Mary Sisney's Blog - Posts Tagged "muhammad-ali"
The Greatest Sports Hero: Remembering Arthur Ashe
Recent events have reminded me of my favorite sports hero. While discussing the take-a-knee protests against racial injustice by football players, some commentators have mentioned other politically active athletes, most notably my first sports hero Muhammad Ali. Coincidentally, a new movie focusing on the 1973 Battle of the Sexes between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs has been heavily promoted during the last couple of weeks. While I admired and liked Billie Jean, about forty years ago, I was briefly annoyed with her because of a comment she made about my second and still favorite sports hero, her contemporary and fellow tennis player Arthur Ashe. Billie Jean said, commenting on players like Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors but probably thinking of herself, people always made a big fuss when someone like Arthur Ashe won an occasional grand slam, but when other more consistent champions won they took it for granted. Well, maybe, Ms. Billie, that's because you, Jimmy, and Chrissie, could make history only by winning more grand slams or more consecutive grand slams while Arthur was the first and still only black American man (Frenchman Noah won the French Open) to win a grand slam. Mal Washington is the only other American black man to even reach a grand slam final. Now that's history. I don't care what Billie Jean, other athletes, or other sports commentators say. THE GREATEST SPORTS HERO OF ALL TIME PERIOD IS ARTHUR ASHE!
I first became aware of Arthur in 1975 when I was watching the news while preparing to eat dinner (I used to eat between 11:00 p.m. and midnight when I was a graduate student). I was barely paying attention to the sports segment when I caught a glimpse of a handsome black man with a big Afro, who threw up his fist as he walked to the net to shake hands with tennis brat Jimmy Connors, whom he had just defeated at Wimbledon. At twenty-six, I could still become excited when I saw a handsome black man with a big Afro, and the black power fist added to my excitement. During the next days and weeks, I learned all about Mr. Ashe and soon became hooked on tennis. I already knew some of the tennis personalities because I saw them on "The Tonight Show" (Johnny Carson loved tennis) and had read about them in a new magazine called PEOPLE. But I wasn't interested in the game until I saw and then learned about the handsome Mr. Ashe. By the time I figured out that Ashe was not the badass black militant that I thought he was and that he was the only black person playing tennis at that time (there were a couple of dark-skinned brothers from India playing back then, but the players were almost as lily white as their clothing at Wimbledon), I had become a tennis super fan. At one point during the eighties, I subscribed to two tennis magazines, and the year I turned forty I actually tried to learn to play the game but gave it up after only a few weeks of sore hips.
Arthur was not the greatest athlete; a year after that Wimbledon victory, the Olympic gold medalist formerly known as Bruce Jenner held that title. The athlete who may or may not have been named Bo Jackson (I'm not interested enough to look up his name) and played (successfully) both football and baseball could also make a case (Michael Jordan bombed as a baseball player) for the title. As Billie Jean's nineteen seventies comment suggests, Ashe wasn't even the greatest tennis player or the greatest American tennis player. He won only three grand slams, fewer than not only Sampras, Agassi, Connors, and McEnroe, but also than even the much less talented Jim Courier, who won four. What Arthur did off the tennis court was more important than what he did on it. He fought against apartheid and was arrested for protesting the treatment of Haitian refugees. Once he was infected with AIDS through a blood transfusion for a heart operation and was forced by nosy reporters to reveal his condition, he became an eloquent spokesperson for people suffering from that disease.
Arthur was a greater sports hero than the many other politically active athletes not so much because of what he fought for but because of how he fought. Unlike my other sports hero Ali and Billie Jean, Arthur was not usually controversial; he was not seen as a loud mouth or a showboat. That fist in the air was more a relieved celebration of his struggle to win against a superior opponent than an in-your-face dig at Connors or the lily white tennis world. He wasn't saying, "Take that, Whitey!" He was saying, "Yes! I did it! My intelligence beat his superior skills!" His dignity and grace came from years of struggle and heartache. He was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1943, so he spent more time dealing with Jim Crow than I did. In his early years, he was not allowed to play against whites. Tennis was segregated. His mother died when he was six, and he battled heart disease as a young man. Then came AIDS.
