Arthur Ashe

by Raymond Arsenault

  When the friendly rivals came out for the fourth set, Ashe was definitely the fresher of the two, and less than a half hour later it was all over. By a score of 6–2, he won the fourth set—and the match. Later in the day, Ken Rosewall—the diminutive but venerable thirty-three-year-old pro who had won the first French Open singles title back in June, the man known in the locker room as “Muscles”—suffered a mild upset in the second semifinal match. In a victory of youth over experience, twenty-three-year-old Tom Okker surprised just about everyone by winning in four sets to advance to the final against Ashe. Technically still an amateur, the Dutchman had chosen the hybrid status of registered player, which meant he could accept prize money in Open tournaments. So win or lose, he would take home the top prize of $14,000 after playing against a true amateur in the title match.41

  Another oddity was an unexpected hitch in the coordination of the doubles and singles schedules. Since Ashe and his partner, the Spanish pro Andrés Gimeno, were still alive in the doubles competition but had yet to finish their semifinal match against Graebner and Pasarell—a match suspended because of darkness—Ashe faced the prospect of playing three matches in less than twenty-four hours. Trying to facilitate a live television broadcast of the singles final, the tournament organizers scheduled the singles final for 3 p.m. on Monday, even though this meant Ashe and Gimeno would have only a few minutes of daylight in which to complete their semifinal doubles match. Predictably, the doubles semifinal had to be suspended for a second time early Monday evening, pushing its completion into Tuesday morning. After Ashe and Gimeno pulled out the match after playing 42 games over three days, the exhausted duo still had to play the doubles final, which not surprisingly they lost to the formidable team of Smith and Lutz.

  The delayed completion of the men’s doubles competition was embarrassing for Forest Hills officials eager to show they knew how to put on an Open tournament. But the real culprit was the marathon, 65-game singles final that consumed most of Monday afternoon. When the first set lasted almost an hour, ending in a 14–12 Ashe victory, the crowd at Forest Hills Stadium suspected they were in for a long day. Over the next two hours the momentum swung back and forth with no one gaining the upper hand until Ashe surged ahead in the fifth set. All through the match Ashe used pinpoint backhands and blistering serves—he had 26 aces—to neutralize Okker’s speed and mobility, and in the end he had too much firepower for the Dutchman.42

  Arthur would never forget the scene after the final point. “After two hours and forty minutes,” he recalled in 1981, “I could hardly believe it was over. I spun, stood at crouched attention like a well-drilled West Point Cadet and aimed my racquet handle at the tarpaulin-covered stadium wall. I walked slowly behind the umpire’s chair, clasped my hands, and then held them up as if a fifteen-round decision had just been announced in my favor.” For Arthur, not given to on-court displays of emotion, the release came during the award ceremony that followed. “My father came on to the court with me,” he recounted, “and it felt wonderful to share that moment with him. Dr. J was in the stands. Bob Kelleher introduced me as ‘General Ashe,’ as I laughed and hugged my father. He was crying. . . . I hadn’t seen him cry that much in years. When he said, ‘Well done, son,’ I knew how much that moment must have meant to him.”43

  The next day, one journalist commented: “Perhaps with more than 7,000 fans standing and applauding yesterday, his father’s arms wrapped around his shoulders. Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. finally believed he belonged.” Nevertheless, during the press conference following his victory, the new champion stressed his unique experiences as the only black in Open tennis. He embraced the opportunity to discuss his recent turn to a more activist stance, startling reporters by insisting “this country could use another three or four Browns and Carmichaels,” a reference to the black militants H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael whom he had criticized in the past. At another point he alluded to his bond with Gonzales, “whose skin was closest to mine” in the overwhelmingly white tennis world.

  Finally, before joining friends and family for a celebration, he turned to his passion for Davis Cup play. As he told the reporters, knowing that his words would get back to Dell: “It’s nice to hear the announcer say, ‘Point . . . Ashe.’ But I’d rather hear him say, ‘Point . . . United States.’ ” Avoiding any mention of South Africa or Harry Edwards’s proposed Olympic boycott, he focused on the primacy of representing his nation.44

  In an opinion piece in The New York Times the next day, Arthur Daley emphasized the importance of the Ashe-Drysdale match, applauding Ashe’s decision to share the court with a white South African. When asked about his feelings on the matter, Ashe responded: “Sure it entered my mind that Cliff is from South Africa. I couldn’t help but think of it.” Nevertheless, by taking the match in stride, he provided Daley with a perfect opening to strike a blow against advocates of the boycott. “If Arthur Ashe had defaulted to Cliff Drysdale as a protest against South African racial policies,” Daley assured his readers, “he would not have accomplished a fraction as much as he did by meeting, and beating him in direct confrontation.”45

  Ashe agreed with Daley’s argument. But as much as he would have liked to, he could not hang around in New York to discuss the fine points of the boycott debate with Daley or anyone else. Prior to the U.S. Open, Dell had arranged for the Davis Cup team to participate in the Desert Inn Invitational in Las Vegas, Nevada, scheduled to begin one day after the close of the Open. By the afternoon of September 11, Ashe was under the scorching Nevada sun playing a singles match against Dell, a strong player who could still give his players a run for their money on the court. The twenty-five-year-old won the match against his thirty-year-old captain, and went on to win the tournament, beating Graebner in the final.

