Arthur Ashe

by Raymond Arsenault

  PEI was a complex and formal corporate entity with myriad legal intricacies. But for Arthur, PEI’s primary foundation—as in his relationship with Dell—was mutual trust. As he explained years later, “My whole career has been built, I now see, on seeking and following good advice, and on working with other people rather than striking out on my own into territory others knew better. In starting out, I invested, literally and metaphorically, in a community effort with other tennis players who were as uncertain as I was in 1968 where professional tennis was going. All that we were sure about was that we had one another, and wanted to help shape the future of the sport.”11

  Ashe and Dell often bragged that their close personal relationship allowed them to work together for more than a decade “without a formal agreement between us.” In 1986 a change in the federal tax code forced them to sign a written agreement. Yet years after Arthur’s death, Dell was still insisting that their twenty-three-year partnership rested on “little more than a handshake.” Arthur expressed essentially the same sentiment in 1992, but in a different way. “I did not start off with a total commitment to Donald as a lawyer and manager,” he wrote. “Trust has to be earned, and should only come after the passage of time. Eventually that trust in Donald became like granite.”12

  Ashe’s reliance on Dell—a preppy white attorney with degrees from Yale and the University of Virginia law school—raised more than a few eyebrows in the African American community. But Ashe refused to countenance such criticism. When one black friend questioned how he could consider himself a “role model for young blacks” when he had a “white man” handling his money, he responded: “I don’t have a white man handling my money. I have Donald Dell, who happens to be white.” The distinction was important to Ashe, who felt comfortable discussing just about anything with Dell—including race and racism. Race notwithstanding, Dell developed a sensitive and empathetic understanding of Ashe’s unique position in the overwhelmingly white tennis world. In many ways, they became more like brothers than business associates, anticipating each other’s preferences and predilections and sharing a deep bond sealed with good-natured ribbing and knowing glances.

  Cloaked in friendship, Dell’s influence and guidance were instrumental to Ashe’s groundbreaking career as an African American endorsement icon. Prior to Ashe, no other black athlete had entered the mainstream endorsement market with such ease. In the early going, both Head and Catalina reported a handful of canceled retail contacts, and Dell made sure his client avoided any personal appearances in the Deep South. But with very few exceptions, customers of all races seemed to embrace Ashe as an appealing and credible spokesman.13

  Ashe’s ability to break racial barriers without making whites uncomfortable had become so obvious by the late 1960s that he soon found himself working for one of the nation’s most exclusive employers. In October 1970 he became the director of the tennis program at the posh Doral Resort and Country Club in greater Miami. Nine years earlier, during the Orange Bowl tournament, he had been unwelcome at the nearby Admiral Hotel because of his race. But race didn’t seem to matter to Howard Kaskel and Al Schragis, the co-owners of both the Doral resort in Florida and the Tuscany Hotel in New York. When Ike Bomzer, the doorman at the Tuscany, overheard a conversation between Kaskel and Schragis about the need to upgrade the Doral tennis program, Bomzer put in a good word for Ashe. A few days later, Ashe flew to Miami for an interview, and the job was soon his.

  When Ashe held his first clinics at Doral in December, he became the first black athlete in American history to serve as the home pro at an elite country club. As he commented with considerable understatement at a reception marking his hiring, “It’s rather novel being associated with a southern organization in this capacity, when I can’t even play at the country club in my hometown of Gum Springs, Virginia.” For the next two decades, he would spend several weeks a year conducting Doral clinics, playing golf, enjoying the comforts of the Doral Hotel and a condominium nestled behind the sixteenth green, and eventually luxury home ownership in a nearby subdivision. In the process, he and Schragis became close friends and golfing buddies.14

  The most remarkable aspect of Ashe’s status as a commercially viable celebrity was his popularity among mainstream white Americans during a time when he was becoming more outspoken and politically active. Most professional athletes—especially those who hoped to garner and maintain lucrative endorsement contracts—shied away from taking public stands on controversial issues. There were a few notable exceptions in the late 1960s, nearly all of whom were black. Among black sports figures, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Curt Flood, and Bill White were the most active and outspoken advocates of social change. But none of them had much success in augmenting their salaries with endorsement contracts.