Often when I taught the play FENCES, by August Wilson, I would talk about Arthur. Jackie Robinson was mentioned in that play, and I compared Arthur to him, saying that they both had the right personalities to integrate their sports. In 2001, I received a letter from one of my former students' students. She was writing a report on Arthur and said her teacher told her I was a fan who talked about him all of the time. After gently letting her know that her teacher was lying (I taught English, not tennis, so I didn't talk about Arthur all of the time, although I may have talked about him more in the early nineties right after he died), I explained why Arthur was so great: "Ashe's dignity, intelligence, and selflessness in a sport that was dominated at that time (and to some extent still is) by boorish, showboating, money-hungry college or even high school dropouts (I let her know that Ashe graduated from UCLA) did more to elevate his race than any political stance he could take. When he did take a stand against racism in America or apartheid in South Africa, people listened to him because he was not a loudmouth, like the basketball player Charles Barkley, or controversial, like Muhammad Ali when he first became a Muslim. Ashe was seen as a thoughtful man who would never say anything just to shock or provoke people or to get publicity. So when he said in PEOPLE magazine that it was easier to cope with AIDS than to deal with being a black man in America, it was a profound statement about the difficulties of being black. If just about any other black man had made that statement, he would have been seen as a troublemaker or whiner, but people knew that Ashe was a serious man who never whined or complained."
Although I didn't hear Arthur's name called during the debates on the NFL protests, as I told my former student's now former student, he has not been forgotten. A statue was built in his honor in his hometown, the main stadium in the Billie Jean King complex (I'm not mad because Billie also fought for great causes off the court, and she won many more grand slams than Arthur), where the U.S. Open is played, is called Arthur Ashe Stadium, and each year an ESPY Arthur Ashe Courage award is given. When the athlete formerly known as Bruce Jenner won that award and I objected, one of my former students accused me of still having a crush on Arthur. No, I just think the person who wins the award named after the greatest and bravest sports hero of all time should not be a narcissistic reality star who thinks being a woman is all about the clothes and makeup we wear. I think Colin Kaepernick might be a better choice, but even he is no Arthur Ashe.
In my memoir I only half-jokingly suggested that randy historical golf champion Tiger Woods might have taken a different path if Arthur Ashe had lived to serve as his role model instead of the oversexed, bullet-headed basketball players with whom he spent time. Today I wish Arthur had lived to serve as a role model not only for black athletes but for all Americans. We need his calm, dignified voice right now.
I first became aware of Arthur in 1975 when I was watching the news while preparing to eat dinner (I used to eat between 11:00 p.m. and midnight when I was a graduate student). I was barely paying attention to the sports segment when I caught a glimpse of a handsome black man with a big Afro, who threw up his fist as he walked to the net to shake hands with tennis brat Jimmy Connors, whom he had just defeated at Wimbledon. At twenty-six, I could still become excited when I saw a handsome black man with a big Afro, and the black power fist added to my excitement. During the next days and weeks, I learned all about Mr. Ashe and soon became hooked on tennis. I already knew some of the tennis personalities because I saw them on "The Tonight Show" (Johnny Carson loved tennis) and had read about them in a new magazine called PEOPLE. But I wasn't interested in the game until I saw and then learned about the handsome Mr. Ashe. By the time I figured out that Ashe was not the badass black militant that I thought he was and that he was the only black person playing tennis at that time (there were a couple of dark-skinned brothers from India playing back then, but the players were almost as lily white as their clothing at Wimbledon), I had become a tennis super fan. At one point during the eighties, I subscribed to two tennis magazines, and the year I turned forty I actually tried to learn to play the game but gave it up after only a few weeks of sore hips.
Arthur was not the greatest athlete; a year after that Wimbledon victory, the Olympic gold medalist formerly known as Bruce Jenner held that title. The athlete who may or may not have been named Bo Jackson (I'm not interested enough to look up his name) and played (successfully) both football and baseball could also make a case (Michael Jordan bombed as a baseball player) for the title. As Billie Jean's nineteen seventies comment suggests, Ashe wasn't even the greatest tennis player or the greatest American tennis player. He won only three grand slams, fewer than not only Sampras, Agassi, Connors, and McEnroe, but also than even the much less talented Jim Courier, who won four. What Arthur did off the tennis court was more important than what he did on it. He fought against apartheid and was arrested for protesting the treatment of Haitian refugees. Once he was infected with AIDS through a blood transfusion for a heart operation and was forced by nosy reporters to reveal his condition, he became an eloquent spokesperson for people suffering from that disease.
