Arthur Ashe

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World champion athlete, social activist, teacher, and charity worker, Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. (1943-1993) was the first African American player to break the color barrier in the international sport of tennis at the highest level of the game. After early retirement from sports due to heart surgery in 1979, Ashe used his unique sportsman profile and legendary poise to promote human rights, education, and public health.

Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. was born on July 10, 1943, in Richmond, Virginia. He was a member of the eleventh identifiable generation of the Ashe family and a direct descendant of a West African slave. The family line reached back to ownership by Samuel Ashe, an early governor of North Carolina. When Ashe was six years old his mother, Mattie Cordell Cunningham Ashe, died of heart disease at the age of 27.

Ashe's father nurtured both Arthur and his younger brother, Johnnie, with love as a strict disciplinarian. He worked as a caretaker and special policeman for a park named Brook Field in suburban North Richmond. Young Arthur lived on the grounds with four tennis courts, a pool, and three baseball diamonds. This was the passkey to his development as a future star athlete. His early nickname was "Skinny" or "Bones," and he grew to six feet one inch with a lean physique. He was right-handed.

Ashe as Amateur Tennis Player

R. Walter ("Whirlwind") Johnson, an African American general physician and tennis patron from Lynchburg, Virginia, opened his home in the summers to tennis prospects, including the great Althea Gibson several years earlier. Johnson used military-style discipline to teach tennis skills and also stressed his special code of sportsmanship: deference, sharp appearance, and "no cheating at any time."

Ashe attended Richmond City Public Schools. He received an honorary diploma from Maggie L. Walker High School in 1961. After success as a junior player in the American Tennis Association (ATA, for African American players), he was the first African American junior to receive a United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) national ranking. When he won the National Interscholastics in 1960, it was the first USLTA national title to be won by an African American in the South. The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) awarded him a full scholarship.

In 1963 Ashe became the first African American player to win the U.S. Men's Hardcourt championships. He also became the first African American to be named to a U.S. Junior Davis Cup team and played for ten years (1963-1970, 1975, 1976, 1978). (Earlier he could not make the U.S. Junior Davis Cup team because he was denied entry in two of five major events, in Kentucky and Virginia.) He became the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) singles and doubles champion, leading the UCLA Bruins to the NCAA title in 1965. He was All-American from 1963 to 1965.

A year later Ashe graduated from UCLA in the ROTC program with a bachelor's degree in business administration. After serving in the Army for two years, during which he was assigned time for tennis competitions, Ashe introduced a grassroots tennis program into U.S. innercities in 1968. This effort was the forerunner of today's national U.S. Tennis Association/National Junior Tennis League (USTA/ NJTL) program, with 500 chapters running programs for 150,000 kids.

Ashe as Professional Tennis Player

Two events changed Ashe's life direction in the late 1960s. The first, in 1968, was a proposed boycott by African American athletes at the Olympic Games in Mexico City. The boycott issue partly involved a protest against racial segregation, or "apartheid," in the Republic of South Africa. Ashe identified closely with such discrimination. The second event was in tennis. He was the first African American USLTA amateur champion and won the first U.S. Open Tennis Championships at Forest Hills, a new prize-money national event. The USLTA ranked him Co-Number One (with Rod Laver). His support changed from $28 per diem as a U.S. Davis Cup player to becoming a top money-winner when he turned professional in 1969. He took the Australian Open title in Melbourne in 1970. In 1971 he won the French Open doubles title with Marty Riessen. The next year he helped found the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).

In 1973 Ashe became the first African American to reach the South African Open finals held in Johannesburg and was the doubles winner with Tom Okker of The Netherlands. Black South Africa gave Ashe a name that day: They called him "Sipho," meaning "a gift from God" in Zulu.

