DARE TO DREAM BIG: From "Second-Class" Citizen to World-Class Athlete

Imagine This: You're a young black boy growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, where you dream of playing tennis professionally. But tennis is a game played by rich white boys, not poor black boys. So do you give up your dream?

 When you're four, your family moves to a five-room frame house in the middle of Brook Field Park, a blacks-only park, where your father is the caretaker. You're always drawn to the tennis courts and, in spite of your small size, you learn to swing a tennis racket fast and hard.

You learn the love of books and reading from your mother and the importance of self-discipline and hard work from your father who works several jobs to support the family. Your father also teaches you to "always be a gentleman" and that the way you play the game is more important than who wins.

When you're sixteen, you're drawn to the sixteen tennis courts at Byrd Park, a whites-only tennis complex where you're allowed to watch but not play. You stand behind the fence watching until someone shouts at you to go back to your "own part of town."

That's when you really begin to understand what being black means: not being allowed to play in the parks for white people, having to ride in the back of a bus even when there's a seat in the front, having to live in "the other part of town," and having to go to "those other schools."

But back at Brook Field things are a lot better. That's your domain and that's where you meet Ronald Charity, a college student who teaches tennis at Brook Field during the summers.

Ronald Charity begins helping you with your tennis game when you're seven, and when you're ten, he asks Dr. Robert W. Johnson to let you go to Johnson's summer tennis camp. You go to the tennis camp for eight consecutive summers where you not only hone your tennis skills, but you also learn the importance of good manners and composure on the court. You're told that there is "no excuse for poor manners."

As you grow taller, your game improves even more and in 1955, you win the singles championship in the American Tennis Association's twelve-and-under competition.

Although you're banned from some local tennis courts and tournaments because of the color of your skin, you always keep your cool and learn to walk away from those situations with dignity.

After high school, you earn a tennis scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and it's not long before you're recognized on a national level.

In 1963 you become the first African American male to play on the courts at Wimbledon and the first African American to make the US Davis Cup team.

By 1965, you're ranked third in the country and sixth in the world in the amateur tennis rankings. And in 1968, you win both the United States National and the United States Open singles titles to become the top-rated amateur tennis player in the United States.

In 1975 you win Wimbledon and attain the ultimate ranking of number one in the world. You're inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985, and in 1992, you're named "Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year."

You retire from competitive tennis in 1980 following heart surgery, and in 1992 you go public with the news that you have AIDS which you contracted from a blood transfusion during your surgery. By going public, you help the country begin to look at AIDS victims with more compassion and less fear. You die from AIDS-related pneumonia on February 6, 1993, and you're remembered not only as a world-class athlete but also as a world-class human being!

"I want no stain on my character, no blemish on my reputation"

Arthur Ashe (1943-1993)

 Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Arthur Ashe:

 Giving Back:  Arthur  Ashe  used his position as a world-class athlete to speak out about social and racial inequities, both in the tennis world and in society as a whole.

 Did You Know that Arthur Ashe was the first black student to receive a UCLA scholarship?

 Something to Think about: Why do you think Arthur Ashe went public with the news about his AIDS?

 

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!