Arthur Ashe

by Raymond Arsenault

  36 “Ashe Is Back at Forest Hills—With a Wife but Without a Racquet,” NYT, September 3, 1977 (qs); JMA int.

  37 OTC, 195 (qs); JMA and Dell ints.

  38 OTC, 194–95 (qs).

  39 Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Daufuskie Island (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007) (25th Anniversary Edition), 7–8 (q), 9–17; OTC, 195–97; DG, 55; JMA and Stan Smith ints. On the distinctive Gullah culture of the South Carolina Sea Islands, see Pat Conroy, The Water Is Wide (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972); Guy and Candie Carawan, Ain’t You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?: The People of Johns Island, South Carolina—Their Faces, Their Words, and Their Songs (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994); and Charles Joyner, Shared Traditions: Southern History and Folk Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 275–82.

  40 OTC, 197–98 (q); Dell int.

  41 Dell and Savage ints; OTC, 199; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 233; folders 1–10, box 31, AAP.

  42 DG, 184–87.

  43 OTC, 199 (q); NYT, December 10, 1977.

  44 NYT, October 7, 1977; OTC, 198; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 233; Louie Robinson Jr., “Arthur Ashe: The Man Who Despite Age and an Operation Refused to Quit: He Comes Back as a Top Star,” Ebony (April 1979): 74–76, 78, 80.

  45 Tony Kornheiser, “Smile, Even Though You’re Aching,” NYT, November 22, 1977 (qs).

  CHAPTER 20: COMING BACK

  1 NYT, January 5–7, 12, February 1 (q), 2, 1978.

  2 Ibid., February 8, 20, 26, 27, March 2 (qs),1978.

  3 Ibid., March 9, 1978 (qs). On the two Spinks-Ali fights of 1978, see Pat Putnam, “He’s the Greatest, I’m the Best,” SI (February 27, 1978): 14ff; and Vic Ziegel, “Ali, Spinks, and the Battle of New Orleans,” New York (October 2, 1978), available online at nymag.com.

  4 NYT, March 18–20, 1978; Nashville Tennessean, March 18–20, 1978; “South African Davis Cup Team Selection of Peter Lamb Discussed,” WP, February 14, 1978; Jim Jerome, “Apartheid Critics Say He’s Merely a Token, but Peter Lamb’s Davis Cup Runneth Over,” People (March 20, 1978): 28; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 206, 219; Douglas Booth, “Accommodating Race to Play the Game: South Africa’s Readmission to International Sports,” Sporting Traditions 8, no. 2 (1992): 182–209; Owen Williams int. See also Neil Amdur, “Davis Cup: Crucible of Race, Money, and Politics,” NYT, March 13, 1978; Evans, Davis Cup, 173–219; Douglas Booth, The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa (New York: Routledge, 1998); and John Nauright, Long Run to Freedom: Sports, Cultures and Identities in South Africa (Morgantown, WV: Fitness Info Tech, 2010).

  5 NYT, March 20, April 2, 26, 29, 30, May 1, 1978.

  6 Ibid., May 26, 1978. Solomon was the eighth seed in Rome.

  7 Ibid., May 31 (first q), June 2, 4, 6 (second q); BCHT, 192, 390.

  8 NYT, June 14, 20, 25–28 (q), July 1–2, 1978; Riessen and Stockton ints; BCHT, 185, 190, 192, 422; IRAA, 44–45. Borg won the 1978 Wimbledon men’s singles championship, his third consecutive title. Having already won the 1978 Italian and French singles titles, he became the first player since Rod Laver in 1962 to win the “Old World Triple.” The British press paid no attention to Ashe during the 1978 fortnight. See the press clippings in the 1978 Wimbledon scrapbook, KRWL.

  9 NYT, July 14, 17, 20, August 1, 3, 1978. Mitton went on to win the 1978 Hall of Fame tournament, his first victory on the Grand Prix circuit.

  10 Ibid., August 28–September 10, 1978.

  11 Evans, Davis Cup, 173–200; Evans, Open Tennis, 178; NYT, December 8, 1978; Gottfried and Trabert ints. On Trabert as a Davis Cup captain, see Tony Trabert, Trabert on Tennis: The View from Center Court (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1988).