Arthur was a greater sports hero than the many other politically active athletes not so much because of what he fought for but because of how he fought. Unlike my other sports hero Ali and Billie Jean, Arthur was not usually controversial; he was not seen as a loud mouth or a showboat. That fist in the air was more a relieved celebration of his struggle to win against a superior opponent than an in-your-face dig at Connors or the lily white tennis world. He wasn't saying, "Take that, Whitey!" He was saying, "Yes! I did it! My intelligence beat his superior skills!" His dignity and grace came from years of struggle and heartache. He was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1943, so he spent more time dealing with Jim Crow than I did. In his early years, he was not allowed to play against whites. Tennis was segregated. His mother died when he was six, and he battled heart disease as a young man. Then came AIDS.
Often when I taught the play FENCES, by August Wilson, I would talk about Arthur. Jackie Robinson was mentioned in that play, and I compared Arthur to him, saying that they both had the right personalities to integrate their sports. In 2001, I received a letter from one of my former students' students. She was writing a report on Arthur and said her teacher told her I was a fan who talked about him all of the time. After gently letting her know that her teacher was lying (I taught English, not tennis, so I didn't talk about Arthur all of the time, although I may have talked about him more in the early nineties right after he died), I explained why Arthur was so great: "Ashe's dignity, intelligence, and selflessness in a sport that was dominated at that time (and to some extent still is) by boorish, showboating, money-hungry college or even high school dropouts (I let her know that Ashe graduated from UCLA) did more to elevate his race than any political stance he could take. When he did take a stand against racism in America or apartheid in South Africa, people listened to him because he was not a loudmouth, like the basketball player Charles Barkley, or controversial, like Muhammad Ali when he first became a Muslim. Ashe was seen as a thoughtful man who would never say anything just to shock or provoke people or to get publicity. So when he said in PEOPLE magazine that it was easier to cope with AIDS than to deal with being a black man in America, it was a profound statement about the difficulties of being black. If just about any other black man had made that statement, he would have been seen as a troublemaker or whiner, but people knew that Ashe was a serious man who never whined or complained."
Although I didn't hear Arthur's name called during the debates on the NFL protests, as I told my former student's now former student, he has not been forgotten. A statue was built in his honor in his hometown, the main stadium in the Billie Jean King complex (I'm not mad because Billie also fought for great causes off the court, and she won many more grand slams than Arthur), where the U.S. Open is played, is called Arthur Ashe Stadium, and each year an ESPY Arthur Ashe Courage award is given. When the athlete formerly known as Bruce Jenner won that award and I objected, one of my former students accused me of still having a crush on Arthur. No, I just think the person who wins the award named after the greatest and bravest sports hero of all time should not be a narcissistic reality star who thinks being a woman is all about the clothes and makeup we wear. I think Colin Kaepernick might be a better choice, but even he is no Arthur Ashe.
In my memoir I only half-jokingly suggested that randy historical golf champion Tiger Woods might have taken a different path if Arthur Ashe had lived to serve as his role model instead of the oversexed, bullet-headed basketball players with whom he spent time. Today I wish Arthur had lived to serve as a role model not only for black athletes but for all Americans. We need his calm, dignified voice right now.
Throwback 2020: What The Sixties Tell Us About Now
I loved it when I heard Chris Cuomo say, “HELTER SKELTER” while attacking Trump last week. I had recently encouraged the media and liberal politicians on what I call Team America to compare Trump to Charles Manson. They’re both cult leaders trying to start a race war. The difference is most of Manson’s cultists were women carrying knives while most of Trump’s are men carrying guns. As I watch in horror the events of this first year of the twenties, I keep being reminded of the sixties. We can understand what’s happening now if we remember (those of us old enough and still sane enough to remember) the events of that “HELTER SKELTER” decade.
Some people may have forgotten how the now revered Reverend Martin Luther King and his disciple John Lewis were treated back in the sixties. Just as the BlackLivesMatter activists are being called anarchists and terrorists by white supremacists like Trump and his enabler/protecter AG Bill Barr, King and Lewis were called outside agitators (they were both born in the South) and Communists during the early years of the civil rights movement. And just as three white people have been killed while protesting racism (four if we count the Antifa guy who killed a white supremacist and then was killed by the police), several whites participating in the civil rights movement were killed in the sixties.
