Arthur Ashe

by Raymond Arsenault

  12 NYT, July 2, 1975; Evans, Open Tennis, 130–31; Bodo, Ashe vs Connors, 210–11. Borg would not lose another match at Wimbledon until 1981, when he finished second to John McEnroe after winning five consecutive Wimbledon singles titles. BCHT, 204, 422.

  13 Jares, “Centre Court Case,” 14 (q); NYT, July 2, 1975; OTC, 171.

  14 NYT, July 2, 1975; OTC, 171; Evans, Open Tennis, 131. On Roche, see BCHT, 632–33.

  15 NYT, July 4, 1975; London Times, July 4, 1975.

  16 NYT, July 4, 1975; Jares, “Centre Court Case,” 14; Bell, “Arthur Ashe vs. Jimmy Connors Is No Love Match,” 34–38.

  17 NYT, July 4, 1975 (first and second qs); London Times, July 4, 1975; Jares, “A Centre Court Case,” 13; Evans, Open Tennis, 131 (third q); Bodo, Ashe vs Connors, 212–13; Tanner int. At the 1976 Wimbledon tournament, Connors lost to Tanner in the quarterfinals. Connors, The Outsider, 176.

  18 Evans, Open Tennis, 131–32 (q); OTC, 171–72; Bell, “Arthur Ashe vs. Jimmy Connors Is No Love Match,” 36; Bodo, Ashe vs Connors, 214–17; Dell, Riessen, and Ralston ints.

  19 OTC, 171–72 (qs); Dell, Pasarell, Riessen, and Ralston ints.

  20 OTC, 172 (q).

  21 Ibid., 172–73 (qs); Dell int; Evans, Open Tennis, 132.

  22 Jares, “A Centre Court Case,” 14.

  23 Steve Flink, “Wimbledon ’75: The Art of Ashe,” WT (July 1985):16 (q).

  24 Ibid.; NYT, July 6, 1975; Connors, The Outsider, 158–59; Bodo, Ashe vs Connors, vii–xi.

  25 Bell, “Arthur Ashe vs. Jimmy Connors Is No Love Match,” 36; Jares, “A Centre Court Case,” 13, 15; Flink, “Wimbledon ’75: The Art of Ashe,” 16; NYT, July 6, 1975; Connors, The Outsider, 159–61, 169–70.

  26 Wimbledon the Classic Match: Men’s Final 1975, Connors v. Ashe (DVD, All England Lawn Tennis, 2007) (first q); BCHT, 484–85; NYT, July 6, 1975 (second q); Connors, The Outsider, 157.

  27 NYT, July 6, 1975 (q); Bodo, Ashe vs Connors, 224–35.

  28 Wimbledon the Classic Match: Men’s Final 1975, Connors v. Ashe (q); Evans, Open Tennis, 133–34; Bodo, Ashe vs Connors, 235–39.

  29 Evans, Open Tennis, 134 (first q); Bodo, Ashe vs Connors, 240–44; Wimbledon the Classic Match: Men’s Final: 1975, Connors v. Ashe (second and third qs); BCHT, 202; Dell int.

  30 Wimbledon the Classic Match: Men’s Final 1975, Connors v. Ashe (q).

  31 OTC, 175 (first and second qs); WP, July 6, 1975 (third q); NYT, July 6, 1975; Connors, The Outsider, 157; Bodo, Ashe vs Connors, 244–45.

  32 BATN, 49 (first q); CTN, 92 (second q); W, 166; Flink, “Wimbledon ’75: The Art of Ashe,” 17–18; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 214–15.

  33 Wimbledon the Classic Match: Men’s Final 1975, Connors v. Ashe; WP, July 6, 1975; NYT, July 6, 1975 (qs).

  34 Evans, Open Tennis, 134 (first q); NYT, July 6, 1975 (second and third qs).

  35 NYT, July 6, 1975 (q); Connors, The Outsider, 157–58, 161.

  36 Barbara Jordan to Arthur Ashe, July 7, 1975, in folder 2, box 2, AAP (first q); NYT, July 8, 1975 (qs); Connors, The Outsider, 155, 158, 165.

  37 NYT, July 8 (q), 16, 1975. Riordan predicted Connors would be sidelined for six to eight weeks. Nine days after his loss at Wimbledon, Connors appeared in Los Angeles with a cast on his right leg.

