The Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table will be inducting seven new members into its Hall of Fame on Monday, Sept. 15, at 5:30 p.m. The Induction Class of 2025 includes five athletes, a coach and a special achievement honoree.
This is the second in a series of stories about this year’s inductees.
To purchase tickets to the Hall of Fame event at the Cabrillo Pavilion, click here.
When Mark Basham entered Santa Barbara High in 1978, it was the start of a golden era for Dons boys tennis.
Over the next two decades, the Santa Barbara program, under the direction of legendary coach Jack Trigueiro, routinely produced Channel League and CIF-Southern Section championship teams and individuals.
Basham is part of that legacy.
As a freshman, the Dons reached the final of the CIF’s highest division (4A). They lost against a Corona del Mar program that was in the midst of a six-year championship run. Santa Barbara surpassed that mark, winning eight in a row from 1988-1995 and 10 in 11 years.
Individually, Basham won the 1979 CIF-SS doubles championship and an Ojai Tournament interscholastic doubles title with partner Mark Wooldridge. The CIF title was the first by a Dons duo since 1955.
In his senior year of 1981, he captured the Channel League doubles crown and was honored as the Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table’s High School Boys Tennis Player of the Year.
“We had very good teams,” said Basham of his prep career. “In my freshman year, we had four nationally ranked players and reached the CIF finals.”
Also in ’81, Basham won the National Amateur singles title along with the National Amateur Clay Court doubles title before heading off to powerhouse UCLA to play for legendary coach Glenn Bassett.
“Mark’s weapon on the court was his speed and especially his forehand,’ said long-time friend and doubles partner Jacques Manset, who also played on a national championship team at UCLA. “Hall of Fame Coach Glen Bassett, who coached many top players in the world, mentioned to me that he had never seen a player who hit a running forehand like Mark’s.
“You could see fear in the opponents’ eyes when Mark wound up on his forehand. In doubles, I always had Mark hit the first forehand return as hard as he could up the middle. It didn’t matter if it went in or not because the opponents started backing off the net very fast.”
Basham and Manset won four Ojai Open Division doubles titles and a gold ball at the USTA National Clay Court Amateur Championships.
At UCLA, Basham went to the NCAA Tournament all four years and was part of two national championship teams (1982, ’84). In the ’84 final against Pac-10 rival Stanford, he and doubles partner Michael Kures won the decisive match in three sets to give the Bruins a 5-4 victory and their 15th NCAA team title.
Basham didn’t lose a match during the tournament and was honored as an All-American in doubles and singles.
In 1985, he was named the ITA Men’s College Tennis Unsung Player of the Year.
In his professional tennis career, Basham won pro challenger series tournaments in Rome (1987) and Vienna (1998) and played in Grand Slam main draws at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
“I like to tell people I got into the dance,” Basham said. “I got to play Wimbledon and the U.S. Open and the French Open and a lot of big tournaments in doubles that were in the United States.”
Basham’s passion for tennis is rooted in his family tree. His grandfather, Arnold Jones, was a National Junior Champion and a U.S. Davis Cup player in the late 1920s. His father, David Basham, won an Ojai Boys Junior Division and played college tennis at Stanford and was a team captain.
Basham’s love for the game steered him into coaching. He coached young players at the USTA Team Zonal Championships and worked at the Tennis Club of Santa Barbara, Birnam Wood Golf Club and the Knowlwood Tennis Club.
In 2009, Westmont College hired him as its men’s tennis coach. In 14 years at the helm, nine of his teams finished with a top-20 national ranking, and four times he was honored as conference coach of the year.
Westmont reached the semifinals of the NAIA National Tournament during the 2013 season — its best finish since 1997. In 2017, he guided the Warriors to their first Golden State Athletic Conference championship in 20 years.
Basham is married to Dr. Sharon Basham, the medical director for the Cottage Rehabilitation Hospital in Santa Barbara.
