Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. was an American World No. 1 professional tennis player.
Background
Growing Up Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. was born on July 10, 1943, near Richmond, Virginia, in one of the local hospitals that cared for black citizens.
In 1947, his father was made superintendent of the blacks-only Brook Field, a public park with a pool, tennis courts, basketball courts and baseball fields.
Even the playgrounds of his childhood years were segregated, and he watched from a distance as white children played tennis, a game that immediately fascinated him.
Ashe was further encouraged by his father, a strict but loving disciplinarian who steeped in his son the virtues of morality.
Then, in 1950, about a year after he'd first picked up a tennis racquet, his mother, Mattie Cordell Cunningham Ashe, died unexpectedly.
The seven-year-old Ashe was devastated and refused to attend her burial.
Education
Integrated schools were also unheard of in the South, so Ashe attended an all-black school.
Attending a segregated elementary school in Richmond, he and his classmates were always taught they had to work harder than white children in order to succeed.
He graduated from Sumner High School with the highest grade point average.
However, Ashe's coach urged him to major in business administration so he could better balance his studies, tennis practice and travel, ROTC, and the 250 hours of work his scholarship required he give to the college.
After boot camp, he was offered the position of assistant tennis coach at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, which he accepted, but it still didn't leave him much time to develop his game.
Career
His brief but rich life as a champion tennis player, a father, an African-American man, and a compassionate and courageous human being.
Ashe himself admitted in 1989 that had he focused only on tennis he could have been a better competitor.
The Ashes moved to the caretaker's cottage in the center of Brook Field, which soon became young Arthur's entire universe.
A student at Virginia Union University and part-time tennis teacher at Brook Field, Ronald Charity, soon recognized Ashe's natural talent. But Ashe was not at all discouraged.
By the time he was ten, Ashe was competing against and defeating older, stronger boys, but the most important lesson he learned from Charity wasn't about shot-making; it was about sportsmanship. Phenomenon not to gloat, as did his next instructor, Dr. Walter Johnson.
Johnson was a physician in Lynchburg, Virginia, who in his spare time coached African-American tennis players during summers at his home.
His protégé, Althea Gibson, was the first to break the color barrier of the American Lawn Tennis league in 1956, after which she won the French and Italian titles, and numerous wins at Wimbledon and the United States Open.
From the summer of 1953 to the summer of 1960, Ashe worked with Dr. Johnson, who not only fine-tuned Ashe's game but also his conduct, the etiquette and composure that would become an Ashe hallmark.
Ashe, like Johnson's other students, was schooled in the courteous acceptance of defeat and the humble pride of victory.
Once there, Ashe learned to leave his solid baseline game and became one of the original serve-and-volley players.
Numerous universities offered the young athlete and scholar a place in their freshman class.
When Ashe entered UCLA he was twenty-eighth in the United States amateur rankings.
Two years and numerous tournaments later, Ashe was ranked sixth.
Under the tutelage of coach J. D. Morgan, who'd scouted Ashe, and Pancho Gonzalez , Ashe honed his aggressive court style, with a powerful backhand and speed-of-light serve.
This was the ammunition that made him such a success on the faster grass and hard court surfaces.
But perhaps most satisfying was the naming of February 4 as Arthur Ashe Day in the city of Richmond.
Though still an amateur, he'd won numerous tournaments against the sport's best players, and his Davis Cup team performance was admirable.
But he hadn't taken a single Grand Slam event.
That summer he played well at Wimbledon, though he fell to Rod Laver in the semi-finals.
In addition, his Davis Cup team took the title from the Australians, a win Ashe cherished above all others.
He once said he never lost sleep over any tournament other than the Davis Cup.
He was appointed tennis director at the Doral Resort and Country Club in Miami, Florida, and even made the tabloid gossip pages when he dated fashion models and stars such as singer Diana Ross.
Ashe put his hard-won fame to use.
He turned professional in 1969 and immediately began to work to protect players' rights and interests.
The United States Department of State sent him to Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, where he met with government leaders, students, and diplomats.
The following year, as a member of a delegation of tennis players, Ashe visited Cameroon, Gabon, Senegal, and Cote d'Ivoire.
Over the course of the next few years, Ashe's game seemed to stagnate.
A new generation of competitors, such as Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors, were testing his dynamic serve-and-volley game with power, precision, and an almost appalling sense of confidence.
In 1971, while attending a tennis clinic at a local club, Noah was given the chance to play with Ashe, who was making his second goodwill tour of Africa.
Ashe, moved by the youngster's plight and his talent, arranged to have Noah enrolled at the French Tennis Federation (FTF) training center in Nice, France, where he trained for five years. One year short of graduation, Noah left school to focus exclusively on tennis.