  After enjoying his brief visit to Las Vegas’s adult playground, Ashe headed back to West Point to resume his duties at the data processing office. He had hardly been there since the late spring, so he wasn’t sure what to expect from the colleagues he had all but abandoned. His fellow officers, it turned out, could not have been happier for him and warmly congratulated him for winning the Open. But the best part of his West Point homecoming was the reception he received from the cadets. “I was invited to dinner in the Great Hall,” he recalled with emotion years later. “I’ll never forget the 31/2-minute ovation they gave me. Only a few people have been so honored by the entire corps at mess. I knew how special this outpouring was, and I was grateful.” As he waited for the applause to die down, Lieutenant Ashe also knew how fortunate he was to live in an era of expanding horizons, when someone from the Jim Crow streets of Jackson Ward could experience such a moment.46

  ELEVEN

  MR. COOL

  ASHE’S DOUBLE VICTORY IN the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open changed his life beyond recognition. During the fall of 1968, the twenty-five-year-old Army lieutenant discovered what it was like to be a true celebrity. As a top-flight tennis player and the only African American on the men’s tour, he was accustomed to a certain amount of attention. But he had no previous experience with the intense media scrutiny and public exposure that accompanied national acclaim. Suddenly, his off-court activities and opinions were a matter of public interest as privacy gave way to influence and visibility. “Being thrust on center stage,” he later recalled, “gave me a great opportunity to reach people.”1

  Ashe’s new life of interviews, cover stories, and public appearances began in earnest a week after the Open when he appeared on Face the Nation hosted by Martin Agronsky. Face the Nation featured interviews with prominent politicians and newsmakers, and Ashe was the first athlete to be interviewed on the show since its debut in 1954. Poised and articulate, he handled Agronsky’s questions with surprising ease for someone so young. In rapid succession, he held forth on a number of issues related to race, civil rights, and the civic responsibilities of black athletes.

  He returned to these themes later in the week as a guest on The Joey Bishop Show, a late night t
alk show on ABC, and he also appeared on The Dating Game, trumpeting his status as an eligible bachelor. In early October, he joined several other black celebrities as a guest on Soul, a new Ford Foundation–funded variety show aimed at New York City’s black community. Sitting onstage with the likes of Malcolm X’s widow, Betty Shabazz, he could hardly believe his good fortune. Life as a celebrity was becoming fun.2

  Ashe’s accomplishments soon made the pages of magazines ranging from The New Yorker to Vogue, and in late September he even found himself on the cover of Life. The cover photo captured a steely-eyed Ashe charging the net, and inside the magazine a flattering, five-page photo essay concluded with a brief but revealing interview by David Wolf. “Detachment—that air of icy elegance—is part of Ashe’s image now,” Wolf insisted. “It is an extra piece of identification that will enhance his celebrity. Paul Hornung had his harem. Ty Cobb his uncontrollable rage. Arthur Ashe has his cool.”

  Arthur himself seemed to agree, declaring: “What I like best about myself is my demeanor. I seldom get ruffled.” But when asked to explain his recent success on the tour, he steered the conversation in an entirely different direction. In the past, he told Wolf, he had lacked a secure sense of racial identity and a realistic connection to the world around him. Sheltered and protected by his father, he had been “preconditioned to think in a segregated environment.” “There were places we couldn’t go, but we just accepted it,” he explained. “Now I realize that has a deep effect. You grow up thinking you’re inferior, and you’re never quite sure of yourself.”

  His newfound confidence and assertiveness on the court, he reasoned, had a lot to do with his recent decisions to assert himself off the court. During the last two years, following his graduation from UCLA, he had been inspired by “a social revolution among people my age. I finally stopped trying to be part of white society and started to establish a black identity for myself.” That evolving identity had led him to support the Olympic boycott movement, to become involved in the Urban League’s inner-city programs, and to try to make up for years of inattention to social and racial issues. “I’m not the favorite person of a lot of people in the black community,” he confessed. “I’ll be the first to admit that I arrived late. I’ve got a backlog of unpaid dues.”3

  In November, Arthur’s newfound activism found further public expression in a lengthy profile in Ebony magazine. Although “in the early days black militancy was not his bag,” feature writer Louie Robinson Jr. reported, “a different Arthur Ashe speaks today . . . his attitude on his responsibilities in the cause of black justice has changed. . . . Ashe sees himself as ‘definitely more militant’ today, and believes his old idea of simply achieving as much as one can individually and ‘setting an example’ is not enough.” “It’s changed mostly because I’m older and wiser,” Arthur insisted, adding, “Then there’s outside pressures. What was liberal five years ago may be moderate now.” In keeping with the spirit of the times, he had moved beyond the guiding principles of his carefully controlled Richmond boyhood, summarized by Robinson as “be neat and clean, work hard, mind your manners and don’t cause trouble.” While Arthur still adhered to the first three principles, he no longer put much stock in the fourth. As a freethinking adult, he was determined to do what he could to advance the cause of social justice, even at the risk of being labeled a troublemaker.4

  Arthur did not, however, go looking for trouble, at least not yet. If he felt sure of himself when addressing an issue, he did not hesitate to speak his mind. Yet on a number of issues related to race and politics he was still mulling over his options. A case in point was his mixed response to the Olympic boycott controversy. The proposed boycott by African nations had become moot in April when the IOC sustained South Africa’s banishment from the Olympics. But the continuing agitation by Harry Edwards and the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) placed considerable pressure on African American athletes either to stay away from the Summer Olympics in Mexico City or to make some sort of gesture on behalf of black solidarity once they were there.