  12 OTC, 199 (q), 223–24; NYT, November 8, 10, 15, 18–19, December 3–4, 9, 11, 1978, January 7, 1979.

  13 OTC, 199–200; NYT, December 20–22, 29–31, 1978, January 1–3, 1979; JMA int.

  14 NYT, December 17, 1978, January 4–5, 7 (q), 10, 1979.

  15 Ibid., January 11 (first q), 12–14 (second q), 1979; Gottfried int.

  16 NYT, January 14 (first q), 15 (second and third qs), 1979; OTC, 200.

  17 NYT, January 23–28 (first q), 29 (second and third qs), 1979; E. M. Swift, “It Was a Grave Ending for Arthur,” SI 50 (February 5, 1979): 22–24+.

  18 Ibid., February 4, 13, March 3–5, 1979.

  19 Robinson, “Arthur Ashe: The Man Who Despite Age and an Operation Refused to Quit,” 74–76; Mike Lupica, “Ashe Is Back,” WT 26 (April 1979): 44–46+; Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 251.

  20 Dell int; “Ashe Raps Black Students for Sad Values, Bad Habits,” Jet (April 20, 1978): 48; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 230. See also “Ashe on Target . . .” Jet (May 11, 1978): 4; and DG, 150–51.

  21 Arthur Ashe, “Sports Boycotts Are Against the Nature of Competition,” WP, October 22, 1978; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 231.

  22 Dell, Amdur, JMA, and Young ints.; DG, 43, 118–19; Neil Amdur, “Athletes Prospering in Political Arena,” NYT, November 9, 1978; IRAA, 101.

  23 Hall, Arthur Ashe, 232; DG, 152–53; Curtis Austin, “ ‘I Support the Bakke Decision,’ Ashe Says,” BAA, March 24, 1979; Charles Williams and Dell ints. On the Bakke controversy, see Howard Ball, The Bakke Case: Race, Education, and Affirmative Action (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000); and Joel Dreyfuss and Charles Lawrence III, The Bakke Case: The Politics of Inequality (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1979).

  24 DG, 181–82 (qs); IRAA, 88–89. On Tolbert, Taylor, and the carnage in Liberia, see Colin M. Waugh, Charles Taylor and Liberia: Ambition and Atrocity in Africa’s Lone Star State (London: Zed Books, 2011); and Gabriel I. H. Williams, Liberia: The Heart of Darkness (Victoria, BC: Trafford Books, 2006).

  25 NYT, May 10–11, 14, 29, 31, June 2, 1979; BCHT, 197, 389–90, 601–2; P. Taubman, “Working Out with Arthur Ashe,” Esquire 91 (June 5, 1979): 33–35. On Lendl, see Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 46–64.

  26 Evans, Open Tennis, 193–98; Dell, Butch Buchholz, and Drysdale ints. For a sharp critique of Dell’s behavior, see Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 139–43, 261.

  27 NYT, June 15, 17–18, 25–27, July 1–2, 1979; DG, 33; OTC, 3.

  28 OTC, 3–4 (qs), 5–6; JMA int.

  29 DG, 33 (q); NYT, July 29, 1979 (qs); IRAA, 97. See also W. Kalyn, “Television,” WT 27 (August 1979): 62.

  CHAPTER 21: OFF THE COURT

  1 DG, 33, 52; OTC, 7, 9; Loretta Ashe Harris int; Arthur Ashe, “An Athlete Nearly Dying Young: A Tennis Champ Tells His History,” People (September 21, 1981): 113; IRAA, 139. In August 1980, Ashe revealed he was receiving instruction in the art of broadcasting. He told his old friend the reporter Doug Smith: “Five years from now I expect to have completed this training program I’m going through with ABC to be a better sports broadcaster than I am.” Doug Smith, “Arthur Ashe: The LI Interview,” LI (August 3, 1980): 39, in folder 11, box 26, AAP.

  2 DG, 33 (q); OTC, 9–10, 54; Ashe, “An Athlete Nearly Dying Young,” 113; Arthur Ashe, “Ashe Heart Attack: Why Me?,” WT, August 29, 1979, typescript in folder 3, box 26, AAP; NYT, August 1, 2, 4, 1979.

  3 DG, 33–34; OTC, 10–11 (qs); Ashe, “An Athlete Nearly Dying Young,” 113; Ashe, “Ashe Heart Attack: Why Me?”

  4 OTC, 1–3, 11 (first q), 12, 201; Ashe, “Ashe Heart Attack: Why Me?” (second q).

  5 OTC, 1 (second and third qs), 2–3 (first q), 4 (fourth q); JMA int.

  6 Carole Kranepool, “Interview: Arthur Ashe,” Sportswise N.Y. (May–June 1980): 16–17 (qs); NYT, March 10, 1980; IRAA, 165.

