September 2007

By Bill Simons

They enter the room and there’s an inexplicable presence, a certain gravitas, different from others. Who knows why?

Both the late Arthur Ashe and James Blake were/are serious, reserved and indrawn; two cerebral, ever-curious intellectual jocks who embraced profound new dimensions of “self” after being suddenly struck with severe, life-threatening health setbacks.

But let’s be clear, Ashe and Blake are two very different individuals from two very different eras.

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Hall of Famer Ashe was one of the best of his generation; someone who famously stepped up to become the first and only African-American man to win a Grand Slam — the ‘68 U.S. Open. Then, in ‘75, he coyly outfoxed then-dominant Jimmy Connors to become the first African-American man to win Wimbledon. Plus, he camped out at No. 2 in the world.

Yes, Blake streaked to last year’s Shanghai Masters final, rose to No. 4 and famously faced Agassi in the U.S. Open quarters, where he blasted late-night Ashe Stadium forehands that ‘coulda-shoulda’ given him a sweet win were it not for a too timid second serve at crunch time. Sure, Blake’s still-unfolding career has been a modest wonder. But, as yet, it hasn’t reached Hall of Fame proportions.

As for Ashe, I knew Arthur. I saw him play. I interviewed him. I was fortunate enough to have had dinner with the conscience of this sport, a singular ambassador of dignity, a wise tennis sage like no other.

Still, these days, I sense a certain je ne sais quoi connection between him and Blake. When James enters a press conference, or when I sit down with him for an interview, I hear a faint echo. I see a flickering shadow. I wonder about legacy and my mind plays with the curious common threads that link these two most uncommon men, the two most prominent African-American men in tennis history.

 

ROUGH ROOTS, SWEET DIGS:

Both Arthur and James were/are  born in hard-scrabble ‘hoods: Ashe’s Richmond, Virginia, was divided by the nightmare of Jim Crow segregation, an imposing reality that Ashe said left him as “a marked man, forever aware of a shadow of contempt that lays across my identity and self-esteem …[a] shadow only death will free me from.”

Blake’s backstory is not nearly as foreboding. He was born amidst the dicey streets of more-than-scruffy Yonkers, New York. Of course (“God Bless America”) both men landed in leafy New York suburbs (Mt. Kisco, New York, and Fairfield, Connecticut) and at Florida resorts (Ashe at the Doral near Miami and James Blake at Saddlebrook near Tampa).

 

GOOD ‘OL BOYS:

Both Blake and Ashe are/were socially adept, hunky dudes who didn’t exactly shy away from the earthly delights of fun ‘n flesh. Blessed with a social ease, the duo quickly adapted posses of pals.

Some of Ashe’s best buddies were stars — Charlie Pasarell, Stan Smith. Famously, he plotted tactics with them at the London Playboy Club the night before his storied Wimbledon win. Others were anonymous suburban golfing pals.

Similarly, Blake has many famous friends — Mardy Fish, Andy Roddick and the Bryan Bros. But it was his little known “stand-by-your-man” mini-rat pack of pals in Connecticut (who eventually would morph into the crazed J-Block) who zealously stepped up to lead him through his darkest days.

 

FAREWELL MY BELOVED:

Ashe begins his biography “Days of Grace” by telling of the day when, as a seven-year-old, he lost his mother. “I heard birds singing in a small oak outside our house.” he wrote, “And then I remember the last time I saw her, in a coffin at home. In her right hand was a single rose…Everyday since then I have thought of her. I would give anything to stand once again before her, to feel her arms about me, to touch and taste her skin. She is with me every day. When I speak to young persons…I usually tell them, “Don’t do anything you couldn’t tell your mother about.”

In large measure, Blake’s new autobiography, Breaking Back, is an homage to his late tough-love father Thomas. Okay, the guy was unrelenting. Still, James’ appreciation resonates loudly. On his dad’s deathbed, James poignantly informed him, “You made me a man. Whatever I’ve done and whatever I will do is all because of you.” Blake then confides that living his life by his dad’s lofty standards is his “way of making sure he is immortal.”

