MID-TAC’S HALL OF FAME DECEASED PLAYER FOCUS
Marion Rice was born in Middletown, Ohio. He married Willie B. Manuel of Rogersville, Tennessee. They moved to Indianapolis in 1946. Marion honed his tennis skills at Douglass and Garfield Parks. In 1956 he moved his family to a home on Udell St. mainly because it was within walking distance to Riverside’s tennis courts. Marion Rice was a army veteran who served in World War II. He also was a jazz trombonist. He played with the Jimmy Coe Orchestra and the Lavon Kemp Orchestra. However, tennis was the love of his life.
In 2005, Rice was inducted into the Indiana High School Tennis Hall of Fame, and his portrait hangs in the Hall of Fame at the Barbara S. Wynne Tennis Center on the campus of North Central High School in Indianapolis.