The year 1975 was Ashe's best and most consistent season. He was the first and only African American male player to win the "Gentleman's Singles" title in an historic victory on center court at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon. Ashe dethroned the defending champion, Jimmy Connors. President Lyndon Johnson's comment was "Brooke is the only Senator we got; and Marshall the only justice; and Ashe the only tennis player." In 1975 Ashe was ranked Number One in the world, won a singles title in Dallas, and was named ATP Player of the Year. He played as a member of the U.S. Aetna World Cup team, 1970 to 1976 and 1979.

Due to injuries, he sat out most of 1977. Wearing a footcast, Ashe (33) married Jeanne Moutoussamy (25), a professional photographer and television graphic artist. A decade later the couple had a daughter, Camera Elizabeth.

With Tony Roche, Ashe won the Australian Open doubles title in 1977. He almost defeated John McEnroe in the Masters final at Madison Square Garden in January 1979 and was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon in the summer, before a heart attack soon after the tournament ended his legendary career. After his quadruple bypass heart surgery, Ashe had to announce his retirement from competitive tennis.

Ashe as International Role Model

As his first post-retirement venture Ashe served as Davis Cup captain from 1981 to 1985. He was only the second captain in over 30 years to lead the U.S. team to consecutive victories, 1981 and 1982.

His new life was a rebirth with many directions. Ashe's Davis Cup campaigns, his protests against apartheid in South Africa, and his controversial support of higher academic standards for all athletes received much media attention. But he actually spent most of his time quietly dealing with the challenges of the "real world" through public speaking, teaching, writing, business, and voluntary public service.

In 1983 he had double bypass surgery. Ashe became national campaign chairman for the American Heart Association and the only nonmedical member of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Advisory Council. In the late 1970s he had become a consultant to Aetna Life & Casualty Company. He was made a board member in 1982. He represented minority concerns and, later, the causes of the sick.

Ashe developed social programs such as the ABC Cities program, combining tennis and academics; Safe Passage Foundation for poor children, which includes tennis training; Athletes Career Connection; the Black Tennis & Sports Foundation to assist minority athletes; and 15-Love, a substance abuse program conducted through the Eastern Tennis Association.

Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity gave him their Laurel Wreath Award in 1986. He was inducted into the UCLA Sports Hall of Fame, the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, and the Eastern Tennis Association Hall of Fame. He became the first inductee into the U.S. Professional Tennis Association Hall of Fame. He was the first athlete without a link to the Olympic Games to be awarded the coveted Olympic Order.

Ashe spent six years and $300,000 of his own funds to write A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete, a three-volume work published in 1988. Ashe won an Emmy Award for writing a television docudrama based upon his work. The research effort also earned him honorary doctorates from such universities as Virginia Union, Princeton, Dartmouth, Virginia Common-wealth, and South Carolina.

After brain surgery in 1988 came the shocking discovery that he had been infected with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS. Doctors traced this infection back to an unscreened blood transfusion after his second cardiac operation in 1983. To protect his family and his own privacy, he informed only a few friends and associates of his illness. But to avoid possible news reports he publicly disclosed that he was suffering from AIDS at a news conference in April 1992.

Ashe established the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS as a new international organization, with half of the funds generated going to AIDS causes outside the United States. He rallied professional tennis to help raise funds and to increase public awareness of the AIDS epidemic. This foundation coordinated efforts with other groups to provide treatment to AIDS patients and to promote vital AIDS research. He addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on World AIDS Day, December 1, 1992.

Arthur Ashe died of pneumonia related to AIDS on February 6, 1993, in New York City. Mourners paid their respects as Ashe's body lay in state at the Virginia governor's mansion, at a memorial service held in St. John's Cathedral in New York City, and at the funeral at the Ashe Athletic Center in Richmond. In 1996 Ashe's hometown of Richmond, Virginia announced plans to erect a statue in his honor on Richmond's Monument Avenue. The following year, a new tennis stadium at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, was named for him. Up until his death, Ashe remained involved in tennis and sports. He served as a television commentator at tennis matches, sports consultant at tennis clinics and a columnist for the Washington Post.