No wonder then that at the key moment of James’ career — when his classic U.S. Open confrontation with Agassi reached its scintillating peak — he poignantly looked to the after-midnight sky and whispered, “I love you Dad.”

 

BOOKS ‘N LEARNING:

 Blake went to Harvard and Ashe spoke there. For Arthur, more than anything, education was the path, stay-in-school was the constant mantra. A UCLA grad who was deeply involved with assorted educational groups, Arthur wrote numerous books, including an exhaustive encyclopedia of black athletes, and Blake says Ashe’s astounding autobiography Days of Grace is the best sports book he’s ever read. Arthur’s bookshelves were eclectic celebrations that featured everything from how-to books on Wall Street finance to primers on proper manners and esoteric volumes on the history of jazz and the nuances of metaphysics. There’s a reason that his statue in Richmond has him lifting a book higher than his tennis racket.

As for Blake, his dad gave him $25 for every 100 books he read. So it’s no surprise that as a teen, he entered Harvard and as a twenty-something, he wrote a book that quickly rose to No. 15 on the bestseller list. And when James hangs up his Nikes, he intends to go back to Harvard and take up a not exactly Mickey Mouse major like philosophy, psychology or African-American studies.

 

THE PORTAL OF PAIN:

This just in: Bad things do happen to good people. Just ask Monica Seles, Ashe or Blake. In fact, the serial setbacks Arthur and James endured rapidly assumed Jobian proportions. Blake suffered a well-documented trifecta. During a practice session in Rome, he ran head-first into a net post and broke his neck. His father succumbed to cancer, and suddenly James’ face was paralyzed, his vision blurred, his balance impaired. As for Ashe, he had brain surgery, suffered two heart attacks and, en route, received a tainted blood transfusion that led to his contracting the HIV/AIDS that mercilessly felled him. Unquestionably, many of Ashe’s greatest insights emerged out of these struggles. He insisted, “Pain has a purpose. I do not question its place in the universe or in my fate.” And who else but a wise man would offer this judgment: “I am a fortunate, blessed man. Aside from AIDS and heart disease, I have no problem.” No wonder the man was loved.

Blake’s perspective on his misfortune was virtually the same as Ashe’s. “Time,” he noted, “is the one thing you can’t get back…[but I was] handed a golden opportunity, the chance to regain time… The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was fracturing my neck on that steel net post in Rome…My injury gave me the gift of time that otherwise I never would have had…I was home for those last six weeks of my dad’s life. It ended up being the best thing for me…[It] gave me a whole new perspective on how bad things could happen for a reason.” Soon James came to realize “how potentially fleeting everything is” and vowed to never stop trying to “honor his dad’s memory and squeeze as much as I can out of my talent, to pay tribute to all the belief he had in me.”

Ultimately, Blake used a prescient insight Ashe offered at the height of his hardships to put his own fate in perspective: “If I were to say ‘God, why me?’ about the bad things,” Arthur reasoned, “then I should have said ‘God, why me?’ about the good things.” So Blake set aside his self-pity and vowed to gain from his storm. “I had so many things go right in my life up until last year,” he reflected. “I’m bound for a little bit of rain amongst the sunshine…My success flows directly from clearing all of those hurdles…It makes me think twice before I start complaining. I just try to appreciate everything I’ve got going.”

HUMANITY 101

Arthur is more than just one of the finest intellects any sports Hall of Fame has ever produced. Once he overcame a youthful cautiousness, he leapt into public service with more dedication than any other man in tennis history. Soon he became nothing less than a tireless pied piper of causes good and noble. Within pro tennis, he was an ATP pioneer and a relentless critic of the then tradition-bound USTA. He soon became a lone and very marginalized voice in a vast wilderness when he valiantly tried to counter what he called ”the prevailing political ambiance of tennis [which] has always been a wealth-oriented conservatism.”