  As members of an embattled black community they felt pressure to become actively involved in the civil rights struggle. This pressure had increased dramatically since the summer of 1968, when Ashe and other black athletes were challenged to endorse the proposed Olympic boycott. And from October on some athletes drew inspiration from the symbolic raised fists of John Carlos and Tommie Smith in Mexico City. Yet even in this changing context noninvolvement in social and political activism remained the norm among black athletes.

  This reticence was understandable. To speak out on matters of race and civil rights was to risk censure and alienation. The political and racial issues they faced were often confusing, and young men who had spent most of their lives mastering a sport were seldom adept at navigating the crosscurrents of Black Power and white backlash. The political order was polarized, everything related to race was in flux, and language and behavior acceptable to certain groups one day might well be problematic the next. There was no easy means of dealing with this baffling situation, other than remaining silent in public. Ashe was one of the few who had the poise and confidence to speak out, and even he did so with considerable trepidation and caution.15

  Ashe’s personal survival formula—still in the trial-and-error stage in 1969—was to leaven candor with pragmatism. He spoke his mind but invariably in measured tones. He was an idealist, yet he rarely went looking for controversy. Most emphatically, he adopted an open-minded, intellectually inquisitive approach to public policy. This independent posture became his trademark, one that many came to respect and admire. But it also led to inevitable clashes with organizational and ideological orthodoxy. In particular, his self-professed commitment to racial integration—a philosophy that historian Eric Hall has dubbed “militant integrationism”—prompted considerable criticism from both ends of the political spectrum. Black nationalists frequently attacked him as an “Uncle Tom,” while black conservatives tended to view him as a naive and meddling liberal. As Ashe explained to a California reporter years later, “Those were the frenetic, psychedelic, schizophrenic ’60s, when the moderate progressive’s hero could be the reactionary’s nigger and the revolutionary’s ‘Uncle Tom.’ ”16

  Fortunately for Ashe, there was a wide swath of moderation between these extremes. Most of the general public, black or white, gave him a measure of approval, or at least a pass. Interestingly enough, Ashe himself suspected he was more popular among whites than blacks, and impressionistic evidence suggests he was right. Very few whites, it seems, regarded Ashe as a menacing figure, even when he was beseeching them to change their ways and be more tolerant. Perhaps if he had played another sport, if he had been a physically intimidating brand of athlete—a brawling boxer or a bruising running back—or if he hadn’t looked like a bespectacled teacher, the white response might have been different. But as the cool and calm paragon of tennis sportsmanship, he did little to arouse the fears of white America.

  Staying in the good graces of black Americans was considerably more complicated. When African Americans placed their hopes in him—when they looked to him as a symbol of racial pride and progress—the pressure to address the serious social and economic problems afflicting the black community sometime
s became overwhelming. From the spring of 1968 on, Ashe publicly accepted the responsibility to be an active leader of his people, to do what he could to foster civil rights and economic and social justice. But early on in his activist phase the shifting realities of race and identity politics led him away from a tight focus on domestic affairs. While he did not abandon the problems in his own backyard, he often looked abroad for clarity and purpose. Indeed, as he confessed on more than one occasion, his chosen refuge from the minefield of American racial politics was South Africa. “I was too confused about what was going on among the leaders of black America, especially the younger leaders, to know precisely where to tread,” he recalled in 1992. “South Africa was a clearer issue, and I turned to it almost with relief.”17

