeeman. She worked for both of the Kennedys, in Allard Lowenstein's congressional campaigns and lobbied in Washington against the Vietnam War. When Senator McGovern lost every state except Massachusetts in the 1972 presidential election, she decided it was time to have fun.
Tennis and modeling doubled as her gateway back into the mainstream while she raised her three children. She traveled around Long Island as a junior tennis parent and high school coach and hustled in and out of New York auditioning for print and television commercial roles. She landed jobs advertising an arthritic tennis player and a Mom playing basketball with her husband and two kids.
When her daughter Colette got a college tennis scholarship, McShea wrote a satirical piece about the perils of the junior game for World Tennis magazine. Next up was a live guest appearance with Nick Bollettieri and a psychologist on Ted Koppel’s Nightline show during the 1984 US Open. Soon after, she began what would turn out to be a 30-year career as a tennis reporter.
She has connected with the sport’s legends throughout the country and received five press service awards for her work — as the public relations director/writer/editor for the USTA Eastern Section; the managing editor/writer for Eastern Roundup and Passing Shot magazines; as copy editor/columnist for Tennis Week magazine; as sectional reporter for Tennis USA and USTA; as a columnist for Newsday; and as staff writer for College and Junior Tennis magazine. Last year, she co-authored “Tennis in New York” with Dale Caldwell.
