Bill Simons
We’ve seen it so often. Serena Williams unleashes a wave of ferocity. Whether you call it a roar of determination, thunderous emotion or a raw fighting spirit, for four decades it has reverberated through arenas, shaken foes and amazed observers. “C’mon!” is her mantra.
What other athlete has drunk more of that most empowering of all sports tonics — will power? Sue Mott claimed, “Serena’s role model was less Chris Evert than Thor.”
But what deep wells of intention does Serena draw from when she lets loose?
Her extraordinary but unappreciated 2009 autobiography, Serena Williams: On the Line, provided stunning insights. In 2004, Williams went on a pilgrimage to Ghana and Senegal, where she journeyed to impoverished villages and harrowing coastal castles where slaves were She noted that there is a “‘point of no return’ doorway leading out to the water on Goree Island, and it’s such a creepy, eerie sight, to look out and see nothing but ocean!…I could feel all of this trapped power…all these lives cut down by oppression. It was awful…Only the strong survived. If you didn’t die in the castles, you probably died on the slave ships.
“The irony of the struggle was huge… to survive all of that…[only] to be beaten into the ground on some other continent. To be further stripped of your dignity, your individuality, your freedom.
“I came away thinking I was part of the strongest race in human history… The very next time I held a racket … I imagined myself back in one of those dark rooms of the slave castles…I drew a line that ran from Ghana to Michigan to California to Florida to Australia…’No,’ I thought, ‘we will not be denied. I can do anything.’”
One of Serena’s journal entries reads: “U stand on the shoulders of your parents and grandparents…Think of all they went through…Don’t let any girl take away your win, your destiny…At last, this is your dream. Make it happen.”
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For Serena’s dad Richard, the key part of family lineage was his mom, Julia May, who he says was a Louisiana cotton sharecropper. “My mom,” Richard recalls, “didn’t believe in turning around or giving in. She wouldn’t let all the evils in hell stop her. She was a…kick-ass person. She reminds me of Serena. The evil forces of hell were afraid to come her way.”
Yet, for Serena, early childhood at 1117 East Stockton Street in Compton was a bit of heaven, an often idyllic romp: cartwheels and cuddling, teasing and tumbling, five girls, two bunk beds, one closet, a single goal. Here Sanford and Son met Cheaper by the Dozen and the Sound of Music. Sure, there were drugs, crime and racial tensions in their hardscrabble neighborhood. But life at home was a free-form mix of naughty mischief, love and trust, where, Serena said, “There was only time for tennis.”
Sure, Richard’s parenting was hardly Compton’s answer to Dr. Spock, and ultimately the kids held sway. Sassy Serena knew how to work it, as she manipulated her compliant, eager-to-please older sisters and charmed her daddy. In Serena’s world there were five Ps: pampered, princess, pet, pest, and prima donna. She confessed that if she lost at cards, “I would kick and fuss until the judge made me the winner.”
Serena would break into her sisters’ piggy banks, smash a box of oranges, whack her dad with a tennis ball and cheat Venus on court. “Some of the stunts I pulled were off the charts,” she admitted. “But cute cuts you a lot of slack…It buys you a batch of forgiveness.”
Serena’s dad was a complete neophyte. Daring and dedicated, he’d collect dozens of threadbare balls in a shopping cart and pack his clan into a yellow VW bus. Folks soon got the picture: an on-going pilgrimage of a gang of six females with a proud yet pliable patriarch at the helm descending on the Lynwood and East Compton public parks. All around were cracks, broken glass, garbage and weeds. And Serena recalls that when they’d hear gunshots, “Daddy used to say, ‘Never mind the noise, Meeka [Serena’s nickname], just play.’”
Richard was about to brazenly transform a stuffy game. Serena explained, “If your parents didn’t play, if it wasn’t in your blood, then you had no claim to play. To be a coach you had to have played at a high level. You have to be born to it…[and] that sense of entitlement probably kept a whole group of…kids from taking up the game…[But my dad] taught himself…His idea was to kind of make it up as we went along.”
Richard was inventive, smart and fun. He emphasized technique, not winning. Self-belief, the mind and the serve were the keys. The girls wouldn’t enter the same tournament. They withdrew from the junior circuit and handled their own money. Sure, some dismissed Richard as a Svengali, but he bathed them in a cascade of affirmations: aim high, have the mind of a champion, it’s your destiny to reach the top. Plus, Richard’s best-in-sports-history predictions proved spot on – his kids would revolutionize the game, become No. 1 and No. 2 and Serena would be better than Venus.
Of course, Serena had a huge advantage over everybody – Venus. A protector and advisor, as a kid, Venus gave Serena her own spending money to buy fried chicken, while she’d settle for a homemade peanut butter sandwich. Never mind that Serena would cheat her in practice matches or blame wrongdoings on her. When Venus crushed her sister in their first tournament final, Serena was crestfallen, so Venus told her, “I’ve always liked silver better than gold. You want to trade [trophies]?” Later, when Serena was floundering as an eighth grade couch potato, Venus scolded her: You’re wasting your life. Turn off the Golden Girls and start getting a life. Serena had the advantage of having a fabulous practice and doubles partner, a comfy roommate and later a great housemate. And Venus had her back when their sister Yetunde was murdered and Serena twice had brushes with death.