  Ashe’s deep interest in South Africa became obvious when his visa application first hit the headlines. On December 3, Cliff Drysdale and the members of a newly formed South African tennis players association made a public appeal for a visa that would allow Ashe to play in the 1970 South African national tournament. “We would not try to disrupt the championships or embarrass anyone,” Drysdale declared, “but the eventual outcome of barring Ashe could be catastrophic for South African tennis.” Two days later, Fred W. Waring, South Africa’s Minister of Tourism, Sport and Recreation, and Indian Affairs, announced his nation had no intention of granting Ashe a visa. He and other South African officials had not forgotten that two years earlier, in a moment of unexpurgated anger, Ashe had talked of dropping an H-bomb on Johannesburg. Waring interpreted Ashe’s intemperate rhetoric as proof that his primary intention was “not to play tennis but to engage in political activity.” Unfazed, Ashe responded with the warning that denying his visa application would have “profound implications.”18

  Playing in Paris at the time, Ashe consulted with Secretary of State William P. Rogers, who took time out from a diplomatic mission to France to assure him that the State Department would do everything in its power to obtain the visa. As a representative of the Nixon administration, Rogers was eager to advance the president’s “constructive engagement” (sometimes derided by critics as the “Tar Baby” policy) approach to South Africa. To Nixon, who took a personal interest in the Ashe case, the visa controversy was a means of expanding communication with white South Africans as a prelude to a relaxation of economic sanctions, all in the interest of protecting “American economic and strategic interests.” In late January 1970, Nixon dispatched William Rountree, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, to Port Elizabeth for a discussion of the visa controversy with Prime Minister John Vorster.

  Ashe was only vaguely aware of the administration’s efforts on his behalf and did not expect much from Rountree’s mission. After his return to the United States in mid-December, Ashe, with Dell by his side, held a press conference during which he read a carefully worded statement insisting he would “come not to expound my political beliefs about South Africa, but simply to play my best possible tennis.” This clarification was reassuring enough to draw the public support of ten South African provincial “tennis chiefs,” plus an approving endorsement from the normally noncommittal South African golf pro Gary Player. But the South African government remained implacable.19

  The visa controversy would continue to draw press coverage over the next three years. But it did not seem to interfere with Ashe’s widening role as a commercial spokesperson for Head and other corporate entities. Corporate executives undoubtedly winced from time to time, yet they stuck with him, even when his growing frustration led to heightened rhetoric. Sometimes grudgingly, and sometimes with a measure of pride, they accepted his independent spirit, recognizing that his passionate concern for the liberation of South Africa, like his commitment to the players’ union, had become an indelible part of his public image.

  A far bigger concern was his performance on the court. As the reigning U.S. Open singles champion and the nation’s top-ranked player, he was an eminently marketable commodity. Yet within weeks of entering the endorsement market, his ranking began to slide. During his first ten months as a professional, he won only two tournaments, and despite moments of brilliance, he often seemed outmatched by the leading Australians and his countryman Stan Smith. Reaching the semifinals of Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and leading the U.S. team to a second consecutive Davis Cup title, were impressive achievements. But his lingering elbow problem and tendency to fade in the late rounds cast doubt on his future. By the end of 1969, he had fallen behind both Smith and Richey in the U.S. rankings, and his world ranking had slipped to #8. Fittingly, he ended the year with a loss to Smith at the Honolulu Davis Cup Classic.20

  The Honolulu tournament was a way station to Australia and the opening of an exciting new decade of competitive tennis. Eager to return to the scene of America’s glorious 1968 Davis Cup triumph, Ashe entered the 1970s in desperate need of a confidence-building victory. But neither the trip nor the decade began well. Though seeded number one in the Tasmanian championships, a tournament he had won in 1966, he lost in the third round to unseeded Bob Carmichael. A week later, he played much better in the Victoria Open in Melbourne. But he couldn’t overcome Roche in the semifinals, losing a close match that lasted more than three and a half hours. Disappointed and exhausted after the loss, Ashe worried his body might not have enough time to recover before his opening match at the Australian Open.21