Further Reading

Arthur Ashe: Portrait in Motion (written with Frank Deford, 1975, 1993) is a "tennis diary" written between Wimbledon 1973 and Wimbledon 1975. In 1981 he also wrote an autobiography (with Neil Amdur) dedicated to his slave ancestors, entitled Off the Court. The last autobiography, Days of Grace: A Memoir, co-authored with Arnold Rampersad, was completed by Ashe 48 hours before he died. Ashe's definitive work, A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete, with Kip Branch, Ocania Chalk, and Francis Harris (1988) covered African-American athletic history from ancestral homelands to the present. For an intimate view of Ashe from a family perspective, see the touching book Daddy and Me: A Photo Essay of Arthur Ashe and His Daughter Camera (1993), with photographs and words by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe. A balanced commentary by Kenny Moore, "He Did All He Could," appeared in Sports Illustrated (February 15, 1993). An article by Terry Pluto, "Statue Right of Way to Honor Ashe," appeared in the Beacon Journal (July 13, 1996).

tennis player; television commentator; writer; activist

Personal Information

Born Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr., July 10, 1943, in Richmond, VA; died February 6, 1993, in New York, NY; son of Arthur, Sr. (a park superintendent) and Mattie (Cunningham) Ashe; married Jeanne-Marie Moutoussamy (a photographer), February 20, 1977; children: Camera Elizabeth.
Education: University of California, Los Angeles, B.A. in business administration, 1966.
Military/Wartime Service: United States Army, first lieutenant, 1967-69.

Career

Amateur tennis player, 1958-69; professional tennis player, 1969-80; has finished first at least once in the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, and Davis Cup championships and was number-one-ranked player in the world, 1968 and 1975; elected to the United States Tennis Hall of Fame c. 1985. Writer, lecturer, tennis coach, and television commentator, 1980-93.

Life's Work

The first black man to reach the top ranks of international tennis, Arthur Ashe is the very personification of the educated gentleman- athlete. Ashe's talents on the tennis courts not only secured his personal fame, they also opened the sport to greater black participation--both on a professional and recreational basis. Wichita Eagle columnist Fred Mann noted that the dignified Ashe has had "as much to do as anyone with transforming tennis in the 1970s into a sport that was popular with the masses." Mann added that the former winner of the prestigious Wimbledon and U.S. Open matches and Tennis Hall of Famer "conducted himself on the court with grace and composure at all times, unlike some of his Caucasian colleagues."

Arthur Ashe was certainly a phenomenon during his playing career and remains one to this day. In the Richmond Times-Dispatch Bob Lipper wrote that Ashe "is wealthy and famous, ... a certified American hero whose visibility endures a decade after his playing career ended. More, he's a voice of reason in a minefield of rhetorical overkill, a conscience on matters of race and sport. And he's an accomplished man of letters." Lipper referred to the critically acclaimed role Ashe has assumed as an author, columnist, and lecturer on issues concerning blacks in sports. "As a tennis player, Arthur Ashe was first-rate--not as successful as he might've been minus the self-imposed emotional constraints that governed his existence in an Anglo world of country clubs and garden parties--but a major force nonetheless," Lipper continued. "Still, it's been during the 1980s--as an ex-athlete--that Ashe has truly become world-class, establishing his credentials as businessman, author, commentator and champion of just causes. He's made it look easy, but then grace always was part of his essence."

Arthur Ashe, Jr., was born July 10th, 1943, in Richmond, Virginia. His ancestry is Native American and Mexican as well as black. While Ashe was a youngster growing up in segregated Richmond, his father ran the largest park for blacks in the city. In fact, the Ashe family lived in a caretaker's cottage right in the park, so young Arthur spent many hours engaged in athletic pursuits. Lipper described Arthur Ashe, Sr., as a hardworking man who "subscribed to such fuddy-duddy virtues as diligence and respect and honest labor, and he expected nothing less from his children." From his father Ashe inherited a sense of pride, dedication, and dignity. His mother's influence led to a measure of introversion that translated to studied calm on the court. Ashe's was not a trouble-free childhood. He told the Chicago Tribune: "My mom died when I was six, and books and sports were my way of bandaging the wound. I was too light for football and not quite fast enough for track, which left tennis as a logical choice."