  38 Connors, The Outsider, 165, 169; Evans, Open Tennis, 130, 137.

  39 NYT, July 30, 31 (q), September 6, 7, 1975; Connors, The Outsider, 166; Ralston, Trabert, and Dell ints; BCHT, 178, 652–53.

  40 Dave Anderson, “The Davis Cup Détente,” NYT, September 7, 1975 (qs).

  41 Ibid., (q); NYT, August 23, 1975; Evans, Open Tennis,” 137. According to Evans: “Predictably enough, the Riordan lawsuit was settled out of court, but only after Kramer had counter-sued Riordan and Connors for three million dollars.”

  CHAPTER 18: KING ARTHUR

  1 Connors, The Outsider, 161–241; BCHT, 178–179, 186–205, 608–10.

  2 BCHT, 177, 180; NYT, August 28, September 2 (qs), 1975; Bell, “Arthur Ashe vs. Jimmy Connors Is No Love Match,” 38. See also Dave Anderson, “The Grass Is Always Greener,” NYT, September 4, 1975; Connors, The Outsider, 162–63; and Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 15.

  3 NYT, September 2, 4, 8 (second and third qs), 1975; Connors, The Outsider, 163–64 (first q).

  4 OTC, 175 (q); Flink, “Wimbledon ’75: The Art of Ashe,” 17.

  5 Evans, Open Tennis, 134 (first q); Flink, “Wimbledon ’75: The Art of Ashe,” 16 (second q), 18 (third q).

  6 OTC, 179 (first q); St. Petersburg Times, July 10, 1975 (second q).

  7 OTC, 180 (q); Doug Smith, “Arthur Ashe: Businessman,” Black Enterprise 6 (April 1976): 43.

  8 Ibid., 179; Bell, “Arthur Ashe vs. Jimmy Connors Is No Love Match,” 36.

  9 BCHT, 177–78; NYT, September 11, 19, 21, 26, 30

  10 NYT, October 28–29, 31, November 1–3, 6–8, 10–12, 14, 16, 18, 20–22, 24–26, 30, December 1–5, 7, 1975.

  11 Ibid., October 29, 31, November 1–2 (q), 3, 1975.

  12 Ibid., November 8, 11 (first q), 12 (second q), 1975; BCHT, 146.

  13 NYT, November 19–22, 24–26, 1975; Gottfried int.

  14 NYT, November 30, 1975 (qs). Ashe also told the reporters in Stockholm that he generally liked the life of nearly constant travel that the tennis tour required. The tour, in his words, was “the endless trip. You never play at home, you always play away. . . . I like constant travel. I haven’t been three weeks at a time in one place for the last six years.”

  15 Evans, Nasty, 121 (qs); IRAA, 152, 168–69.

  16 Ibid., 121 (first q), 122 (fourth, fifth, and sixth qs), 123–25; NYT, December 1, 1975 (second and third qs).

  17 NYT, December 1 (first and third qs), 2 (second, fourth, and fifth qs), 1975; Evans, Nasty, 124–26.

  18 NYT, December 5–6, 7 (qs), 1975; Evans, Nasty, 125–26.

  19 Evans, Nasty, 117–19, 126–27, 202; NYT, December 9, 1975 (qs); BCHT, 183.

  20 Ed Meyer, “A Mixed-Up Tennis World Needs a Czar,” NYT, December 7, 1975 (second and third qs); NYT, December 9, 1975 (first q). See also Rich Coster, The Tennis Bubble: Big Money Tennis—How It Grew and Where It’s Going (New York: Quadrangle, 1976).

  21 NYT, December 10 (q), 18, 24, 1975, January 7, 15, 1976.

  22 BCHT, 149–52, 182, 600–601, 634–35; OTC, 179–80.

  23 Public references to Ashe as “King Arthur” began as early as 1965. See Joe Jares, “Arthur Was King for a Day,” SI 21 (September 20, 1965), 36–37; Louie Robinson Jr., “A Crown for King Arthur,” Ebony 24 (November 1968): 64–66; Norman Darden, “Arthur, the New King of the Courts,” Life 65 (September 20, 1968), 30–35; Norman Darden, “Arthur Ashe: The New King of the Courts,” Encore (September 8, 1975): 36; and BCHT, 176.

