Melvin Searles (pictured 2nd from the right) with his coach Jim Seri (middle) and teammates.

Not everyone is born with the same privileges; yet some people manage to break through barriers, despite not being afforded with opportunities that many others take for granted. 

Among these amazing individuals is Mr. Melvin Searles.  Mr. Searles was inducted into DePaul University’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.  This award honors Mr. Searles’ storied history with DePaul University’s Men’s tennis team in the 1960s, when few black athletes were awarded collegiate scholarships, with a marked rarity within the sport of Tennis. 

Beyond his success in high school and collegiate tennis, Mr. Searles was a trailblazer in the corporate arena as well, with a successful career in sales, including 29 years as a stand-out sales representative, manager, trainer, and mentor at GD Searle (now part of Pfizer, Inc.).  Whether it was on the tennis court, or in the environs of pharmaceutical commerce, Melvin Searles was a trailblazing figure and remains a positive influence on all those fortunate enough to interact with him. 

I had an opportunity to chat with Mr. Searles today, and he was gracious enough to share some pearls of wisdom from his life story of achievement and perseverance.  Here are some highlights of our conversation. 

Rich Kerr (Urban GIS, Director of Client Consulting):  Good morning, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to chat with me today. 

Melvin Searles:  No problem, I am happy to do it. 

RK:  So I know a little about you as I have known your son Keith for years, and he has always spoken very highly of you.  Are you originally from Chicago? 

MS: Well thank you for sharing Keith’s sentiments.  Yes, I am from the west side of Chicago.  I attended Harrison high school and that’s where I was introduced to tennis.  I had played baseball, basketball and ran cross-country as well, but when I didn’t attend some baseball practices, in order to take swimming lessons, I was let go from the team.  So after baseball, I joined the Tennis team.  The muscle coordination I had developed in baseball translated to tennis very well I found. 

RK:  I see, so it was a natural transition. 

MS: Yes it was.  Of course, I still had to practice with intensity to become proficient.  I learned early on in life that anything worth doing is worth doing well, and you should always do your best.  My mother used to make me wash dishes every single night, and if I did not do it correctly, I had to re-do them.  I got tired of the re-work and being fussed at for my sub-par dishwashing, that one night, I cleaned the entire kitchen, top to bottom, not just the dishes, everything!  The next day, my mother told me “last night, you grew up”!  I never forgot that lesson and have carried it with me ever since then. 

The next day, my mother told me “last night, you grew up”!

RK: You remind me of something I heard the late Kobe Bryant say, that hard work and consistent practice is how you become great. 

MS: It’s true, the Mamba mentality is real.  It’s why Tiger Woods was so successful so early on, and why he continues to find success. 

RK: Speaking of Tiger, he rose to prominence in a sport that traditionally did not feature a lot of African American athletes.  Was the landscape in tennis similar? 

MS: Absolutely, especially back then.  In 1967, I was playing a college tennis match at a school in Oxford Mississippi.  The coach of the local team said to my coach “Who is this n****r, we don’t play against any n****rs”.  My coach told the Oxford coach that I was the team’s chauffeur, not a player so that the match could continue, without me playing that time of course.  We still won, however! 

RK: Did you feel it was a “southern” issue, that coach’s reaction? 

MS:  Well, not entirely.  In the early 1960s when I was still in high school, I used to play at the River Forest country club.  I had to take public transportation to get there, and the bus stop was over a mile away from the club.  Once, I was walking through that neighborhood, and people were coming out of their houses, saying “who is this n****r walking down our street”.  Even though I had my tennis attire on, and was carrying a tennis racket.
 

RK: That must have been pretty intimidating.  How did you handle that kind of… assault?
 

MS:  Well it was intimidating, but I always kept my cool.  Just as I did on the tennis court, I never let people see me rattled.  I maintained my composure, and let my performance speak for itself.

Just as I did on the tennis court, I never let people see me rattled.  I maintained my composure, and let my performance speak for itself.
 

RK:  Did you see Tennis as a metaphor for dealing with life?   

MS:  Absolutely.  I always was polite and cordial even in the face of people like that.  It made it harder for them to figure me out.  That was an advantage on the tennis court. 

RK:  So did you see tennis as a potential career for you, after college? 

MS:  Yes and no. After college, I took a job teaching tennis and other sports at Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, and I also taught lessons at several neighborhood clubs around the city.  But I have always said that you should be able to earn money with your hands and your mind.  Tennis was a way for me to earn money with my hands, but I had loftier professional goals.  I knew that in order to make it to the highest levels in the corporate world, a master’s degree would be essential.  So I earned a master’s in Health Sciences from Northern Illinois University in 1977.  At that time, I was working in sales at Ryerson steel.  I only stayed at Ryerson for 3 years, before I landed a sales gig at GD Searle, which was a large pharmaceutical company in the ’70s and ’80s. 

RK:  That’s interesting, that your last name was so similar to the company name. 

MS:  Yes, only off by one letter, and it of course raised some eyebrows, but I had to perform.  Just like in the world of tennis, I was one of very few black sales reps in the industry.  I would walk into doctor’s offices to discuss the products I represented, and the doctors and staff were often surprised to see a black man coming in the door as a rep. 

RK:  Was it the same kind of response as the opposing coach in Mississippi years earlier? 

MS: Basically, yes, except this was the professional realm, not college sports.  So the level of professionalism was higher.  But the sentiment was essentially the same.  I had a physician say to me “wow, you’re not like others…”  and I cut him off before he finished his sentence.  I knew where he was going with that. 

