On the plaque: Three-time letter winner and two-time captain in tennis, key member of the 1965 team that tied for Penn's first EITA title (10-0 at No. 3). All-Ivy and played No. 1 his last two years. First learned squash at Penn, lettered in 1965-67, playing Nos. 1 and 2 senior year. As a senior, ranked No. 8 in men's college squash and won deciding match as Penn tied for EITA title. Class of 1915 Award recipient. Served as assistant tennis and squash coach from 1970-72 and later on Penn Tennis Committee—merging the men's and women's teams—and the Penn Athletic Overseers. His contributions to the University and Penn Athletics are numerous, including lead donor of the Hamlin Tennis Center.
 
Before Clay Hamlin III W'67 WG'72 arrived on Penn's campus in 1963, a few months after graduating from the prestigious Nichols School in his hometown of Buffalo (N.Y.), there weren't many sports he didn't play. Though tennis was his primary athletic outlet, Hamlin was also adept at ice hockey, baseball, soccer, boxing and more.
 
"I guess I sort of considered myself an athlete-student, an athlete first and a student second," he recently said with a laugh, "and in those days, people played everything."
 
One sport that had escaped his grasp before he got to University City, however, was squash, despite it being a popular sport on the prep school circuit at the time. That changed quickly under the guidance of legendary head coach Al Molloy, another Penn Athletic Hall of Famer who spent 32 years as the Quakers' tennis and squash coach.
 
"(Molloy) just said, 'Hey you guys want to learn to play squash? I'll teach you...you can play a few freshman matches,'" Hamlin recalled. "And then we sort of got into it...got more serious my junior and senior year."
 
By the time Hamlin finished up his undergraduate career at Penn, he was a two-sport standout, excelling on both the tennis and squash courts. In the decades since, he and his wife Lynn have become some of Penn athletics' biggest donors, their name now adorning Penn's state-of-the-art tennis facility.
 
For his accomplishments on the court and his decades of support since, Hamlin was given the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame's Lifetime Achievement Award for the Class of 2019.
 
"I'm pretty humble, and I think there are a lot of people who have done a lot more than I have," Hamlin said. "There's a lot better athletes at Penn than me...you've got Chuck Bednarik and all those guys I used to bounce around with when I was there, amazing people. So I'm very thankful and appreciative of (the honor)."
 
Hamlin might not have gone on to national fame like Bednarik did in the NFL, but he was no slouch when representing the Quakers on two different courts.
 
In tennis, Hamlin was a two-time captain and team No. 1 as a senior; in squash, he was a member of the 1966 Ivy League co-championship team and went 8-1 as a senior while splitting time at Nos. 1 and 2. As a senior, he was given the prestigious Class of 1915 Award, given annually to the "ideal" male student-athlete who has shown outstanding athletic, academic and leadership qualities.
 
Though both sports Hamlin played are the racquet-and-ball type, anybody who's played both can tell you that the swings needed for each are vastly different—tennis requires a longer, slower stroke that typically emphasizes topspin while squash is a shorter, sharper 'punch' shot needed to keep the dead little ball bouncing off the walls.
 
Going from tennis in the fall to squash in the winter and back to tennis in the spring presented some technical difficulties, even to a talented racquet player.
 
"Back in those days, they sort of taught a continental forehand, which is sort of a volley grip, and today they've come way around to the right, it's more of a Western grip, it's much more powerful," Hamlin said. "What would happen is that, especially if you weren't someone who had played a lot of squash...you're sort of hitting down, and ideally you want to hit up and get topspin on the tennis court.
 
"I really had a problem with my forehand...I lost a couple matches that I shouldn't have lost because of that."
 
According to his former roommate, Robert Goldman C'67, Hamlin found a way to get those wins back.
 
"He was a very smart player," Goldman said. "He beat people who you would not think he could have beat, who had more raw talent than him, but he was a good competitor and smarter."
 
Goldman met Hamlin two years before they enrolled at Penn, when they were both competing at a tennis tournament in Kalamazoo, Mich. They kept in touch over the remainder of their time in high school, with Goldman down in Washington, D.C. at the Sidwell Friends School.
 
During their first year at Penn, Hamlin and Goldman often found themselves doubles partners on the freshman squad.
 
"He didn't have a huge serve, but he had an accurate serve," Goldman said, "and he had a good, second kick-serve. He was a very good volleyer, a very good volleyer, and he had an excellent forehand. His backhand was good, but he knew how to get to the net."
 
After graduating from Wharton, Hamlin spent the next two years in the Navy, serving as an officer aboard the aircraft carrier USS Wasp. He returned to University City in the summer of 1970 to get his MBA at Penn, while also helping coach the tennis and squash teams between then and December 1972.
 
Hamlin went on to get his J.D. from Temple University's Beasley School of Law, and though he worked as a lawyer in the 1970s and 1980s, it wasn't until the latter part of that second decade that he found the career path that would see him attain his highest levels of success.
 
Even before then, he'd begun his work as a fundraiser for the University, particularly the athletic department. Former squash standout H. Hunter Lott C'36 took Hamlin under his wing in the early 1990s, hoping to pass the torch as the 21st century approached.
 
"There were a lot of people around with a lot more money," Hamlin said. "But I was there...I'd been in Philadelphia since 1970 straight on, I was on my own now, doing all kinds of stuff and still had a lot of contacts at Penn.
 
"Hunter, in his own way, without telling me, just sort of quietly encouraged me by saying 'there's no one else that's here, and I'm getting old.'"
 
Back when Hamlin attended Penn as an undergrad, and for many years afterwards, the school's intercollegiate tennis matches were played at the six Hunter Lott Courts in front of the Palestra, aging courts which featured no spectator seating outside of several benches.
 
Thanks in large part to Hamlin and his wife of 38 years, Lynn, that is no longer the case.
 
In the earlier part of this decade, the Hamlins gave $7.5 million to the University to help build what is now called the Clay & Lynn Hamlin Outdoor Tennis Center, a 12-court complex located in the southern portion of Penn Park. The Hamlin Center, which opened in 2011, serves as the main home court for both the Quakers' men and women's tennis teams, with the ability to view multiple courts from elevated, chair-backed seating, the Philadelphia skyline glittering in the background.
 
"It's in a beautiful area," Hamlin said, "and so it was great, we were happy that it all got done and it looks great—and my wife really likes it, too. We were just glad to be able to do something that turned out well."