The behavior of the twenties police has also been similar to that of notorious sixties racist bullies like Bull Connor from Alabama. Although they’ve yet to use the vicious dogs that white supremacist Trump threatened to employ, nor have they used water hoses, these 21st Century “law and order” bullies have more dangerous weapons. Who needs dogs when they have tasers and rubber bullets? And who needs water when they have gas and pepper spray? They don’t need horses either (although I believe I saw some in Washington, D.C.) because they can use their jeeps and tanks to intimidate and even injure the peaceful protesters. And unlike the sixties killer cops, the twenties cops don’t hide in the dark and kill black folks and their allies when no one’s watching. They kill them in broad daylight, sometimes when they know they’re being filmed. The cop who killed George Floyd with a knee to the neck stared into a cellphone camera like Norma Desmond ready for her closeup. We thought the sixties cops who brutally beat John Lewis and the other peaceful protesters in Selma were bold and bad, attacking preachers and women with the whole world watching, but these twenties racist cops put the “b” in bad, bold, and brutal. Even after the worldwide demonstrations against police brutality targeting black people, even after BLACKLIVESMATTER finally went viral, with celebrities, politicians, and even businesses joining the movement, a cop in Kenosha, Wisconsin shot a black man in the back seven times in broad daylight, with three of the man’s children and several adults watching. Forget Bull Connor! These twenties cops act like they’re in the Mafia.
Among the celebrities who have joined the BLM movement are athletes. Male and female basketball players refused to play after Jacob Blake was shot in Kenosha, and tennis, football, and baseball players have followed their lead, cancelling games, wearing the names of black people murdered by cops on their uniforms, and painting BlackLivesMatter on equipment or the floor of the arenas where they play. Even more important, some of them, including star basketball player LeBron James, are working on getting out the vote. James and the other activist athletes are running in the footsteps of Muhammad Ali, who refused to fight in the Vietnam War, as well as football player Jim Brown, tennis player Arthur Ashe, and basketball player Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who all refused to shut up and play. In fact, the long retired Kareem is still active in racial politics, writing opinion columns and sounding off on television. But just as the athletes who are protesting now are being criticized for their actions, with the football fans booing as the two teams linked arms last week as a show of solidarity in the fight for racial justice and disgusting rich jerks like Wannabe Prince Jared Kushner commenting on how much money they make, the sixties athletes also paid a price for their activism. Jim and Kareem weren’t as popular and didn’t make as much money as the apolitical OJ Simpson and Magic Johnson. And Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the two track stars who staged a silent protest by raising their black-gloved fists during the medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympics while the national anthem was playing, were vilified as much as former quarterback Colin Kaepernick was for kneeling during that same phony (“land of the free,” my black, descendant of slaves behind, and this was the home of the braves—the Indians—until white folks stole it), racist anthem.
Many of those who still can’t accept the truth about systemic racism like to point out how much progress has been made since the civil rights movement started in the late fifties, and they’re right. There were no black female mayors and police chiefs during the sixties. There also weren’t as many black folks in the House of Representatives or in state legislatures. Now we have a black woman chairing the Finance Committee, and a black man is the Majority Whip. Obama, our first (half-) black President, is the most admired man in our nation and probably the world. And soon (if Trump and his Republican and Russian allies don’t cheat) we will have a black and Asian female Vice President. We also have more black people in mainstream journalism. Lester Holt, for instance, is the anchor of NBC News. But we still have Fox News, where the once seemingly reasonable conservative Tucker Carlson has become a white supremacist, and there are multiple conservative radio hosts who don’t mind flying their racist flags.
What the sixties tell us about today is that we can get through these troubled, chaotic times, and progress will be made. Except for those fighting (and dying) during the last years of the Vietnam War, the seventies were a great time to be black! But what 2020 tells us is that the bad times will return. We may never overcome racism and reach the figurative mountain top that Reverend King talked about the night before he was assassinated. But some of us will survive and keep fighting. We will go up the mountain, moving nearer to the top, fall (or be pushed) down, and then start back up again. Let’s keep climbing.