The choice might have been more logical for a white youngster in those last days of nationally legislated racism. Black players-- with the outstanding exception of Althea Gibson--were almost nonexistent in the highest amateur and professional ranks. Still Ashe persevered, taking encouragement from the success of baseball player Jackie Robinson. He was also encouraged in his all-black school in Richmond, where he says he received an excellent education. "It was part of a curious phenomenon I call the paradoxical advantage of segregation," Ashe told the Chicago Tribune. "Discrimination plus the bias women faced in the job market combined to provide us with some truly remarkable teachers.... Every day we got the same message drummed into us. 'Despite discrimination and lynch mobs,' teachers told us, 'some black folks have always managed to find a way to succeed. Okay, this may not be the best-equipped school; that just means you're going to have to be a little better prepared than white kids and ready to seize any opportunity that comes your way.'" Ashe did seize the opportunity--he was an honors student in high school and was accepted at the University of California, Los Angeles, on a tennis scholarship.

Ashe began playing tennis at the age of seven in the playground that his father maintained. Ronald Charity, a part-time instructor at the playground, noticed Ashe's talent and arranged for the boy to meet Dr. Walter Johnson, a black doctor based in Lynchburg, Virginia. In addition to his medical practice, Johnson enjoyed coaching promising black tennis players and provided them with proper equipment and courts. He detected Ashe's potential very early and did everything he could to advance the youngster's career. Unfortunately, Johnson's lessons also necessarily had to stress court etiquette for black players; since the game was so dominated by whites, and Johnson and his charges lived in the South, he taught his players to accept defeat graciously and to celebrate victories with humility.

Ashe was playing as a nationally ranked amateur by the time he turned 14. In both 1960 and 1961 he won the junior indoor singles title, a feat that brought him to the attention of Richard Hudlin, a tennis coach in the St. Louis area. Hudlin invited Ashe to St. Louis to continue his tennis training. Ashe accepted the offer and finished high school there. By 1962 he was the fifth-ranked junior player in the United States.

Such a dry recital of the facts makes Ashe's accomplishments sound easy. In reality he faced a multitude of race-related obstacles, including being barred from competition because his application arrived "too late"--a favorite excuse of segregated country clubs. When he was allowed to play Ashe often found himself surrounded by a sea of white faces, both on and off the court. He was the lone black star in his sport and he remained ever conscious of the example he was setting. Ashe told the Wichita Eagle that despite his success, his self-esteem suffered from the treatment he had received from whites while growing up in the South. "You never fully overcome {racism}," he said. "I hate to say it, but you live with it all your life. You get the undeniable impression that the world doesn't like you," he continued.

After graduating from high school Ashe accepted a scholarship at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). There he perfected his skills with UCLA coach J. D. Morgan and tennis legend Pancho Gonzalez, who lived near the campus. In 1963 Ashe earned a place on the Davis Cup team and earned a victory in his first national contest, the U.S. Men's Hard Court championship. The following year saw him ranked sixth nationally among amateurs, and in 1965--after singles victories in the Davis Cup finals and a tour of Australia--he became the second-ranked amateur in the nation. Ashe closed out his collegiate tennis career by leading UCLA to the NCAA national championship, winning in both singles and doubles competition. Not one to neglect his studies in favor of tennis, however, Ashe earned a Bachelor's degree in business administration in June of 1966.

