that s it. new ball. shots are 2-2. got by him. comes back with it! you try to put your entire being mentally and physically on automatic pilot while you re playing tennis. everything is concentrated on the razor s edge and you forget the score. you forget where you are. you forget what your name is. i feel like my body s floating within myself. the game of tennis is a symphony in white. players in white suits hitting a white ball back and fort. in all white country clubs but a new, young player has come along and he is one of the greatest we have ever produced and he is not white. i sense confusion in what an athlete should be, especially an african american context. does still persist in the world about black athletes because we tend to do disproportionately well in athletes. i like to fight the myth. there are lots of us who can think as well as run, jump, hit tennis balls, dunk basketballs. and the challenge now is to convince young black athletes that the
that s it. [ applause ] 2-2. comes back with it! you try to put your entire being mentally and physically on automatic pilot while you re playing tennis. everything is concentrated on the razor s edge and you forget the score. you forget where you are. you forget what your name is. i feel like my body s floating within myself. the game of tennis is a symphony in white. players in white suits hitting a white ball back and forth between white baselines in all-white country clubs. but a new young player has come along and he is one of the greatest we have ever produced, and he is not white. i sense confusion in what an athlete should be, especially in an african american context. there does still persist in the world myths about black athletes because we tend to do disproportionately well in athletics. some people think we are all brawn and no brains. and i like to fight the myth. there are lots of us who can think as well as run, jump, hit tennis balls, dunk basketb
Team. he was one of the guys and they didn t look at him as a black tennis player. they looked at him as a tennis player. the davis cup was in essence our olympics. for arthur that seemed like a no brainer. who wouldn t want to represent your country? what it entailed was that he had to play up to four weeks a year if you were going to win. like home and away series. if you get a davis cup that looks good on the resume. it was huge to play davis cup. arthur was quite an unusual type. he was very sort of skinny and gangly and he had a big serve. most people serve stationary but arthur kind of jumped into the court. he had a tremendous serve. whip like. but the backhand he could hit
Covering tennis at the new york times. arthur ashe was at west point in their data processing department and i thought i d go up and interview arthur. what would i give i got the distinct impression that arthur was beginning to realize what he was capable of being off the court. that he could be a spokesperson for social change. i felt that i was coming into my own as far as being able to say what i wanted to say and have it be taken seriously. he had been approached about making a talk in washington, d.c. which would be the first time to really putt himself on the line to reveal some of the ideas that he had. slip away i need you so
His mother. don t come up on the ball so much, honey. out more. jimmy connors is one of the great effort players who ever played tennis. however, he did some things that sort of made you scratch your head as particularly off the court, and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. my disappointment early on was he wouldn t join our players union, the atp. he was dyed in the wool blue color of east st. louis. it made no sense to me that he wouldn t do that. jimmy was a contrarian. didn t join the atp. arthur is president of the at p. jimmy didn t want to be part of the u.s. team in davis cup. that didn t sit well with arthur either. there simply never had been an american player who so consistently refused to play davis cup. i couldn t understand how any american player would not do that.