Noah posed a particularly thorny problem because he was French and African, not American. “I’m sure people would like to believe that Yannick and I, because we’re black and I supposedly ‘discovered’ him, are tight,” Ashe observed, with some testiness. “There was a lot of resentment over this issue among some black American players on the circuit. . . . Their rationale was, ‘Well, Arthur’s a brother and he should be helping us out more than he’s helping Yannick Noah.’ What they didn’t realize was that I wasn’t helping Yannick that much.”30
Ashe’s venting on the Noah issue came more than a decade after his trip to West Africa. But in 1971 he was already troubled by the burden of smoothing the way for young black players. Generous by nature, he rarely missed an opportunity to conduct clinics for inner-city blacks, and his support for the National Junior Tennis League never flagged. Yet he often had difficulty striking the right balance in his individual relationships with promising black players. He wanted to help his younger “brothers”—and “sisters”—as he often called them, but not if his friendship and intervention led to a sense of entitlement. He sometimes practiced tough love by withholding help when he questioned the potential recipient’s work ethic. While he agreed almost everyone needed a boost now and then, the only true roads to success, in his view, were self-reliance, discipline, and playing by the rules.
Ashe gave tennis advice freely, and he often dispensed loans for tuition payments and other emergencies. But he did not believe in favors that opened a shortcut to the top. Early in his life, thanks to his father and Dr. Johnson, the principle that success had to be earned had become a personal article of faith. Predictably, this attitude sometimes produced hard feelings among young players who looked to Ashe for assistance.31
As early as 1967, after Arthur had helped UCLA recruit Luis Glass, the young back star’s failure to live up to his potential led to accusations that Ashe had not done enough to help the struggling teenager. Similar charges dogged his relationship with Arthur Carrington, a talented African American player sometimes touted as “the next Arthur Ashe.” Four years younger than Ashe, Carrington grew up in an inner-city neighborhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, before becoming one of Dr. Johnson’s prized pupils. After meeting in 1962, Carrington and Ashe sometimes practiced together, and they kept in touch during Carrington’s stellar college career at the Hampton Institute. After winning the 1973 ATA national singles title, Carrington seemed poised for stardom. But it didn’t happen.
Carrington turned professional in the spring of 1974 and was assigned a world ranking of 241, but after losing his first four matches he abruptly left the tour, never to return. The primary reason, he later explained, was racial: “I had an identity crisis on the pro tour. I couldn’t relate to white people.” Try as he might, he couldn’t turn off his militant, streetwise toughness; nor could he pretend to be Arthur Ashe. Many years later, after Carrington had become a successful tennis coach, he recalled that “Arthur presented one kind of image and I presented another one, a kind of urban thang.” Ashe was never militant enough or “black” enough for Carrington, who once criticized him for “not trying to identify with blacks” and for “not showing any courage.” “I know he’s not Muhammad Ali,” Carrington acknowledged, “but he could be standing taller.”
Most observers attributed Carrington’s on-court troubles to a bad attitude, but Sydney Llewellyn, the legendary African American coach who nurtured Althea Gibson in the 1950s, placed much of the blame on Ashe’s shoulders. According to Llewellyn, Carrington was one of several young black players ill-served by Ashe. “He only gave a handout here and there,” the veteran coach complained, adding that Ashe “never sincerely helped any of those kids. A white man asked Ashe what he thought of Carrington and he said, ‘Carrington is ghetto in dress and talk.’ Ashe wiped Carrington out with one sentence.”32
The truth was that Ashe was highly selective in his patronage of up-and-coming players. Those who exhibited discipline, good sportsmanship, and a consistent work ethic could generally count on his support. Those who appeared to be lazy or who approached him with a sense of entitlement were out of luck. During the 1970s, he went out of his way to mentor a number of young black players, including Rodney Harmon, Chip Hooper, Juan Farrow, Horace Reid, Kim Sands, and Leslie Allen. But the subsequent relationships did not always produce the intended results.