  7 OTC, 201 (q); “It Couldn’t Be a Heart Attack—But It Was,” SI 51 (September 3, 1979): 24–25

  8 Ashe, “Ashe Heart Attack: Why Me?” (qs).

  9 Ashe, “An Athlete Nearly Dying Young,” 113 (first q); Ashe, “Ashe Heart Attack: Why Me?” (second q); DG, 34 (third and fourth qs); Kranepool, “Interview: Arthur Ashe,” 17.

  10 NYT, November 26, December 10, 1979; R. Bookman, “Thinking About Arthur,” WT 27 (October 1979): 6.

  11 OTC, 201–2 (qs); Ashe, “An Athlete Nearly Dying Young,” 114; NYT, Dec
ember 6, 10, 1979; Pasarell int.

  12 NYT, December 10, 14 22 (qs), 1979; OTC, 202; DG, 35; Ashe, “An Athlete Nearly Dying Young,” 114.

  13 OTC, 202–3 (q); JMA and Dell ints.

  14 Dell and Pasarell ints; DG, 34 (first and third qs), 35, 41 (fourth q), 47–48; OTC, 204 (second q); NYT, December 10, 1979.

  15 Kranepool, “Interview: Arthur Ashe,” 17; NYT, November 26, 1979 (first q), January 6–7, 13, February 6, March 10, 17, 1980; DG, 58 (second q); WT, January 6, 9, 27, March 2, 1980; Frank Deford to Arthur Ashe, January 25, 1980, and Westport News, January 23, 1980, both in box 1, folder 14, AAP; Dell int.

  16 NYT, March 10, 1980; DG, 36 (qs); Ashe, “An Athlete Nearly Dying Young,” 114; JMA int.

  17 DG, 36–38 (q); JMA int. According to Jeanne, Arthur’s artistic sensibility was heavily laden with “logic,” while hers was all about “art and emotion.”

  18 Barry Lorge, “Ashe Suffers Setback,” WT, March 26, 1980; Donald Dell to Ashe, c. April 1980, in folder 14, box 1, AAP; Justice Lewis F. Powell to Ashe, March 26, 1980, in folder 3, box 2, AAP; Arthur Ashe, “Owens Left Mark: Giant of His Time,” WT, April 2, 1980, typescript in folder 3, box 26, AAP; NYT, April 17, 1980; Barry Lorge, “Ashe Ends Career as Player,” WT, April 17, 1980 (q), copy in folder 3, box 35, AAP; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 237 (q).

  19 NYT, April 17, 1980 (q); Lorge, “Ashe Ends Career as Player.”

  20 “Arthur Robert Ashe Jr.,” biographical entry in International Who’s Who in Tennis (Dallas: World Championship Tennis, 1983): 32; “Arthur Ashe,” official International Tennis Hall of Fame profile, available online at tennisfame.com; Arthur Ashe career statistics, available online at atpworldtour.com; Nick White to Ashe, April 21, 1980, in folder 3, box 2, AAP; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 237–38; Lorge, “Ashe Ends Career as Player,” (q); Peter Harris, “Ashe Retirement: A Move for Betterment,” BAA, May 10, 1980; Jennings Culley, “A Champion, Retired,” RTD, April 23, 1980, in scrapbooks, box 40, AAP; Henry “Bunny” Austin to Arthur and Jeanne Ashe, April 20, 1980, in folder 10, box 1, AAP; R. Bookman, “Arthur Ashe: Still Classy After All These Years,” WT 28 (August 1980): 26–28.

  21 Mayor Henry A. Marsh III to Ashe, May 22, 1980, in folder 3, box 2, AAP.

  22 NYT, May 25, 30, June 1 (q), 1980.

  23 Ibid., June 10, 1980; Dr. Stephen S. Scheidt to Ashe, July 24, 1980, in folder 3, box 2, AAP; Smith, “Arthur Ashe: The LI Interview,” 17.

  24 Arthur Ashe, “Don’t Tell Me How to Think,” Black Sports (August 1975): 35–37; Arthur Ashe, “What America Means to Me,” Reader’s Digest (March 1976): 119–20; Smith, “Arthur Ashe: The LI Interview”; DG, 100–101, 112–13, 127, 168–69, 194; Joseph Durso, “New Ashe Role,” NYT, November 10, 1982 (first q); OTC, 205–14 (q), 215–19; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 238–39; Dell and JMA ints; Martin, Arthur Ashe, 10.