  24 See Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978); and Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (20th anniversary edition) (New York: Penguin, 2004).

  25 The term “superstar” was used as early as the 1920s by Canadian sportswriters describing contemporary hockey stars, and the artist Andy Warhol used the term in the 1960s. But it did not gain widespread currency until the release of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar in 1970. Televised “superstar” competitions—an idea first advanced by former Olympic ice skating champion Dick Button—were first shown on the BBC and ABC television networks in 1973. The popular television show ABC Superstars was on the air from 1973 to 1984 and again from 1991 to 1994. NBC ran a similar show from 1985 to 1990.

  26 BCHT, 144–203; Evans, Open Tennis, 3–203; Judson Gooding, “The Tennis Industry,” Fortune (June 1973): 124–33; Scott, Tennis: Game of Motion, 9–27; Coster, The Tennis Bubble; Collins, My Life with the Pros, 227–358; Williams, Ahead of the Game, 191–242; Connors, The Outsider, 77–229; Renée Richards, Second Serve (New York: Stein & Day, 1992); Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 17–18.

  27 See Judy Kutulas, After Aquarius Dawned: How the Revolutions of t
he Sixties Became the Popular Culture of the Seventies (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017); and Sherrie A. Innes, ed., Disco Divas: Women and Popular Culture in the 1970s (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003).

  28 OTC, 86 (first q), 87; Beverly Johnson, with Allison Samuels, The Face That Changed It All, A Memoir (New York: Atria, 2015), 109 (second and third qs), 110–11 (fourth through sixth qs), 112–19, 124.

  29 See HRTG, vol. 3, 14–39; NYT, September–October 1975; Anthony Pascal and Leonard Rapping, Racial Discrimination in Organized Baseball (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1976); Robinson and Anderson, Frank: The First Year; Schneider, Frank Robinson; George Plimpton, One for the Record: The Inside Story of Hank Aaron’s Chase for the Home Run Record (Boston: Little, Brown, 2016); Bryant, The Last Hero, 321–401; Tom Stanton, Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America (New York: William Morrow, 2004); Rod Carew and Ira Berkow, Carew (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010); and Joe Morgan and David Falkner, Joe Morgan: A Life in Baseball (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993).

  30 NYT, June 1975; CD, June 1975; HRTG, vol. 3, 40–70; Leonard Koppett and Ken Shouler, Total Basketball: The Ultimate Basketball Encyclopedia (Wilmington: Sport Media, 2003); George, Elevating the Game; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Mignon McCarthy, Kareem (New York: Random House, 1990); Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Peter Knobler, Giant Steps: The Autobiography of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (New York: Bantam, 1983); S. H. Burchard, Walt Frazier (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975).

  31 HRTG, vol. 3, 119–30; Official Encyclopedia of Professional Football (New York: New American Library, 1977); J. Devaney, O. J. Simpson: Football’s Greatest Runner (New York: Warner, 1976); Gary M. Pomerantz, Their Life’s Work: The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers, Then and Now (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013); Chad Millman and Shawn Coyne, The Ones Who Hit the Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, the ’70s, and the Fight for America’s Soul (New York: Gotham, 2011).

  32 HRTG, vol. 3, 82–94; Ali, The Greatest; When We Were Kings (DVD, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, directed by Leon Gast, 2002).

  33 Reid, Desdunes, and Ryland ints.

  34 NYT, January 7, 15, 18, 30, February 15, March 8, 1976; OTC, 222.

  35 NYT, January 8, 12, 16, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, February 5–9, 1976; BCHT, 182; Gottfried int.

  36 NYT, February 13, 16–23, 25 (q), 1976; OTC, 210 (qs)–211. In early April, Ashe and Dick Stockton played the final match of the Lagos tournament, with Stockton winning 6–3, 6–2. The match was played in Caracas, Venezuela. Stockton int; NYT, April 2, 1976.

  37 NYT, February 26–29, March 1, 3–8 (qs), 1976; Newcombe int.

  38 BCHT, 172–73; Connors, The Outsider, 272–82; NYT, February 26–29, 1976. See also Tony Kornheiser, “Single World Circuit Shapes Up in Tennis,” NYT, May 12, 1976.