In the case of Farrow, the “last highly touted junior” trained by Dr. Johnson, Ashe provided considerable financial assistance and encouragement but only until he discovered Farrow was a chain-smoker. Convinced the high-strung prospect was “too undisciplined to become a champion,” Ashe severed their relationship. In a 1982 interview, Farrow attributed their falling-out to a mismatch of personal style and culture: “I just feel that Arthur feels that I’m not the kind of guy that he would like to see up there. I’m not the one to do the smiling, the patting on the back and going about saying things the way he would. He probably thinks I get high all the time and I’m running around after every tournament thinking this is a joyride.” Three years later, at the age of twenty-seven and with a world ranking of 227, Farrow retired from the tour as yet another talented black prospect unable to fulfill the promise of becoming the “next Arthur Ashe.”33
Ashe also had a falling-out with Horace Reid, a talented prospect from Atlanta who had enjoyed his sponsorship as a teenager. After Reid secured a tennis scholarship to UCLA in 1975, Ashe promised to provide him with “$100 a month and all the tennis equipment you need,” but the young star never fulfilled his potential. After dropping out of UCLA, he played in only eleven pro tournaments and never made it past the round of sixteen. His highest world ranking, 272 in 1978, was a bitter disappointment for him and Ashe, and the two became estranged after he quit the tour. Reid had regarded Ashe as his hero and role model, but their personal relationship could not bear the emotional freight of unmet expectations. “I felt like damaged goods after dealing with Arthur,” he recalled many years later, insisting his unreliable mentor “never took the time to know me as a person.”34
Having grown up without a father in the house, Reid was clearly looking for something more than financial patronage or an occasional boost. But the role of father figure did not fit Ashe’s personality or philosophy. Indeed, he had little patience with those who were chronically needy or emotionally demanding, or who were unwilling or unable to adapt to the realities of competitive tennis. As Rodney Harmon once observed, Ashe concentrated on helping “people help themselves.” At the same time, according to Chip Hooper, Ashe believed he could not afford to devote too much time or effort to any single individual. Instead, he felt the need to focus on “the big picture for black athletes.”35
Ashe’s most successful male protégés were, in fact, Chip Hooper and Rodney Harmon, both of whom reflected his general approach to tennis and life. The son of a surgeon, Hooper was a tall, rangy serve-and-volley specialist who trained with Dr. Johnson before meeting Ashe at a Richmond tournament in 1970. Impressed by the twelve-year-old’s combination of power and control, Ashe became Hooper’s sponsor and later supported his career, first at the University of Arkansas, and later on the pro tour, where he rose to a career-high #17 world ranking in 1982.36
Arthur was even closer to Harmon, a Richmond native who grew up less than a mile from Brook Field Park. In 1969, at the age of eight, Harmon met Ashe at an NJTL clinic held at Battery Park. He later served as a ball boy at several tournaments and trained with Willis Thomas, Arthur’s boyhood doubles partner. In 1973, Harmon was named the nation’s most promising young player after Arthur nominated him for the $1,000 award. The two remained close, and five years later Arthur arranged an even larger scholarship that allowed Harmon to attend the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. In 1980, after Harmon experienced a disappointing freshman year at the University of Tennessee, Arthur facilitated a successful transfer to Southern Methodist University, where Ralston was the tennis coach and where Harmon eventually became an All-American
. “Arthur assisted me in making the transition,” Harmon recalled, “by helping me with the cost of some of my tuition. . . . His deal was that I would only have to worry about paying him back if I didn’t graduate. It was really important to him that I graduate, so I graduated.”
Harmon’s decision to finish his degree, which meant delaying his professional career, was complicated by his unexpected success at the 1982 U.S. Open. After defeating eighth-seeded Eliot Teltscher in a memorable fourth-round match, Harmon became the first African American since Ashe to reach the quarterfinals of a major tournament. Although he lost to the eventual tournament winner, Jimmy Connors, his moment of stardom rekindled hopes that a new Arthur Ashe had finally emerged. But it was not to be. Slowed by a series of injuries, Harmon managed only three years of part-time play on the pro tour, winning less than $10,000 in prize money and never rising above a world ranking of 56.