Beyond the tennis beltway, Arthur journeyed from one threadbare inner-city court to the next, providing clinics, preaching discipline, inspiring hope. He created one lasting institutional network after another to help urban youth play tennis and to encourage kids to learn. And, of course, he ferociously fought AIDS worldwide. He served on corporate boards, continually wrote, spoke at the U.N. and did virtually anything he could to advance his (I-don’t-care-if-I-rock-the-boat) beliefs. While a fan of decorum and conservative qualities (he voted for George Bush Sr. in ‘88), more than anything, he quietly insisted, “I am a human being first and foremost, not someone defined by the color of his skin.” Nonetheless, he conceded that there was “no question about it; race has always been my greatest burden. It continues to feel like an extra weight tied around me…My disease is the result of biological factors…Racism, however, is entirely made by people and therefore, it hurts and inconveniences infinitely more.”

 So there was Arthur in oppressive South Africa playing before a huge, headline-making crowd that —shock of shocks — he insisted be integrated. There was Arthur in New York, meeting with Nelson Mandela. And there he was in Washington, D.C., being arrested in front of the South African embassy for opposing apartheid or in front of the White House in hand-cuffs because he objected to our treatment of Haitian refugees. 

James Blake is a man who actively interacts with his world. He energetically promotes his own anti-cancer foundation and generously supports the good causes of many of his pals. While others focus exclusively on tweaking their serve, James is active on the scar-inducing frontlines of ATP politics. He poignantly speaks of the courage of Martin Luther King and admires Bill Clinton, in part for his commitment to African-Americans. He gently expresses his dissatisfaction with the policies of our current administration and hopes some day that he may be referred to — not as “African-American James Blake,” but simply as James Blake, American. Period. End of story.

All of this is to say that there has been just one Arthur. No man in tennis can really compare with the finest fellow our sport has produced. The core sentiment of this man was clear. ”If I had one last wish,” Ashe wrote, “I would ask that all Americans could see past the barbed-wire fences of race and color. We are the weaker for these divisions, and the stronger when we transcend them.” And it is James Blake — the confident, accomplished, appealing, soft-spoken and unassuming son of a visionary African-American hospital-supply salesman and a gentle English soul with a decent enough forehand — who more than anyone in tennis, personifies in his being Ashe’s simple ideal for humanity.

One of Blake’s adolescent opponents once approached his mom and, noting that James was the product of an interracial marriage, asserted: “It’s really unfortunate. Your son is in the middle. He can be hated by both blacks and whites.” Ironically, these days, it’s just the opposite. James — a humble, still-evolving hero of ample proportions — is loved by many, regardless of race.

Ironically, James says his very existence is linked to Ashe. After all, Arthur’s triumphs inspired Blake’s dad to get into tennis in the first place and he then went on to meet James’ mom on the courts of Yonkers. “I’ve always thought if Ashe wasn’t there,” reflects James, “I might not be around…so I guess I have a whole lot to thank Arthur for.” There is no reincarnation in sports, just continuums. Think USC running backs, Bill Walsh quarterbacks or Yankee centerfielders — DiMaggio, then Mantle — roaming free.  But this is more. James Blake is certainly not Arthur Ashe. And these days, unsparing pundits race to deconstruct Blake’s imperfect game and wavering ranking. Still, before us, in this impressive man, we see an almost haunting reflection of the perseverance, grit, balance, sobriety and instinct for justice that Ashe personified with such inspiring dignity. So every time James Blake steps out on center court at the U.S. Open, I’m quick to imagine that up there in tennis heaven, a knowing ol’ Arthur Ashe nudges Blake’s dad Thomas, offers a sage smile and whispers, “Not bad. That kid’s not bad at all.”

The legacy lives on.

To contact Bill Simons, email him at editorial@insidetennis.com

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