  25 DG, 39–40 (qs); JMA int.

  26 DG, 40 (q).

  27 Ibid., 40 (qs); Edwards int; James Blake, with Carol Taylor, Ways of Grace. See also Remnick, King of the World, 285–91; and Harry T. Edwards to Arthur Ashe, January 12, 1982, in folder 4, box 2, AAP. In his letter, Edwards praised Ashe’s recent interpretive piece on Smith and Carlos: “Just a quick note to say that I loved the piece on Smith-Carlos. I thought that it was a masterful job. It was one of the very few times that my relationship to Carlos and Smith has been accurately portrayed—mine was not the role of ‘guru,’ ideological or ‘fanatic Black nationalist,’ but teacher. Again, thanks for a job well done.”

  28 Amdur and Gewecke ints; OTC, vii; DG, 81; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 316; Jonathan Yardley, “Arthur Ashe Steps off the Court to Reveal the Man Behind the Player,” SI (September 7, 1981).

  29 DG, 45 (first q), 46–48 (second and third qs); OTC, 208; Daniel J. Levinson, with Maria H. Levinson, Charlotte N. Darrow, Edward B. Klein, and Braxton McKee, The Seasons of a Man’s Life (New York: Random House, 1978). A disciple of the noted psychologists Erik Erickson and Gordon Allport, Levinson (1920–94) helped found the field known as “positive adult development.” See Levinson’s obituary in NYT, April 14, 1994.

  30 JMA int (first q); Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers (New York: Dodd & Mead, 1986); Schragis and Butch Buchholz ints; DG, 48 (second q), 169 (third q).

  31 JMA, Dell, and Pasarell ints; OTC, 212–13, 217 (qs); DG, 185–86. Ashe’s articles were published in the WP on February 4, March 17, April 8, 29, June 17, August 12, 29, September 1, 10, 30, October 20, December 2, 16, 1979; and on January 6, 9, 27, March 2, 16, April 2, 17, June 8, August 3, October 17, December 27, 1980. Martin, Arthur Ashe, 138–39; Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 268; Arthur Ashe, with Louie Robinson, Getting Started in Tennis (New York: Atheneum, 1979); Arthur Ashe, Arthur Ashe’s Tennis Clinic (Norwalk: Golf Digest/Tennis, 1981); Arthur Ashe, with Alexander McNab, Arthur Ashe on Tennis (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).

  32 OTC, 212 (fifth q), 215 (fourth q), 217 (first q); DG, 43, 117–18 (second q), 119, 121; Bodo, Courts of Babylon, 269 (third q); JMA, Dell, and Dinkins ints; NYT, September 26, October 30, 1980; Edward Kennedy to Arthur Ashe, February 15, 1980, folder 2, box 2; Edward Kennedy to Arthur Ashe, September 2, 1981, folder 3, box 2; Edward Kennedy to Arthur Ashe, February 26, 1982, folder 14, box 27; Jimmy Carter to Arthur Ashe, September 25, 1980, folder 1, box 2; Charles Robb to Arthur Ashe, January 22, 1982, folder 4, box 2; W. Wilson Goode to Arthur Ashe, October 24, 1983, folder 5, box 2; Tom Bradley to Arthur Ashe, September 9, 1982, folder 4, box 2; Edward Kennedy to Arthur and Jeanne Ashe, December 20, 1982, folder 4, box 2; Bill Bradley to Arthur Ashe, January 23, 1984, folder 6, box 2; Douglas Wilder to Arthur Ashe, November 4, 1985, folder 6, box 2; Lady Bird Johnson to Arthur Ashe, August 10, 1983, folder 5, box 2, all in AAP.

  33 DG, 107 (q); Robinson and Young ints; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 227, 252–53; John Herbers, “Aftermath of Andrew Young Affair: Blacks, Jews, and Carter All Could Suffer Greatly,” NYT, September 6, 1979; “The Andrew Young Affair,” Newsweek (August 27, 1979): cover story; “Foreign Policy, Black America, and the Andrew Young Affair,” Ebony (January 1980): 116–18, 120, 122; “The Fall of Andy Young,” Time (August 27, 1979): 10; Carl Gershman, “The Andy Young Affair,” Commentary (November 1, 1979): 25–33; Samih Fasoun, “Andrew Young: The Two-edged Sword,” Journal of Palestine Studies 9 (March 1980): 139–45; Wiliam Minter and Sylvia Hill, “Anti-Apartheid Solidarity in United States-South Africa Relations from the Margins to the Mainstream,” Chapter 9 in The Road to Democracy in South Africa, vol. 3 (2008), 782–83; “Lancaster House Agreement, 21 December 1979,” available online at sas-space.sas.ac.uk. See also Nancy Mitchell, Jimmy Carter and Africa: Race and the Cold War (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2016). On the fall of Rhodesia and the origins and evolution of Zimbabwe, see Alois Miambo, A History of Zimbabwe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Sara Dorman, Understanding Zimbabwe: From Liberation to Authoritarianism and Beyond (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. During the 1979 Wimbledon fortnight, Ashe met with Rhodesian leader Ian Smith’s son at the home of Henry “Bunny” Austin, a Wimbledon singles finalist in 1932 and 1938 and a British tennis icon who befriended Ashe in the 1960s. Ashe also discussed the situation in Southern Africa with Young and Fiat auto magnate Gianni Agnelli during a private meeting in New York. JMA int.

