The Edwards message has spread through the years, but slowly. Far too many big time black athletes, I think, have not displayed the social conscience required to help the black underclass. This is a theme repeatedly sounded by Jim Brown, the former football great who works with street gangs and ex-prisoners. O.J. Simpson was a none-too shining example of a black fatcat who pursued the mighty buck for himself but has not not been there when selflessness in behalf of less fortunate brothers was needed. March 13: Super Arthur Ashe Is a Pragmatist Arthur Ashe is a Super Nigger. By his own admission. He says, "There are a favored few of us Super Niggers. Sidney Potier, Gale Sayers, me, a few others. We are in the right place at the right time, in a position to cash in, but our good fortune doesn't mean so very much to the unknown black man trying to get a job and having doors slammed in his face because he is black." Ashe, the outstanding tennis player in the U.S., is in a position to start hauling down a lot of money. His special status as a player--a dirty gray classification between pure amateur and out-and-out pro--enables him to take advantage of most of the opportunities of the professionals without losing his amateur standing. Ashe, to put it mildly, is sitting pretty.
A student asked Ashe what black leader's philosophy he advocates. Was it Malcom X? Ashe said, "Malcom X is No. 2 on my list. Dr. Martin Luther King is No. 1. I think you have to balance the emotional ends with the practical, and I think Dr. King did that best. I only know what I read about Malcom X. I know that I was embarrassed when I read his autobiography. It made me feel bad. I wondered how I could stay quiet for so long when he did what he did." Ashe, in his privileged position, isn't as quick as the raging militants to burn down the establishment. He has a pragmatic view. "Stokely (Carmichael), Eldridge Cleaver and Dr. Harry Edwards are saying the same things, but people like that find it hard to command attention. It's up to people like me to say the same things but with the volume turned down a little." Ashe is content to play in otherwise lily-white tennis clubs on the grounds that somebody must be first. He has no illusions, though. "I'm not uncouth and I'm not too dark and I'm the only black tennis player. How would some of these clubs feel if 10 or 12 of us were competing and if some of us were no more couth than some of the white members are?" Ashe has not been allowed to play in the apartheid Union of South Africa. He said, "I made clandestine efforts to get invited into their tournament last year. They wouldn't have me. I think it's time to expose South Africa for what it is. I'm going to get our country to have South Africa thrown out of the International Lawn Tennis Federation. If our country won't do anything about it, I'm going to try to get help from other countries, even Russia. "Russia wanted to move against South Africa last year, and almost did. If people say it's unpatriotic of me to ask Russia's help, I don't care. South Africa is not living up to the rules and we should not allow her to compete with everybody else." Among those sharing the platform with Ashe was Clark Graebner, who played in South Africa last year. Ashe would hve preferred Graebner not play, but he accepts that Graebner was paid handsomely. Graebner said, "Somebody called me a bigot for going there. I told that man if he would match money paid to me by South Africa, I wouldn't go. I make my living at tennis and I can't afford not to go." Some of the other tennis players feel that Ashe is living in the best of possible worlds because, as a black, he is cashing in more than an equivalent white player would in his spot. They wonder if Ashe always appreciates his peculiar good fortune. Ashe smiled at that. "I think I do, but I repeat that my good fortune doesn't help others. And as well off as I am, I am still black. I still run into things. I often can't get a cab in New York because the cab driver is fearful of being taken to Harlem. "The other night, after the tennis matches at Post, somebody suggested we go out. We went to a place called The Banjo or something. Well, my white friends didn't realize that I hate banjo music. Banjo music brings to my mind memories of Mississippi River boats, people singing Dixie, old black mammies. I've been to place like that and people actually sang Dixie." Ashe was troubled with a bad right elbow at Post College. He played poorly and lost his first three matches before beating Graebner. With the big Madison Round Garden tournament coming up starting March 25 some alarmists have raised the specter of deep trouble for Ashe. He said, "Those are only exhibition matches with ping-pong scoring. I'll be playing in a tournament in St. Petersburg next week and that should loosen me up for the Garden. I'll be better. There are times perhaps when I don't think about tennis as much as I should--I have civil rights and things on my mind--but I don't intend to throw away the chance I have to do a whole lot of good for myself and people."
Years later I was asked to introduce Ashe when he spoke at the Rockville Centre library after he was retired from tennis because of a heart condition. He was serious yet humorous as he talked about social issues and tennis. I was surprised when he told me he didn't play tennis anymore. It wasn't his heart condition, he said, but that he didn't enjoy social tennis after having competed at the top level for so long. I didn't know then that he was afflicted with the H.I.V. virus that would cause his death shortly afterward. He was a gentleman and a scholar and an athlete. And a lovely man.
|
|
A Pep Talk by Coach Harry Edwards 