  Ashe and his Davis Cup teammates had bypassed the first Australian Open in 1969, which Laver won in a walk. This time the field was missing several of the world’s best players, including several NTL pros under George MacCall’s management—most notably Laver, who had announced in October that he would not defend his title. When Open officials refused to meet MacCall’s financial demands, he simply canceled his players’ tournament registrations.22

  In the depleted draw, Ashe was the #4 seed, but few observers expected him to make an impressive showing. No American had won the Australian national title since Alex Olmedo in 1959, and after Smith lost to the unheralded Aussie Dick Crealy in the second round, it looked like the American drought would continue. The only two Americans to reach the quarterfinals were Ashe and Ralston, and when the top three seeds all lost their quarterfinal matches, the Americans’ chances suddenly brightened. In the semifinals, Ashe and Dennis Ralston battled through three and a half sets before a pulled muscle forced the former USC star to withdraw.

  Somewhat improbably, considering his problems in recent months, Ashe now found himself in the finals of the Australian championship for the third time. Having lost to Emerson in the 1966 and 1967 finals, he had the good fortune in 1970 to face Crealy, who was playing in his first major championship match. At six-foot-four, Crealy was a powerful player who had already dispatched two of the world’s best players—Stan Smith and Tom Okker—in the early rounds. But the Australian’s hot streak fizzled against Ashe.

  Playing in a steady “drizzle with swirling wind” that forced him into a routine of either wiping off or shielding his glasses, Ashe overcame his vision problems to win the championship in straight sets. The previous day, Smith and Lutz had won the doubles title over John Alexander and Phil Dent, so Ashe’s victory completed a rare American sweep against the powerful Aussies. After a joyous late night celebration in Sydney, a beaming Ashe headed home with his $3,808 winner’s share in hand. Since it had been nearly a year since he had won a tournament, he decided to continue celebrating back in the States with a skiing vacation at Sun Valley, Idaho. Having been on skis only once in his life, he promised Dell he would avoid any major risks and stick to “the little slopes.”23

  Two days later, Ashe’s Idaho idyll was rudely interrupted by the news that the South African government had turned down his request to play in the upcoming South African Open. The only condition under which the government would grant him a visa was the unlikely possibility of his participation in a Davis Cup match in South Africa. As Minister Waring explained, the government’s decision was a simple matter of law and racial self-preservation. “He
is aware of the accepted practice in South Africa,” Waring said of Ashe, and “his application is, in his own words, an ‘attempt to put a crack in the racist wall down there.’ ” In response, Ashe parried: “I thought I was doing them a favor,” an oblique reference to South Africa’s possible expulsion from the sporting world. While it remained to be seen whether the anti-apartheid forces would ever have enough political muscle to expel South African athletes, the likelihood of such an action was certainly greater in the wake of Ashe’s visa denial.24

  One option short of expulsion was a players’ boycott of the South African Open. But there was no consensus on this matter among the members of the ITPA. “There are three basic views within the association,” ITPA president John Newcombe reported. “Some of the players seem to feel that it’s Arthur’s personal business, some feel that it’s political and some think that the Government’s action was a dirty deed.” To Ashe’s dismay, Newcombe himself, though strongly opposed to apartheid, had real misgivings about a boycott. “Boycotting the South African open is not going to help the South African Lawn Tennis Union,” the Aussie insisted. “I don’t see why we should make tennis suffer in South Africa for something the Government has done.” Ed Turville Sr., a former president of the USLTA and the incoming captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team, disagreed. While he stopped short of calling for a full boycott, the St. Petersburg, Florida, attorney announced he “could not encourage” any American Davis Cup players “to play the South African circuit this year.”25

  In the meantime, the momentum for outright expulsion continued to build. Alastair Martin, the president of the USLTA, urged the ILTF to suspend South Africa’s membership for violating rule 19, “which forbids racial discrimination.” He also called for a special meeting of the Davis Cup nations to consider expelling South Africa from Cup play. In mid-February, the powerful Australian Lawn Tennis Association voted to support any American motion calling for expulsion.26