Serena saw herself as an ugly duckling, and Venus as a perfect black swan. Serena knew the value of her sibling. “I don’t know where I’d get that drive, were it not for Venus…[Her] success was a powerful motivator…that’s kept me going…I always wanted what Venus had.”
But for all the varying factors that fired up Serena’s will – African roots, ancestry, family support – her drive ultimately came from within. This was the girl who emerged out of a “place of believing I was untouchable, unstoppable.” As a child she had to win at cards. When she was seven, she told a Domino’s Pizza League foe that she was ahead 5-2 when she was actually behind 5-2.
The woman who once dubbed herself as “Rebel X” who went on to marry a wealthy entrepreneur and become a devoted mother explained, “You need a wild streak…a kind of irrational killer instinct. You need to put it out there that you’re reckless and unpredictable – not just so your opponents take note, but so that you notice too. You’ve got to convince yourself that you’re capable of anything…you will not be denied…You’ve got to embrace the wild, rash abandon that…transforms you in the heat of a cutthroat moment…You’ve got to get to that weird place where you can’t recognize your own behavior.”
Of course, the establishment didn’t know how to deal with Serena, but the Williamses knew how to deal with the establishment. Devon Friedman noted, “The Williams didn’t try to change the country club set: they simply bypassed them…They’re intimidating the way 13-year-old girls are to 13-year-old boys – they’re taller and better looking, and you get the idea that they could beat you up if they weren’t so disinterested in your existence.” When it comes to men, Serena confided, “I wasn’t usually drawn to cute guys. I was drawn to power.” And as for fashion, the Empress of the Bling Dynasty said, “I like to look my best on court…It goes to self-esteem, and…ignites an all-important spark for some of that silent fuel I like to talk about…I felt when there was an edge on how I looked, there was an edge to my game.”
Not surprisingly, the celeb who stated the obvious, “I’m not [just] a star, I’m a superstar,” also told us she’s the best in the world. “It’s not even a belief. It’s more of a fact.”
There was a time when critics wondered whether she was squandering her best-of-all-time talents and questioned her professionalism. The unsparing writer Linda Robertson offered a commentary that aged badly. She wondered whether the Williamses would “end up just like Paris Hilton, coasting on the vapors of fame. Someday the patrons behind the velvet rope will see a Williams sidling through the club’s front door at 2 AM and murmur, ‘Didn’t she used to be somebody? A tennis star? Yeah, that’s what she was.’”
But few, aside from Jimmy Connors and Nick Kyrgios, have used perceived slights, adversity and real or imagined foes to so intensely fire themselves up. Serena wrote in her journal: “Tell me ‘No’ and I’ll show u I can!… Just tell me I can’t win. Just tell me it’s out of reach. Come on, I’ll prove U wrong!”
Serena’s brand is a mix of glamor, racial pride, celebrity, adventure, motherhood, family, brushes with death, comebacks from injuries, pride of her body, sisterhood and, always, trophies, ‘tude and tumult.
After Indian Wells fans booed her and her family for over two hours during the 2001 final, she boycotted the tourney she had once loved for 14 years.
In 2002 NFL star linebacker Lavar Arrington (who in her autobiography she simply refers to as So-and-So) dumped her. Serena asserted, “This guy tore my heart in half. Then he ripped those pieces and stepped on them and backed his car up over them. And the worst part was he left me thinking it was me…[and] I was ugly…I wanted So-and-So to regret how he treated me. I wanted him to see me everywhere.” Serena promptly won four Slams in a row. On the one hand, she admitted she was playing for all the wrong reasons, but then added, “It was all about lifting myself from the dirt he left me lying in.” The key was “our will, our drive, our purpose.”
After suffering a devastating first round loss in the 2012 French Open she won eight of the next 13 Slams.
Serena’s on-and-off-court battles have been of epic proportions. She was hardly pals with Maria Sharapova or Justine Henin. Four wretched US Open calls in a 2004 match against Jennifer Capriati led to an apology by the USTA and the introduction of Hawkeye. At the 2009 US Open she told a lineswoman she was going to shove a ball “down your f–king throat!”
Then there was the most controversial final in history, her 2018 US Open meeting with Naomi Osaka, where she lost her composure and the match. She was triggered when the ump said she was being coached. Her “I am not a thief!” fury triggered a debate on authority, outspokeness, rules, race, rage, and feminism.
The multi-faceted controversy was shocking. Then again, that’s what Serena does. While some spoke of Serena fatigue, others asked what other athlete since Muhammad Ali has so prodded us, inspired us, taught us, entertained us, amazed us, baffled us and taken us to as many different shores as the fabulous and flawed wonder woman Serena Williams, who told us in Vogue, “I’ve built a career on channeling anger and negativity and turning it into something good.”
