Rafael Osuna - Posthumous Honors

Posthumous Honors

Osuna has received numerous posthumous honors, including:

• During the 1969 National Championships, the Intercollegiate Tennis College Association NCAA instituted the Rafael Osuna Sportsmanship Award, the first new award added since 1881. Given to the most outstanding college tennis player, the criteria for the award are competitive excellence, sportsmanship, and contribution to tennis.

• During the 1969 US Open Championships at Forest Hills, two months after his death, the US Open Committee declared 28 August to be Rafael Osuna Day, honoring the memory of the former champion. This was the first time the tournament had honored a tennis player in this manner.

• In 1969 the Chapultepec Club, the cathedral of Mexican tennis and home to the majority of its history, named its stadium "Rafael Osuna".

• In 1972, with the intent to strengthen ties between the USA and Mexico and to honor the memory of the only player ever to win the US Championships and the Mexican Open championships in singles, the "Osuna Cup" event was instituted. It is disputed annually by the official teams from both nations, and is the longest international tennis event played on Mexican territory, and the only one sanctioned by the USTA and the MTF.

• In 1970 Mr. Joseph F. Cullman, Honorary Chairman of the Board of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, presented to the Chancellor of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Ing. Javier Barrios Sierra, ten scholarships in the name of Rafael Osuna to be awarded to outstanding Mexican students.

• On July 14, 1979, Osuna was inducted as a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, in Newport, Rhode Island. To date, Osuna is the only Mexican to receive this honor.

• In 1979, Mexican President José López Portillo y Pacheco unveiled an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m) statue of Rafael Osuna, erected by the Mexican National Athletics Institute at the Olympic plaza at the Mexican Olympic Committee.

• In 1983, the Intercollegiate Tennis College Association (NCAA) inaugurated their Tennis Hall of Fame, in Athens, Georgia. The inaugural class was the All Time NCAA Champions of Excellence. with 10 Players and 5 Head Coaches. Osuna was one of the ten along with such other great players as: Arthur Ashe, Dennis Ralston, Alex Olmedo, Ted Schroeder, Tony Trabert, and his Coach George Toley.

• In 1990 Mrs. Elena Osuna de Belmar published the biography Rafael Osuna: Sonata in Set Mayor. The book has been included in the International Tennis Hall of Fame Museum, Wimbledon Museum, USTA library, and Doheney library at USC. It is a collector's item, with only 2000 copies in the first edition.

• On November 28, 2000, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon presented an homage to the most outstanding Mexican athletes of the 20th Century, awarded by the Secretary of Public Education of Mexico. Osuna was selected "Sportsman of the 20th Century" in the Category of Tennis.

• On October 14, 2006 the University of Southern California USC Hall of Fame Selection Committee selected Osuna to be inducted into the USC Athletic Hall of Fame on May 5, 2007.

On November 2010 CNN Mexico selected Osuna´s accomplishments as one of the top 10 sports highlights of all time.