Ashe continued to play tennis during his military service, which he served as a first lieutenant from the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. In the midst of his stint with the army he won the 1967 Men's Clay Court championship and the United States amateur title. The latter victory earned him an invitation to the U.S. Open tournament; it came as little surprise to tennis observers when Ashe won the Open and became the top-ranked player in the nation in 1968. Even in those glory days, however, the tennis star felt isolated by his race. He told Sports Illustrated: "It's an abnormal world I live in. I don't belong anywhere. It's like I'm floating down the middle. I'm never quite sure where I am.... I do get lonely and it does bother me that I am in this predicament. But I don't dwell on it, because I know it will resolve itself."

Displaying a composure well beyond his years and a vast repertory of power backhands, Ashe remained among the top-five-ranked tennis stars internationally between 1969 and 1975. Observers noted his relaxed demeanor on the court and the calm but grim determination that often unnerved his more volatile opponents. Few in the audience realized that Ashe was far more emotional than he seemed. Before important matches he would sometimes be stricken with nervous stomach cramps; Ashe has since admitted that he wishes he could have been more free with his feelings during those crucial years. Ashe turned professional in 1969 and played numerous important matches throughout the following decade. His game peaked in 1975 when he won both the prestigious Wimbledon Singles championship and the World Championship Tennis Singles. By that time the changing racial climate had improved sports opportunities for black athletes and Ashe was hailed as a pioneer in his field: He was the first black man to win at Wimbledon and the first to receive a number-one ranking internationally.

In 1979, at the age of thirty-five, Ashe suffered a major heart attack. He underwent quadruple bypass surgery, vowing to return to tennis as soon as he healed. Upon recovery, however, he still suffered chest pains and was threatened with further surgery. He announced his retirement from tennis in April of 1980. "An athlete retires twice," Ashe told the Chicago Tribune. "The first time is when they don't renew your contract. But for a couple of years afterwards you still think you could get in shape again and play another season or two. Then one day you look in the mirror and the reality finally sinks in that it's time to find something else to do with the rest of your life."

So Arthur Ashe the tennis star became Arthur Ashe the author, lecturer, and social critic. Few former athletes of any race have put their college educations to greater use than did Ashe. In 1982 he was invited to give a seminar on the history of blacks in sports at Florida Memorial College. When he went to the library to research the topic, he found very little documentation of black accomplishment in professional sports, especially before the days of Negro League baseball. Investing $300,000 of his own money and several years in the process of research and writing, Ashe produced A Hard Road to Glory, a three-volume comprehensive history of America's black athletes. "The project was a natural," Ashe told the Chicago Tribune, "since it brought both sides of me, the bookish and the sports-minded, together. Once I made the decision to do it, I had to go at the book the way I've always done things-- the way our teachers at Maggie Walker High School insisted upon-- all out, with everything I've got." A Hard Road to Glory received critical acclaim and went into a second printing. It earned Ashe a number of honorary doctorates from the nation's universities and even an Emmy award when it was produced as a television documentary.

Having had two heart attacks, Ashe guarded his health with great care. In, 1988, he underwent brain surgery. Ashe was then diagnosed with AIDS. He had contracted the virus from an unchecked blood transfusion during his heart surgery in 1983. Though diagnosed in 1988 Ashe kept his illness a secret until a newspaper threatened exposure in 1992. He made the announcement at a press conference. Not one to back down from a challenge, Ashe established the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS. He also joined the boards of the Harvard AIDS Institute and the UCLA AIDS Institute. As he solicited help from professional tennis to raise funds and increase awareness of this deadly disease.

Already an activist--he spoke out against apartheid in South Africa, racism--he became a champion of human causes. He spoke on the importance of educating young minds. He spoke about the tragedies of the inner cities. He protested against the U.S. immigration policy toward Haitians. He questioned the lack of funding for AIDS research. He also spoke at the General Assembly of the United Nations concerning AIDS issues on World AIDS Day in December of 1992.

During his last months, Ashe wrote a final biography entitled Days of Grace: A Memoir. He covered the social issues that were important to him, his living with AIDS and his family, especially his daughter, Camera. On February 6, 1993, Arthur Ashe died of pneumonia, a complication of AIDS, in New York City. His body lay in state at the Virginia governor's mansion as many people paid their last respects. A memorial service was held in St. John's Cathedral in New York City, and the funeral took place at the Ashe Athletic Center in Richmond, Virginia.

