Featuring
Victoria Jackson
Co-Director
Another epic U.S. Open is in the books, with Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz crowned singles champions in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest tennis venue in the world.
If you caught any of the action, you probably saw some of the many celebrities in the stands from Hollywood, music, and sports. The New York Times even profiled the USTA employee whose job it is to invite and cater to these celebrities, to grow the cool factor of the sport and event. And though most folks attending or watching on TV each year may not realize it, these celebrity highlights also work to honor the legacy of the man for whom the venue is named: Arthur Ashe was a sporting icon whose popularity transcended sports and who counted among his friends the global celebrities of the day. Ashe’s commitment to the causes of equality and democracy was what attracted people to him, and it was also the fuel that powered him and made him thrive.
We at the Great Game Lab want more people to learn about Arthur Ashe and his remarkable life, and we heartily recommend a beautiful biography of the man by Raymond Arsenault, Arthur Ashe: A Life. It’s a big book because Ashe lived one of those big lives that encompassed what seemingly would take 10 impressively accomplished men to achieve. That rich, wonderful life came to an end far too soon when Ashe died in February 1993 at the age of 49 from complications caused by the AIDS virus. Ashe had contracted HIV from a blood transfusion following heart surgery a decade earlier.
Young tennis fans might have a fuzzy recollection of the man with three Grand Slam titles whose name christens the premier stadium of the grounds at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Like Billie Jean King, Ashe had been a household name, a trailblazer, and a tireless champion of human rights. Arsenault’s book chronicles how a young Black boy with humble beginnings born in segregated Richmond fell in love with the game, thanks to his father’s job in parks and recreation, the family’s house adjacent to public tennis courts, and the benevolence of Black coaches and educators. A scholarship to UCLA created the opportunity for Ashe to develop athletically and intellectually, and the champion player and voracious reader went on to become a leading voice globally in the anti-apartheid movement, someone whom even Nelson Mandela admired and expressed gratitude for his efforts on behalf of South Africa.
Arsenault does an exceptional job of weaving together the sports story and the political story. Ashe’s Davis Cup accomplishments as both player and coach, for which he took greatest pride, are recounted alongside his constant efforts to improve access to both tennis and education within the United States, to mentor young Black talent, and to end apartheid. Following along Ashe’s life we also learn about the rising business of tennis as well as its growing pains, and how athletes learned, in the new Open era, to navigate the world of agents, endorsements, governing bodies, and, in Ashe’s case, charity appearances and corporate board memberships.
Reading this book makes you feel like Ashe is someone you know intimately, even as his boundless energy and accomplishments make him seem otherworldly. One final story to prove the point: Ashe spent much of the final years of his life, while sick, researching and writing a massive three-volume set of books, A Hard Road to Glory, cataloging the entirety of the Black American athlete experience from 1619 onward, because, when he became frustrated that that history was not readily available, he realized that he was the only person who could make it happen. What a remarkable human, that Arthur Ashe.
Take your time with this one; you won’t want it to end.