  34 On the 1980 U.S. presidential contest, see NYT, June–November 1980; and Andrew E. Busch, Reagan’s Victory: The Presidential Election of 1980 and the Rise of the Right (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005). On the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, see Derick Hulme, The Political Olympics: Moscow, Afghanistan, and the 1980 U.S. Boycott (New York: Praeger, 1990); and Jerry and Tom Caraccioli, Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games (Chicago: New Chapter Press, 2008).

  35 Young, JMA, and Dell ints; Tignor, High Strung, 79–82; BCHT, 200; McEnroe, with Kaplan, You Cannot Be Serious, 124–26.

  CHAPTER 22: CAPTAIN ASHE

  1 DG, 62 (first q), 63 (qs), 64 (last q); NYT, September 8, 1980; Trabert int; BCHT, 652–53; Trabert,
with Cousins, Trabert on Tennis.

  2 See the numerous letters congratulating Ashe on his appointment as U.S. Davis Cup captain in folder 7, box 29, AAP. Edward A. Turville to Arthur Ashe, November 19, 1980, in folder 3, box 2, AAP; Donald Dell to Arthur Ashe, November 30, 1980, in folder 2, box 31, AAP; DG, 65–68; and McEnroe, with Kaplan, You Cannot Be Serious, 129–30.

  3 DG, 107–8 (qs); NYT, July 7, October 17, 1980; BCHT, 200–203; Tignor, High Strung, 16, 42–48, 55–58; McEnroe, with Kaplan, You Cannot Be Serious, 120–27; McEnroe and Robinson ints; Evans, Open Tennis, 158–59.

  4 DG, 108 (first q); NYT, October 17, 1980 (second through fourth qs); Arthur Ashe, “McEnroe: ‘No’ to Borg Duel,” WP, October 1, 1980 (qs); “Ashe Thwarts S. Africa in Bid for Tennis Plum,” BAA, October 25, 1980; Hall, Arthur Ashe, 251–52; McEnroe, with Kaplan, You Cannot Be Serious, 126–27; McEnroe, JMA, and Robinson ints.

  5 Goudsouzian, King of the Court, 189–237; Robinson, with Dave Anderson, Frank: The First Year; DG, 65 (q), 68.

  6 DG, 67 (first q), 68 (second q), 71–72; NYT, October 8, 1980; Evans, Open Tennis, 180, 187.

  7 McEnroe, with Kaplan, You Cannot Be Serious, 130 (q); Connors, The Outsider, 169–71, 283–84, 287; DG, 68; NYT, March 1, 10, 1981; Arthur Ashe to Stan Smith, May 8, 1981, Arthur Ashe to Bob Lutz, May 8, 1981, Bob Lutz to Arthur Ashe, May 13, 1981, all in folder 7, box 5, AAP; BCHT, 648; McEnroe, Stan Smith, and Riessen ints.

  8 DG, 69 (qs); McEnroe int. On McEnroe and the Davis Cup, see Richard Evans, McEnroe: Taming the Talent (Lexington: S. Greene, 1990), 119–40.

  9 NYT, March 7, 9 (first and second qs), 10, 1981; DG, 69, 70 (qs). See also folder 10, box 5, AAP.

  10 DG, 70 (first q), 71 (second q); McEnroe int.

  11 DG 72, 73(first q), 74–74 (second q); NYT, July 6–9, 13, 1981; McEnroe, with Kaplan, You Cannot Be Serious, 132–38; BCHT, 205; Tignor, High Strung, 62–66,144; Connors, The Outsider, 283–87; McEnroe int; 1981 Wimbledon Scrapbook, KRWL. See the numerous clippings and letters in folder 11, box 29, AAP; Frank Deford, “Cap’n Ashe and Crew Cancel the Czechs,” SI (July 20, 1981): 16–19.