  39 NYT, January 21, February 25, March 22, May 21–24, 1976; BCHT, 176–77, 183; Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 251.

  40 Bill Riordan, “The Hows and Whys of Connors-Orantes,” NYT, February 29, 1976.

  41 Arthur Ashe, “A Professional Guide to Watching Tennis,” NYT, February 22, 1976 (q).

  42 Riordan, “The Hows and Whys of Connors-Orantes” (qs).

  43 NYT, May 4–5, 7–15, 1976; Dell and Savage ints. On Ashe’s earnings from his Head endorsement contract, see folder 2, box 31, AAP, especially “Ashe—Head Royalties, 1974–1980.”

  44 NYT, May 17, 21, 23, 1976; Evans, Nasty, 58–60.

  45 Evans, Nasty, 128; Collins int; NYT, May 24, 1976 (qs). See also Robin Herman, “Are Tennis Rules Strong Enough to Stop Misconduct on Court?,” NYT, August 3, 1976; and Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 22–23. Ashe favored the new Code of Conduct but did not want it to dampen the excitement of the game. As he told Herman, “We don’t want robots on the court. I think Nastase’s histrionics are great for the game. You have to allow some outlet for release of frustration and anger. But you can’t have it open-ended.”

  46 NYT, June 2, 4–9, 11, 15, 20, 22–23, 25, 27 (first q), 28, 30, July 4, 1976; BCHT, 155, 182–85, 389, 422. “King Arthur Arrives at Court with His Beauty Queen,” Evening Standard, June 22, 1976 (second and third qs); “Ashe Is So Right About the Girls,” Daily Express, June 24, 1976; Laurie Pignon, “Threats Are Not the Right Way to Do It,” Daily Mail, June 28, 1976 (fourth q); Peter Wilson, “Equal Pay? It’s a Load of Rubbish,” Daily Mirror, July 1, 1976, all in 1976 Wimbledon scapbook, KRWL.

  47 NYT, July 10, 15, 17–18, August 3–5, 7, 8 (q), 1976; Dittmann int. Connors’s 1976 pairing with Ashe was only his first adventure in North Conway. In July 1978, Connors’s pregnant wife, Patti, went into labor during the Volvo tournament, just before her husband was scheduled to take the court against Eliot Teltscher. Two hours later, after defeating Teltscher in short order, Connors rented a Learjet at a small airfield nearby and flew to Los Angeles to be present at the birth of his first child. Connors, The Outsider, 223–25.

  48 NYT, August 29, September 2, 4 (qs), 1976.

  49 OTC, 222; NYT, September 25, 27, 29, October 3, 9, 14, 16, 27, 29, November 5, December 2, 9, 15–20, 1976, April 29–May 2, 1977.

  50 NYT, September 14, 1976 (q); DG, 231–37; JMA and Allen ints. BCHT, 175; Ware, Game, Set, Match, 38, 209; Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 281; IRAA, 133. Wimbledon did not begin equalization of prize money until 2007, when Venus Williams became the first women’s singles champion to receive the same prize money as the men’s champion.

  51 Young, Dell, and JMA ints; Sargent Shriver to Arthur Ashe, March 22, 1976, in folder 2, box 2, AAP; Andrew Young, “Why I Support Jimmy Carter,” Nation (April 3, 1976): 397–98; Joseph Lelyveld, “Children of African Dissident Live with Rep. Young Family,” NYT, December 18, 1976; Howard Zinn, The Twentieth Century: A People’s History (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 322–38; Carroll, It Seemed Like Nothing Happened, 161–206. On the 1976 presidential election and the Carter campaign, see Jules Witcover, Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972–1976 (New York: Viking, 1977); and Patrick Anderson, Electing Jimmy Carter: The Election of 1976 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994).

  52 OTC, 156–57 (qs); Hall, Arthur Ashe, 208, 224–27; DG, 104. On the 1976 Soweto uprising, see Mosegomi Mosala, Soweto Explodes: The Beginning of the End of Apartheid (Dubuque: Kendall Hunt, 2007); Elsabe Brink et al., Soweto 16 June 1976: Personal Accounts of the Uprising (Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2006); and Robert Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 46–68.