RK:  Yes it seems fairly obvious where he was going with that leading sentence. 

MS:  But I said to him “cut the stereotyping, I am a professional and so are you, let’s talk business”, or something along those lines. 

RK:  Did those experiences in high school and college prepare you for dealing with racism and bigotry in the professional realm?
 

MS:  Yes, it was easier.  I got very good at reading people.  I made sure I knew how to greet the physicians I was selling to in their native language… I know greetings in 11 languages.  At one point, my sales territory was in the south, and I had to call a Greek doctor.  I introduced myself to him in Greek and he was shocked.  I told him I was from Chicago, which has a very robust Greek community and that’s why I knew some key phrases.  We hit it off right after that.
 

Another physician I had to call on was a super tough case.   I could never get in to see her.  She was always too busy for me, and I felt she had something against me without even knowing me.  However, I persisted.  I was nice to her office staff, bought them lunches and flowers for special life events.  One of her staff members shared with me, that the doctor’s daughter had been accepted into the University of Chicago.  I told the staff member to give the daughter my card and that I would be available to assist her daughter if need be since Chicago is my hometown.  We eventually connected, and I sent the young lady a care package of pizza coupons and other items.  The next time I visited that physician, she said “are you the rep that sent my daughter that care package?”  I told her that I was, and she embraced me and from that point forward, my sales figures with her office went through the roof.
 

RK:  Sounds like a much better approach than getting discouraged with the account and giving up on it. 

MS:  Absolutely.  In the business world, just like in sports, you have to perform. 

RK:  You have touched on the value of hard work, and perseverance as hallmarks of your success.  Have you been able to share that philosophy about work ethic with young people as you’ve advanced in your career? 

MS: Absolutely.  In the early days, with my work as a tennis coach, I would always talk to my players about the value of hard work and dedication to practicing your craft.  I continued that when I transitioned into sales, as I often trained younger sales reps and mentored reps that were just learning the ropes.
 

And of course, those lessons were the critical ideals I tried to pass along to my children.   My son Keith once asked me for a pair of Air Jordan gym shoes when he was a pre-teen.  I asked him how much money had he saved up for those shoes.  He replied that he had $50 saved and the shoes were more than that.  He said, “Dad, you’re going to make me buy the shoes myself?”  I told him “absolutely”.  
Nothing in life is free and you have to work for what you get.  This was the core of my “Expose and Take It Away” philosophy. 

Nothing in life is free and you have to work for what you get.  This was the core of my “Expose and Take It Away” philosophy.   

I took Keith and his sister to Hilton Head one year.  They enjoyed it tremendously.  The following year, they asked if we could go back to Hilton’s Head, but I told them no, that I wasn’t spending money on that trip again.  The idea was to expose them to finer aspects of life but reinforce that to enjoy those things on an ongoing basis, they would have to work for it. 

RK:  Well Keith has built a successful technology business, and I am sure your tutelage was instrumental in giving him the work ethic to make that happen. 

MS: Well, I like to think so! 

RK:  Do you have any siblings? 

MS:  I am one of nine siblings.  I had one brother who went to junior college, but I was the first one in the family to finish college. 

RK:  You mentioned your mom’s enforcement of dishwashing duties.  Was your father instrumental in the development of your ideology around work and perseverance? 

MS:  Yes but in a different way.  Once as a kid, I had put some school clothes on layaway.  I needed about $7 to get them out.  I asked my father for the money.  And he told me there was no way he would help me, that I needed to do it for myself.  And he wasn’t as polite about it as I am saying it now.  I was very hurt by that experience, but I told myself I would never ask him for anything else in my life.  It was a painful memory, but I took away from it the importance of independence.

RK:  What advice would you give to young people today, looking to enter the workplace, in what seems like an increasingly polarized and racially charged environment? 

MS:  Firstly, I would say talk to at least 10 people in different industries.  Learn what various careers are like.  Try to discover what kind of work you would enjoy doing it.  So many kids simply do what the others in their family have done.  Second, I would go back to the fact that you need to have multiple ways of earning money.  Even when you work for someone else, you need a “side hustle”.  Thirdly, educate yourself.  Get the training you need, college or advanced degrees to ensure you have the qualifications.  No one can ever take that away from you. 

RK:  You have had so much success in various areas of life, what can you share with me from your experience as a father? 

MS:  Remember that kids do what you “Inspect” not what you “Expect”.  Early on I rewarded my kids with cash for A’s and B’s.  I wanted them to see rewards for their hard work.   So, I was always checking grade reports and test scores.  Even when it came to their social activities.   I would watch my kids from a distance, observe who they hung out with.  I would let them know when I did not approve of a friend or acquaintance.  They knew I was always checking up on them. 

Also, set positive examples for how you want them to lead their life.  They saw me work hard, they saw the fruits of the labor in the things we were able to do as a family and I have seen that come to fruition in their lives as adults. 

RK:  What did induction into DePaul’s hall of fame mean to you? 

MS:  It was great to be recognized, to have one’s accomplishments noted and appreciated.  But even beyond the recognition from the school, was the joy of being able to share the honor with my family.  It was a great way to recall my early tennis days which helped prepare me for everything I have done up to today.   

RK:  Well Mr. Searles, it has certainly been an honor chatting with you today.  I really appreciate hearing about your journey, and I know others will benefit from your life lessons of hard work and dedication to one’s craft. 

MS:  It was my pleasure to share it.  Thank you.