Some people may have forgotten how the now revered Reverend Martin Luther King and his disciple John Lewis were treated back in the sixties. Just as the BlackLivesMatter activists are being called anarchists and terrorists by white supremacists like Trump and his enabler/protecter AG Bill Barr, King and Lewis were called outside agitators (they were both born in the South) and Communists during the early years of the civil rights movement. And just as three white people have been killed while protesting racism (four if we count the Antifa guy who killed a white supremacist and then was killed by the police), several whites participating in the civil rights movement were killed in the sixties.
The behavior of the twenties police has also been similar to that of notorious sixties racist bullies like Bull Connor from Alabama. Although they’ve yet to use the vicious dogs that white supremacist Trump threatened to employ, nor have they used water hoses, these 21st Century “law and order” bullies have more dangerous weapons. Who needs dogs when they have tasers and rubber bullets? And who needs water when they have gas and pepper spray? They don’t need horses either (although I believe I saw some in Washington, D.C.) because they can use their jeeps and tanks to intimidate and even injure the peaceful protesters. And unlike the sixties killer cops, the twenties cops don’t hide in the dark and kill black folks and their allies when no one’s watching. They kill them in broad daylight, sometimes when they know they’re being filmed. The cop who killed George Floyd with a knee to the neck stared into a cellphone camera like Norma Desmond ready for her closeup. We thought the sixties cops who brutally beat John Lewis and the other peaceful protesters in Selma were bold and bad, attacking preachers and women with the whole world watching, but these twenties racist cops put the “b” in bad, bold, and brutal. Even after the worldwide demonstrations against police brutality targeting black people, even after BLACKLIVESMATTER finally went viral, with celebrities, politicians, and even businesses joining the movement, a cop in Kenosha, Wisconsin shot a black man in the back seven times in broad daylight, with three of the man’s children and several adults watching. Forget Bull Connor! These twenties cops act like they’re in the Mafia.
Among the celebrities who have joined the BLM movement are athletes. Male and female basketball players refused to play after Jacob Blake was shot in Kenosha, and tennis, football, and baseball players have followed their lead, cancelling games, wearing the names of black people murdered by cops on their uniforms, and painting BlackLivesMatter on equipment or the floor of the arenas where they play. Even more important, some of them, including star basketball player LeBron James, are working on getting out the vote. James and the other activist athletes are running in the footsteps of Muhammad Ali, who refused to fight in the Vietnam War, as well as football player Jim Brown, tennis player Arthur Ashe, and basketball player Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who all refused to shut up and play. In fact, the long retired Kareem is still active in racial politics, writing opinion columns and sounding off on television. But just as the athletes who are protesting now are being criticized for their actions, with the football fans booing as the two teams linked arms last week as a show of solidarity in the fight for racial justice and disgusting rich jerks like Wannabe Prince Jared Kushner commenting on how much money they make, the sixties athletes also paid a price for their activism. Jim and Kareem weren’t as popular and didn’t make as much money as the apolitical OJ Simpson and Magic Johnson. And Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the two track stars who staged a silent protest by raising their black-gloved fists during the medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympics while the national anthem was playing, were vilified as much as former quarterback Colin Kaepernick was for kneeling during that same phony (“land of the free,” my black, descendant of slaves behind, and this was the home of the braves—the Indians—until white folks stole it), racist anthem.
Many of those who still can’t accept the truth about systemic racism like to point out how much progress has been made since the civil rights movement started in the late fifties, and they’re right. There were no black female mayors and police chiefs during the sixties. There also weren’t as many black folks in the House of Representatives or in state legislatures. Now we have a black woman chairing the Finance Committee, and a black man is the Majority Whip. Obama, our first (half-) black President, is the most admired man in our nation and probably the world. And soon (if Trump and his Republican and Russian allies don’t cheat) we will have a black and Asian female Vice President. We also have more black people in mainstream journalism. Lester Holt, for instance, is the anchor of NBC News. But we still have Fox News, where the once seemingly reasonable conservative Tucker Carlson has become a white supremacist, and there are multiple conservative radio hosts who don’t mind flying their racist flags.
What the sixties tell us about today is that we can get through these troubled, chaotic times, and progress will be made. Except for those fighting (and dying) during the last years of the Vietnam War, the seventies were a great time to be black! But what 2020 tells us is that the bad times will return. We may never overcome racism and reach the figurative mountain top that Reverend King talked about the night before he was assassinated. But some of us will survive and keep fighting. We will go up the mountain, moving nearer to the top, fall (or be pushed) down, and then start back up again. Let’s keep climbing.
