UCLA Archives Bruin legend Arthur Ashe
won three grand slams in his career.
By Jeff Agase
Daily Bruin Reporter
Not even forty years ago, the Daily Bruin described a young UCLA
tennis player, the winner of what is now the Mercedes-Benz Cup,
with the phrase, “the lithe Negro shotmaker came from behind
to whip the veteran Whitney Reed.”
That was 1963. In a time of racial turmoil and civil uneasiness,
the tiny article was tucked away in the upper right hand corner and
consisted of just five short paragraphs.
Just 15 years later, UCLA graduate Arthur Ashe walked away from
Los Angeles with a title once again. This time the name of the
tournament was the Arco Tennis Open, which Ashe won handily against
good friend Brian Gottfried 6-2, 6-4. The article spanned half the
page.
No longer the hesitant sophomore of 1963, Ashe was just a year
away from a retirement that would end an illustrious career of
groundbreaking advances for African Americans in tennis. But in his
early days as a Bruin, former teammate Ron Kendis remembers how the
media treated Ashe as something of a freak show.
“It’s difficult to describe things, how they change
over time,” Kendis said. “Nowadays, the strange thing
was that when he came in, almost every article, in the Times or in
the Bruin, started with, “˜Arthur Ashe, the first Negro to
…'”
Ashe, who would later be arrested in various protests against
actions ranging from apartheid in South Africa to the treatment of
Haitian refugees, was taught to be quiet and reserved at UCLA
““ to speak not with his mouth but with his racket.
“He came from the South and was used to being told to keep
his mouth shut,” Kendis said. “Because back then,
everything ““ the ball, the uniforms, the players ““ were
white. So what Ashe did was just play with his racket and show
people that someone can just play tennis.”
It wasn’t hard for Ashe to just play tennis in the face of
discrimination. Growing up in segregationist Richmond, Va., Ashe
became the best tennis player not allowed to play ““ not, at
least, at any of the local tennis clubs.
Eventually, Ashe won three Grand Slam titles, including a
monumental upset over fellow Bruin Jimmy Connors in the 1975
Wimbledon finals. Descriptions of Ashe were no longer qualified
with his race.
“He was one of the few athletes who gained a level of
credibility to enable him to be seen not just as a black athlete
but as an extraordinary human being,” said William Elkins
Jr., vice president of the Spiegel Foundation.
Ashe’s victories in Los Angeles in 1963 and 1978 bookended
a career that many believe made African American tennis a
reality.
“Arthur played a large role as far as influencing young
African Americans to take up the sport of tennis, just as Tiger
Woods by virtue of his great accomplishments will lead more African
Americans to take up the sport of golf,” said Tony Nicholas,
Director of the Tom Bradley Youth and Family Center.
He retired in 1980 after a massive heart attack, and worse
health conditions followed. In 1988, Ashe learned he had contracted
AIDS from a blood transfusion five years prior. He lived only five
years more.
When asked by a reporter from People magazine if AIDS was the
greatest burden he had to bear, Ashe responded, “You’re
not going to believe this, but being black is the greatest burden
I’ve had to bear.”
In a show of honor from the state that previously barred him
from playing on its public courts, Virginia buried Ashe at the
governor’s mansion in Richmond, where he was the first man to
be laid to rest since 1863.
The 1863 burial? Confederate General Stonewall Jackson.
UCLA immortalized Ashe when it named its student health center
after the man whose legacy is felt by students walking to class on
Bruin Walk.
Having proved himself a leader with his racket and without it,
Ashe is remembered in the minds of tennis fans and human rights
activists alike.