Hitchcock, "Tommy" (Thomas Jr.)

Polo

b. Feb. 11, 1900, Aiken, SC

d. April 19, 1944

He was nicknamed "Ten-Goal Tommy" because he was given a 10-goal rating, the highest possible in polo's handicapping system, eighteen times in his twenty-two years as an active player. His father, Thomas Sr., played in the first Westchester Cup match in 1886.

Hitchcock played for the Meadow Brook team that won the national junior championship in 1916. The following year, he tried to enlist as an aviator in World War I but was rejected because of his age, so he joined the French army. He was later transferred to the U. S. Army Air Corps and was shot down behind German lines.

Hitchcock jumped out of a train while being transferred from one prison camp to another and escaped by walking 100 miles to the Swiss border in eight nights of travel.

After the war, he took up polo again and quickly became the country's outstanding player. Though not quite as skilled as others, he was an aggressive, fearless rider and an accurate long hitter, which fit well into the American style of play, advancing the ball through long passes.

Hitchcock played for four National Open champions, Meadow Brook in 1923, Sands Point in 1927, and Greentree in 1935 and 1936. He played on U. S. teams that beat Great Britain in 1921, 1924, 1927, 1930, and 1939, and he was on the national teams that beat Argentina in 1928 and lost to Argentina in 1936. He also played for the silver medal Olympic team in 1924.

During World War II, Hitchcock served in the Army Air Corps again, as assistant air attache to the U. S. Embassy in London. He was killed in the crash of an Army plane near Salisbury, England.