Harmon was, however, a winner in every other way. Despite the pressure to become a full-time touring pro, he remained at SMU, graduating in 1983 with a degree in communications. With Ashe’s help, he soon became a successful men’s tennis coach at the University of Miami and went on to serve in a series of important coaching and executive positions with the USTA before returning to college coaching at Georgia Tech in 2012.37
Throughout his career, Harmon identified Arthur as his inspiration and role model. “They don’t make them like Arthur anymore,” he lamented in 2001, “someone who suffered a lot and then wants to help others the way he did.” On one occasion, after a youth clinic at the Doral club in Miami, Harmon asked Arthur why he spent so much time instructing kids. “When you do something for someone else,” Arthur explained, “you bring more joy to yourself than anything else you do. It really means a lot to me helping other people.” In Harmon’s experience, “Arthur was not the kind of person who would publicize what he was doing to help other black players. That was not his way. He did what he thought was right in a quiet, thoughtful way.”
To Harmon, Arthur’s most striking trait was the ability to listen: “What I remember about him is that he was such an active listener. He would listen to what you had to say to completion. He never would rush you or interrupt you, or even give you the impression that he didn’t want to hear what you had to say.” Harmon also liked to repeat one of Arthur’s favorite sayings—“You’ve got to realize that the Lord blessed you with two ears and only one mouth, so He wants you to listen twice as much as you talk.”38
This was good advice, worthy of an experienced elder, but Ashe was hardly a gray-bearded sage. The man who advised and inspired Harmon was himself a young man. When Harmon watched in awe as Ashe battled Laver in the semifinals of the 1972 Richmond tournament, his idol was only twenty-eight years old. Still in his prime as an athlete, he was not yet the worldly public intellectual he would become in the 1980s. Fortunately—for him and for the many individuals who benefited from his friendship and wise counsel—he would continue to evolve, thanks to an ever-widening intellectual curiosity nourished by civic engagement and voracious reading. It wouldn’t be long before his dedication to learning became an obsession, symbolized by his collection of first editions and his determination to complete the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. A black tennis star who turned himself into an amateur philosopher, philanthopist, and social critic, all before the age of thirty—who could have imagined such a thing in an age dominated by self-absorbed and intellectually disengaged sports celebrities?39
FOURTEEN
RISKY BUSINESS
ASHE ENTERED HIS FOURTH year of professional tennis with a lot on his mind. Back home in Virginia family matters were testing his emotions. Whenever he managed to spend a few days in Richmond or Gum Spring, as he did just after his return from West Africa in December 1971, he was reminded of how much his extended family meant to him—and of how several of those dearest to him were growing old and fragile. “I think the more family you have the closer you are,” he once wrote, and he regretted that his merciless travel schedule never allowed him enough time to spend with the ones he loved the most.1
He especially missed his brother, Johnnie, who remained in the military as a gunnery sergeant and engineer shuttling between posts in California, Okinawa, and Japan. Though passionately devoted to the Marine Corps, Johnnie was still trying to adjust to what he had seen and experienced in the jungles of Southeast Asia. In many ways Arthur and his brother were closer than ever, but not on their views of the war. While Johnnie continued to embrace his role as a soldier, Arthur had grown to hate the war that had divided the nation.
President Nixon’s failure to extricate American forces from Vietnam, among his other failings, had convinced Arthur that the current administration was politically and morally bankrupt. He had opposed Nixon and the Republicans in 1968, and nothing he had seen since had changed his mind. As the 1972 election approached, he adopted a left-of-center liberal posture. Disillusioned with the complacency of mainstream politics, he donated to the campaign funds of several antiwar Democrats, including Andrew Young of Georgia, who won a seat in Congress after having lost his first bid for office two years earlier. Arthur’s earlier donation to Young’s unsuccessful 1970 campaign represented a milestone in his move toward active political involvement, initiating a relationship that would have an impact on both men’s lives.