  On October 16, two black American Olympians, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, shocked Olympic officials and much of the sporting world by doing just that. After placing first and third in the 200-meter dash, the two San Jose State runners, both OPHR members, appeared at the medal ceremony wearing black socks but no shoes. When the American national anthem began to play, each man bowed his head and raised an arm with a black-gloved hand held high, a gesture widely interpreted as a Black Power salute. Suspended from the American delegation, Smith and Carlos immediately became symbols of racial pride to some and objects of derision and outrage to others. Ashe couldn’t decide quite how to react to their provocative violation of the Olympic ban on political protest. Years later he would praise Smith’s and Carlos’s courage, but at the time he made no public statement on the matter. What Edwards called “the Revolt of the Black Athlete” had begun, but Ashe wasn’t sure he was ready to join the revolution.5

  At this point in his life, he was having too much fun to be an ideologue. The Life and Ebony profiles both noted his jet-setter lifestyle and the fun-loving side of his character, especially when it came to women. According to Wolf, Arthur’s Davis Cup teammates envied “his collection of beautiful girls of all colors,” and Robinson pointed out that in Arthur’s “part of the tennis world, the food is good . . . the accommodations are comfortable, and the girls are plentiful. And while Arthur’s sense of restraint prevents his qualifying as a playboy . . . the pleasures are considerable.” To make the point, Robinson ended the piece with the image of Arthur being picked up at the Los Angeles airport by a chauffeured Cadillac limousine, compliments of the comedian Bill Cosby. “Arthur eased himself inside,” Robinson wrote admiringly, “and glided off into the velvety blue of the California night. He never lost his cool.”6

  Arthur could hardly be blamed for enjoying the moment and taking a measure of pride in his new status. He was, after all, a black man born and raised under the dominion of Jim Crow—the first of his race since Althea Gibson to become a Grand Slam champion and bona fide tennis celebrity. He had reached the mountaintop, and the climb up had not been easy. He had also arrived at the pinnacle of American tennis under less than ideal conditions as a wartime Army lieutenant on leave. Somehow, the tumultuous months of 1968—a time rent with political protests and assassinations and deep social divisions—had proven to be his breakthrough year.

  Arthur’s achievements during this time—his last full year as an amateur—were nothing short of remarkable. Playing in only 22 tournaments, he won 10, including both the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur. His overall match record of 72–10 represented a winning percentage of 87.8, one of the highest figures in the history of competitive tennis. A semifinalist at Wimbledon, he made the finals of the U.S. Open doubles and led the American Davis Cup team to victory, winning 11 of 12 singles matches. When the final American rankings for the year were released, no one was surprised that Arthur was ranked number one.7

  Public acknowledgment of his stature came in many forms, from magazine cover stories to laudatory comments by his peers. But one sure sign of his new status during the fall of 1968 was the hovering presence of the journalist John McPhee. A leading practitioner of an emerging genre known as creative nonfiction, McPhee had gained considerable fame as an essayist for Time and The New Yorker, producing a series of memorable biographical profiles, including several on Princeton basketball star Bill Bradley. Published collectively in 1965 as A Sense of Where You Are, the Bradley pieces demonstrated McPhee’s interest in the cerebral side of athletic competition. Raised as the son of the Princeton athletic program’s staff physician, he was fascinated by the higher-order mind-body connection displayed by Bradley and other true student athletes.8

  Tired of writing individual profiles, he had begun to toy with the idea of writing a dual profile, and in early September 1968 the televised U.S. Open semifinal match between Ashe and Graebner presented him with just what he had b
een looking for—two talented and complex individuals worthy of joint study. His goal was to produce a detailed narrative that would reveal hidden truths about a seemingly transparent subject—in this case, competitive tennis. Anticipating the “thick description” technique perfected by the noted anthropologist Clifford Geertz in the 1970s, McPhee undertook a comprehensive study of the text and context of the Ashe-Graebner match.9

  The result was a series of New Yorker essays that ultimately became Levels of the Game, a sports book like no other. After securing Ashe and Graebner’s cooperation, McPhee acquired the kinescope of the match from CBS. He also obtained a large but portable Bell and Howell projector that allowed him and his protagonists to watch the match frame by frame. Throughout the fall of 1968, he dragged the projector from site to site, wherever Ashe or Graebner, or in some cases their family members, happened to be. From West Point and the Graebners’ New York apartment on East 56th Street to Gum Spring and San Juan, the questions and observations never flagged.