  CHAPTER 19: AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

  1 OTC, 168, 198–99; AA, 23–64; Dell and Pasarell ints.

  2 OTC, 81–87, 182–83 (q); Hall, Arthur Ashe, 220; Johnson, The Face That Changed It All, 110–17; Rampersad int.

  3 OTC, 183–84 (qs), 188.

  4 Ibid., 181–82 (qs); DG, 51; Kalia Brooks, “Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe,” BOMBS Oral History Project, available online at http://bombmagazine.org/article/1000255/jeanne-moutoussamy-ashe; NYT, October 10, 15, 1976. The actor Cleavon Little and the comedian Bill Cosby served as co-chairmen of the event, which featured an exhibition doubles match in which Ashe was paired with Althea Gibson.

  5 OTC, 182 (qs), 192; JMA int; Brooks, “Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe”; Johnson, The Face That Changed It All, 108–15 (last q), 116–19, 124.

  6 DG, 295–96; OTC, 189, 196–197; Laura B. Randolph, “Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe: On Love, Loss and Life After Arthur,” Ebony (October 1993): 27–34; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 220–21; NYT, September 3, 1977; JMA int (q).

  7 Randolph, “On Love, Loss and Life After Arthur,” 32(q); Hall, Arthur Ashe, 221; OTC, 183; JMA int; Brooks, “Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe.”

  8 NYT, October 27, 29, November 5, 1976; OTC, 183 (q).

  9 OTC, 190 (qs).

  10 Ibid., 191–92 (qs); JMA int.

  11 Ibid., 181 (qs).

  12 Ibid., 192, 224; NYT, December 15, 17–20, 27, 1976.

  13 NYT, January 2, 5, 7, 13, 1977; BCHT, 187, 190, 373; OTC, 222; Pasarell i
nt.

  14 OTC, 192 (qs); Loretta Ashe Harris int.

  15 OTC, 192–93; NYT, January 31, February 17, 1977; Young and JMA ints; DG, 14, 51.

  16 NYT, February 11, 1977 (qs).

  17 Ibid., February 17, 1977 (q).

  18 Ibid., February 6, 1977 (qs); Hall, Arthur Ashe, 227–31. For responses to Ashe’s open letter, see Marvin S. Dent, Jr., “An Open Letter to Arthur Ashe: Many Blacks Must Play Just to Get an Education,” the letters in “Mailbox: Not for Blacks Only,” and Ross Thomas Runfola, “Sports Called Opiate for Black Masses,” in NYT, February 27, 1977. See also Walt Frazier, “Talk About Doctors Instead of Athletes,” NYT, May 1, 1977; Joe Lapointe, “Ashe Urges Parents to Look at the Odds,” Chicago Sun-Times, June 5, 1977, copy in folder 2, box 35, AAP; and Earl Graves to Arthur Ashe, February 10, 1977, in folder 2, box 2, AAP.

  19 Dell int; JMA int; NYT, February 17, 21, 1976; OTC, 192–93 (q), 194; DG, 51–52.

  20 OTC, 198, 209.

  21 NYT, April 10, 1977 (qs); OTC, 156, 209; Williams and JMA ints.

  22 DG, 106–7 (qs).

  23 NYT, May 24, 1977 (q).

  24 Robinson and Willard Johnson ints; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 227; DG, 110.

  25 NYT, June 8, 1977.

  26 Ibid., June 19, July 1–3, 1977; BCHT, 186–87, 422.

  27 NYT, July 7, 19 (q), 1977.

  28 Ibid., July 27, 29, August 1, 2, 5, 1977.

  29 Ibid., August 26, 28, 1977; the Ashe quotation is in Neil Amdur, “The Stormy Summer of Controversy at Forest Hills,” in NYT, August 28, 1977. See also Bud Collins, “Farewell to Forest Hills,” NYT Magazine, September 11, 1977.

  30 NYT, September 3, 1977.

  31 Ibid., September 9, 1977 (qs); Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 359–62.

  32 NYT, September 10, 1977 (q).

  33 Ibid., September 9, 1977 (q).

  34 Ibid., September 12, 1977 (qs).

  35 Arthur Ashe, “South Africa’s ‘New’ Interracial Sports Policy: Is It a Fraud?,” NYT, October 2, 1977 (qs); Robinson and Williams ints. See also Hall, Arthur Ashe, 231–32.