By 1975, Ashe's ranking had sunk to fifth place. He did. But an even bigger victory was in sight.
When Arthur Ashe stepped onto the grass at Wimbledon and bowed to the Royal Box, the last thing on hismind was the fact that he was the first African American to compete in the exclusive court of the world's oldest tennis tournament.
The date was July 5, 1975, and Ashe was playing for the men's singles title.
The challenge would require his complete concentration.
The two had battled before and in all three of their matches, Ashe had been the loser.
Sports fans on both sides of the Atlantic expected the brash and self-taught Connors to "slaughter" Ashe, as Ashe noted in his memoir Days of Grace.
In addition, only days before Wimbledon, Connors had filed a lawsuit against Ashe for libel. Ashe was not intimidated.
He'd stood by his principles, having accused Connors of playing matches for big purses while refusing to join the United States squad for the international Davis Cup competition, where players are paid in the currency of patriotic honor, not hard cash.
Despite the lawsuit, Ashe retained his cool and even demeanor.
Ashe won Wimbledon by finessing the hard-hitting Connors with a brilliantly strategic game of defensive tennis.
He played conservatively, hitting balls deep then rushing the net, keeping Connors off balance.
Also, Ashe had decided that rather than try to outpower the southpaw, he'd hit the ball softly, breaking Connors' rhythm. It would also force Connors to generate his own power, rather than simply redirect the ball using Ashe's velocity.
Ashe's plan for the historic match would later help some of the decade's best players Bjorn Borg, Ivan Lendl, and John McEnroe undercut Connors' phenomenal, dominating power game.
With a 6-1, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 victory at Wimbledon, he not only obtained the number-one ranking in the world that year but saw the culmination of a lifetime of struggle. This caused his ranking to fall, which in turn led the sportswear company Catalina to drop Ashe as a key endorser.
In 1977, Noah won the French junior title and the Wimbledon junior title, after which he went professional.
In 1978, Noah took the Australian Open and United States Open singles titles, and in 1979 made it to the semis and finals at the French Open and Wimbledon.
By 1979 Ashe still wasn't ready to give up tennis.
He played thirteen tournaments but reached the finals in only two.
Then, on July 30, a tremendous pain in his chest woke the athlete from a sound sleep. Within an hour, the pain would recur twice. Each time it subsided he went back to sleep. The next day, Ashe gave two tennis clinics in New York and while signing autographs, was struck again. Arthur Ashe had had a heart attack. In December he underwent a quadruple bypass surgery. He would never play tennis again.
But Ashe was optimistic and tried to get back into competition shape.
It was not to be.
His Grand Slam performances earned him the top ranking in France in 1980.
On April 16, 1980, Ashe announced his retirement from competitive tennis. Yet he remained actively involved in the sport.
That year he was made captain of the United States Davis Cup team, whose members included the mercurial John McEnroe, Peter Fleming, and Vitas Gerulaitis, and led the team to victory in 1981 and 1982.
He worked as a sports commentator for ABC and HBO television, gave innumerable clinics to inner city children, wrote articles and books on the sport, made a tennis video, and in 1985 was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1983, Ashe underwent a second bypass operation.
Weak from the procedure, he was given a blood transfusion to try to bolster his strength and speed his recovery.
He came back to his game to win the Italian Open in 1985, but what looked like an auspicious return to the game was only transitory.
He played his way to the finals of many tournaments and achieved the ranking in 1986 of third in the world in singles play and first in doubles, yet the more prestigious titles eluded him.
In 1988, Ashe needed an operation on his brain, and tests following that surgery were positive for the virus that causes AIDS.
Doctors concluded that Ashe had contracted HIV from the transfusion he was given following his second heart surgery.
At the time the news was a death sentence. Ashe completed his final memoir, Days of Grace, just two days before he died.
That spirit kept Ashe active and outspoken throughout his fatal illness. Arthur Ashe's legacy is manifold. Rarely have sports celebrities taken on social issues with such passion and commitment as did Ashe.
In 1990, when President Nelson Mandela, freed from his South African jail after twenty-seven years, was asked which American he'd most like to meet, his immediate response was "Arthur Ashe. "
Achievements
In 1963, while still a student at the University of California, Los Angeles, Ashe became the first black to be named to a United States Davis Cup team.
From 1955 to 1963, Ashe won titles in American Tennis Association (ATA) competitions. (The ATA was the African-American equivalent of the United States Lawn Tennis Association. )
By the time he graduated from UCLA, he'd captured the NCAA singles and doubles (with Ian Crookenden) titles, played on the United States Davis Cup team, won the Johnston Award for his contribution to the sport, and was the country's number-one collegiate competitor.
