Growing up a close to the tennis courts at Pomeroy Park, Thomas “T.R.” Herbert found his athletic calling at an early age.

His daughter, Ronayne, said she believes it was after her grandmother passed away that her late father really took an active interest in tennis.

“I think it was one of the ways he coped,” Ronayne said. “It gave him the chance to hang out with the guys and (he) just always loved to play.”

By the time he reached middle school, Herbert was already a strong tennis player and had taken an active interest in golf, as well as basketball and baseball.

“He was a well-rounded athlete,” Ronayne said. “But tennis was always his best and what he loved to play.”

At East High School, Herbert was a standout tennis player, a golfer and he played two seasons of intramural basketball and baseball.

During three of his tennis seasons, East High School went undefeated.

Herbert played tennis and golf at Notre Dame, before his college career was interrupted by his enlistment in the Navy during World War II. He served on a destroyer escort and earned an honorable discharge in 1946.

After finishing school at Notre Dame, Herbert returned to Auburn, where he went into the family business, Herbert Brothers, Inc., a furniture store from 1949 until 1982. He worked with his father and his brother and began his own family.

But even with work and a family, Herbert still found time to stay active with both tennis and golf.

“He played a lot of golf,” Ronayne said. “He would enter a tournament every year for people who had had knee and hip replacements and things like that. He really loved to play.”

But tennis was always Herbert's first athletic passion.

“He was always playing tennis,” Ronayne said. “He was among the first people playing where Champions For Life is now. He was always playing right into his 70s when his knees started to give out on him; he really loved to play tennis.”

Ronayne said that her father also followed basketball and baseball.

“I think next to his family he loved sports the most,” she said. “He always followed what was going on with Notre Dame. There was a big rivalry with his friends back then when Notre Dame and Syracuse played each other. But it was a lot of fun.”

To be recognized for his athletic prowess is something Ronayne believes would have pleased her father greatly.

“I think he would be very proud,” Ronayne said. “I've met a lot of his friends and they were all real gentlemen athletes. I think my father would feel very humbled to have such an important honor.”