To commemorate Ashe's life, a statue was erected on Monument Avenue in Richmond. A new stadium at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow, New York, was also named after Ashe. Though known for his accomplishments on the tennis courts, Ashe was a symbol of grace and hope to all. Perhaps writer S. L. Price of Sports Illustrated stated it best: "Sport is fleeting. Wonderful careers spark, blaze and flame out in a decade; the typical champion spends his remaining 50 years in a kind of endless cast party, full of backslaps and soggy nostalgia. Not Ashe. He knew that his place in history gave him authority, a platform he could either sleep on or speak from for the rest of his days. He made his choice. It made him different."

Awards

Named Player of the Year, 1975; honorary doctorates from Virginia Commonwealth University, Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Le Moyne University, and others. Emmy Award for television adaptation of A Hard Road to Glory. Named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year, 1992; a tennis club in Manayunk, Pennsylvania, has been named in Ashe's honor; center named the Ashe Athletic Center in Richmond, Virginia; statue erected on Monument Avenue in Richmond, 1996; stadium named in his honor in Flushing Meadow, New York, 1997.

Works

Writings

• (With Frank Deford) Advantage Ashe, Coward, 1967.
• (With Frank DeFord) Portrait in Motion, Houghton, 1975.
• Arthur Ashe's Tennis Clinic, illustrations by Jim McQueen, Golf Digest/Tennis Magazine, 1981.
• (With Neil Amdur) Off the Court, New American Library, 1981.
• A Hard Road to Glory, 3 volumes, Warner Books, 1988.
• (With Arnold Rampersad) Days of Grace: A Memoir, Knopf, 1993.

Further Reading

Books

• Contemporary Authors, vol. 42, Gale Research, 1994.
• Encyclopedia of World Biography, vol. 1, Gale Research, 1998.
• Something About the Author, vol. 87, Gale Research, 1996.

Periodicals

• Chicago Tribune, November 28, 1988.
• Life, October 15, 1965.
• Newsday, February 12, 1991.
• New York Times Magazine, January 2, 1966.
• People, March 6, 1989.
• Philadelphia Inquirer, April 25, 1990.
• Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 21, 1989.
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 26, 1988.
• Sports Illustrated, September 20, 1965; August 29, 1966; February 15, 1993; September 19, 1994.
• Wichita Eagle, February 21, 1990.

— Mark Kram and Ashyia N. Henderson

Ashe, Arthur Robert, 1943-93, American tennis player, b. Richmond, Va. Ashe rose from his hometown's public courts to become the first African-American male to reach prominence in tennis. He won the 1965 intercollegiate singles championship while at the Univ. of California at Los Angeles. Denied a visa by South Africa on racial grounds in 1970, Ashe forced the issue, appearing before the United Nations and urging the World Tennis Union to expel South Africa because of its apartheid policy. Noted for his grace, hard-hit topspin, and outstanding backhand, Ashe won the 1968 U.S. Open, the 1970 Australian Open, and the 1975 Wimbledon title. He retired as a player following a 1979 heart attack, but continued to serve as the U.S. Davis Cup captain. In 1992 he announced that he had acquired AIDS from a heart operation years earlier. He remained an active spokesperson on many issues, including race relations and AIDS, until his death.

An African-American tennis player who rose to fame in a sport previously dominated by whites. Ashe won many championships, including the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. He died in 1993 of AIDS, which he contracted from a blood transfusion. He is honored by a statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia.

Quotes:

"Every time you win, it diminishes the fear a little bit. You never really cancel the fear of losing; you keep challenging it."

"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life."

"Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory."

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation."

"There is a syndrome in sports called paralysis by analysis."

"Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome. Not everyone can be Number 1."

See more famous quotes by Arthur Ashe

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