In 1966, won the United States Clay Court Championship the following year, and at one point had a 9-0 singles Davis Cup record, but he missed a number of major tournaments and lost in the third round in straight sets to Australian John Newcombe at the United States Nationals.
In 1977, Noah won the French junior title and the Wimbledon junior title, after which he went professional.
He won three Grand Slam titles.
On June 20, 1993, Ashe was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the United States President Bill Clinton.
In 1979, Arthur Ashe was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. In commenting on his induction, the Hall noted that, "Arthur Ashe was certainly a hero to people of all ages and races, and his legacy continues to touch the lives of many today.
For Arthur Ashe, tennis was a means to an end. Although he had a lucrative tennis career, it was always more than personal glory and individual accolades. He used his status as an elite tennis player to speak out against the moral inequalities that existed both in and out of the tennis world.
Ashe sincerely wanted to bring about change in the world. What made him stand out was that he became a world champion along the way.
In 1982, The Arthur Ashe Athletic Center, a 6, 000 seat multi-purpose arena was built in Richmond, Virginia. It hosts local sporting events and concerts.
He was inducted into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Hall of Fame in 1983.
In 1985, Ashe was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
In 1986, Ashe won a Sports Emmy for co-writing the documentary "A Hard Road to Glory, " co-written with Bryan Polivka.
On December 3, 1992, Ashe was presented with the "Sports Legend" Award by the American Sportscasters Association at their Eighth annual Hall of Fame Awards Dinner in New York City.
On June 20, 1993, Ashe was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.
In 1993, Ashe received the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
In 1993, Dream Theater dedicated their song "Surrounded" off of Images And Words to the memory and legacy of Ashe after he had died from AIDS.
In 1996 the city of Richmond posthumously honored Ashe's life with a statue on Monument Avenue, a place traditionally reserved for statues of key figures of the Confederacy. This decision led to some controversy in a city that was the capital of the Confederate States during the American Civil War.
The main stadium at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Park, where the US Open is played, is named Arthur Ashe Stadium in his honor. This is also the home of the annual Arthur Ashe Kids' Day.
In 2002, Ashe winning Wimbledon in 1975 was voted 95th in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Arthur Ashe on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
In 2005, the United States Postal Service announced the release of an Arthur Ashe commemorative postal stamp, the first stamp ever to feature the cover of a Sports Illustrated magazine.
Also in 2005, TENNIS Magazine put him in 30th place in their list of the 40 Greatest Players of the TENNIS Era.
ESPN's annual sports awards, the ESPY Awards, hands out the Arthur Ashe for Courage Award to a member of the sports world who best exhibits courage in the face of adversity.
Philadelphia's Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education Center (now named Legacy Youth Tennis and Education Center) and Richmond's Arthur Ashe Athletic Center have been named for Ashe.
The Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center at Ashe's alma mater, UCLA, is named for him. The center opened in 1997.
Quotations:
"No, it isn't, " he wrote in his memoir. "Being Black is the greatest burden I've had to bear. … Having to live as a minority in America. Even now it continues to feel like an extra weight tied around me.
"In 1992, USA Today threatened to run a story announcing that Ashe had AIDS. But he never asked for pity. "No, it isn't, " he wrote in his memoir. "
"When I took the match point, all the years, all the effort, all the support I had received over the years came together, " he later reflected".
"I know I could never forgive myself, " Ashe wrote in his memoir, "if I elected to live without human purpose, without trying to help the poor and unfortunate, without recognizing that perhaps the purest joy in life comes from trying to help others" .
"We deify black athletes, " the Houston Chronicle quoted Ashe as saying in 1992. "Black families are eight times more likely to push youngsters into athletics than are white families. … The disparity is glaring. " Shortly after his retirement, Ashe said (according to an article on About. com), "We have been on the same roads-sports and entertainmenttoo long. "
Personality
Ashe was a sickly kid who suffered from measles, chickenpox, mumps, whooping cough, and diphtheria, among other illnesses, which left him thin and weak.
His height was about - 6 ft 2 in (1. 88 m)
Quotes from others about the person
"He was out doing things, making his point, and taking care of business right up until the end, " former competitor Jimmy Connors recalled in Sports Stars. "I guess that sums up everything he stood for. "
Connections
On February 20, 1977, Ashe married Jeanne Moutoussamy, a photographer and graphic artist he met in October 1976 at a United Negro College Fund benefit.
Andrew Young, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, performed the wedding ceremony in the United Nations chapel, New York City.
During the ceremony Ashe wore a cast on his left foot having had an operation on an injured heel ten days earlier.
In December 1986, Ashe and Moutoussamy adopted a daughter. She was named Camera after her mother's profession.
