Royals Hall of Fame
In the fall of 1960, Chris Safford came to Queens as a freshman from Philadelphia. She was an excellent student, majoring in German under her favorite professor, Dr. Ted Weiant, but also taking lots of English classes with the outstanding Dr. Roberta Chalmers.
She competed in collegiate tournaments while at Queens, as well as national tournaments including Forest Hills and earned top regional and national rankings.
At Queens, she joined Alpha Delta Pi sorority and spent her junior year abroad in Vienna studying German. Having met Arthur Ashe on the junior tennis tour, their friendship sparked a lifelong commitment to use tennis to influence lives and open doors to countless underprivileged children nationwide.
Beck served as volunteer president of the board of the National organization of five years earlier. Beck and her husband Leif co-founded the Philadelphia National Junior Tennis League (NJTL) which now operates under the umbrella of the Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education Center and reaches 7,500 children each year.
Beck has served as chair of multi-million dollar campaigns for Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis & Education and has been recognized by countless organizations including the Jimmy Carter Hammer award from Habitat for Humanity.
A member of the Queens Board of Trustee from 1995 until 2008, she has received the Queens Alumni Service award and most recently was recognized with the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award in 2007.