Arthur was also an early and enthusiastic supporter of the 1972 antiwar presidential candidacy of Senator George McGovern of South Dakota. Like many members of his generation, he was tired of the hidebound style of politics that had stymied the causes of peace and social justice, and he had grown increasingly impatient as the war dragged on. President Nixon’s groundbreaking trip to China in late February 1972 raised hopes for a new departure in East-West relations and a possible end to hostilities in Vietnam, but by late spring the war was once again in full tilt with the resumption of B-52 bombing raids on Hanoi and Haiphong and the mining of North Vietnamese ports. The Paris peace talks were stalled, and peace seemed further away than ever.2
The other “war” in Arthur’s life—the one between WCT and the ILTF—was also dispiriting in early 1972. The ILTF’s banishment of contract pros went into effect on January 1, and during the long winter that followed there was no letup in the struggle to control the men’s tour. Despite record crowds and unprecedented prize money, Open tennis—split as it was between two warring factions—was teetering on the brink of collapse. In mid-March, WCT, in an act of calculated escalation, countered the ILTF ban with the creation of a $50,000 tournament during the Wimbledon fortnight. Since the contract pros were unwelcome at Wimbledon, they would hold their own concurrent tournament in a major American city. Wimbledon and ILTF officials feigned indifference, but all knew the breakdown of recent talks was a portent of disaster.
Arthur knew that Dell and Kramer, representing the USLTA, were working behind the scenes to craft a long-term arrangement that would satisfy both WCT and the ILTF. But the swirl of rising prize money and potential television contracts kept raising the stakes, making all parties less inclined to compromise. Even before WCT’s bold move, Kramer had admitted that the two sides were further apart than ever. Speaking of the contract pros, he confessed, “They don’t need us. And for sure, we don’t need them.” That same week, when Arthur uncharacteristically fell to his knees and pounded the hard court floor after losing a second-set tiebreaker to Ken Rosewall in the semifinals of the Philadelphia indoor championships, his friends knew his off-court frustrations were as much to blame as his last errant forehand. At that point, he and everyone else had good reason to fear that the days of Open tennis and hefty paychecks were numbered.3
Fortunately, Dell and Kramer’s negotiating skills prevailed during a final series of talks in April. Cliff Richey’s long-awaited decision to sign a contract with WCT earlier in the month had weakened the ILTF’s position, preparing the way for a comprehensive agreement. Though subject to ratification at the ILTF’s annual meeting at Helsinki in July, the document sign
ed in London in late April brought peace to the tennis world. “The war is over,” Allan Heyman, the Danish president of the ILTF, declared. While the agreement did not come soon enough to reopen the 1972 French Open and Wimbledon to Arthur and the other contract pros, the men’s tour would be fully united in time for them to play in the U.S. Open in September.
The April 1972 agreement did not affect the women’s tour, which was undergoing its own evolution and growth thanks largely to Billie Jean King and popular young stars such as Evonne Goolagong and Chris Evert. And some of the agreed-upon arrangements would undergo modification after the wildcat promoter Bill Riordan filed a successful antitrust suit against the tennis establishment. But the basic terms of the agreement ratified in July 1972 would remain in effect for the rest of Ashe’s playing career.
Under the new rules, the distinction between contract and independent pros was eliminated; all WCT tournaments became ILTF-sanctioned events; once the present WCT contracts expired, all pros would compete for prize money under the same conditions with no guaranteed contract payments; the schedules of WCT and non-WCT events would be coordinated to avoid direct conflict or competition; the WCT circuit—consisting of two parallel, eleven-tournament tours, each with thirty-two players—would conclude in April, prior to the beginning of the ILTF’s Grand Prix and Masters circuit; the WCT finals would take place in May; and all WCT players would be strongly encouraged to participate in all four Grand Slam tournaments.4
The only major unresolved issue was the nagging problem of Davis Cup participation, which was under the purview of the national Davis Cup committees. In 1971, the committees had voted to eliminate the traditional Challenge Round structure, which guaranteed the defending champion a place in the final competition. Beginning in 1972, the defending champion—at that time, the United States—would have to compete in the zonal competition along with all the other nations. The U.S. team did so successfully—winning a fifth straight Davis Cup over a tough Romanian squad playing at home in Bucharest—but without the help of Arthur and the other leading American contract pros. The “professionalization” of Davis Cup competition would not come until 1973, when Australia recaptured the Cup thanks to the eligibilty of Laver, Newcombe, and Rosewall.5
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