Days of Grace (16 page)

In Kyoto, we dropped only one set and moved past Japan, 5–0.

Next we faced a tougher opponent, West Germany. We needed to field our best possible team. The USTA still stood by its pledge, and McEnroe and Connors still refused to sign it. I made it clear that I wanted McEnroe. “If John doesn’t sign,” I told a
New York Times
reporter in May, “there may be other ways to put him on the team. His willingness to play might be acceptable. And if he makes himself available, I’ll pick him whether he signs or not.” Although I knew that this statement would not sit well with the USTA or with Harry Merlo of Louisiana-Pacific, I wanted to make it clear that I thought we should have McEnroe with us.

Connors’s refusal was more symbolic than substantial. He had never really been one of us. Then he announced that he would not play Davis Cup anymore. At least he was honest enough to admit his shortcomings. “I’ve never been a team man,” he conceded. “That’s why I never joined the Association [of Tennis Professionals] and why I don’t play doubles anymore. I’ve always taken full credit for my success and full controversy for my failures.”

Later in the year, in
World Tennis
magazine, my journalist friend Bud Collins stoutly defended McEnroe and Connors: “It was an insult to be asked to sign.” He went further: “I guess I’m even more disappointed by captain Ashe and the Davis Cup players other than McEnroe and Connors. Their failure to stick together against the imposition of a loyalty oath, and in defense of their comrades, Mac and Jimmy, by refusing, en masse, to sign the undemocratic pledge, tells me that the team was not really a team.”

In August 1985, in Hamburg, I assembled the same team that had defeated Japan: Teltscher, Krickstein, Flach, and Seguso. (We didn’t have McEnroe, but we received a telegram
from his family wishing us luck.) The Germans had an ace waiting for us: redheaded Boris Becker, who had electrified the tennis world the previous month by winning Wimbledon at the age of seventeen. I had never seen a tennis prodigy built like Becker; he reminded me of some overgrown high-school basketball superstar suddenly thrown in with the top professionals, making some mistakes but dazzling his elders all the same. Six feet three inches tall, powerful, athletic, and impetuous, he promptly subdued Teltscher, 6–2, 6–2, 6–3. Like some infant unaware of his own strength, Becker marveled afterward at how easily he had disposed of a higher-ranked player. “I thought it would be a tougher fight,” he said. “Like maybe four sets.”

Then followed one of the most frustrating matches of my Davis Cup captaincy.

As a tennis player, young Krickstein had a great deal going for him. Blessed with big shoulders (he had started out as a swimmer), Krickstein had mighty groundstrokes, excellent control, and abundant stamina. He had everything except the so-called killer instinct, if the killing had to take place at the net. He was a decent volleyer, but even on drop shots, Aaron would often rush in to retrieve the ball, then scurry back to the baseline, where he felt much safer. The result was that he seldom finished points quickly—or games, or sets. In fact, he didn’t finish matches quickly. In a mixture of respect and derision, Aaron came to be known among the players as “the King of the Five-Setters.”

In Hamburg, against low-ranked Hansjörg Schwaier, Aaron played his royal game. He won the first set (6–2), dropped the second (1–6), won the third (6–2), dropped the fourth (1–6). Midway through the fifth, however, he started to cramp up, and then lost the match. He had dominated most of the points but refused to come to the net to finish them off. A win in the doubles and the first of the reverse singles kept our hopes alive, but then Becker blasted Krickstein, 6–2, 6–2, 6–1. Becker started the match wearing a sweater, and never bothered to take it off. Urged on by
cries of “Bravo, Boris!” and “Deutschland!,” he needed only an hour and a half to win.

West Germany, hardly a major power in world tennis just two months before, had beaten us. For the third straight year, I had led the United States to defeat in the Davis Cup. I understood that my days as captain were numbered.

THAT SUMMER, IN
a personal consolation, I was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island. As happens only on rare occasions, the committee inducted me as soon as I was eligible, five years after my retirement. I would like to think that my heart operations had nothing to do with their decision. Inducted along with me were Fred Stolle of Australia, an old tournament companion from my playing days who excelled above all in doubles play, and Ann Haydon Jones of Britain, who had won a Wimbledon singles crown in 1969. I made a family affair of this honor of a lifetime. Jeanne and her parents attended the event with me in Newport, as did my father and stepmother, as well as my brother Johnnie, his wife, Sandra, their daughter, Luchia, and other members of our large family.

On October 22,
The New York Times
carried a story headlined: “Ashe to Be Dropped as Davis Captain.” The usual “informed sources” said I had been advised that I would be let go, and that Randy Gregson had lost confidence in me “for a perceived lack of discipline and organization on the team.” The sources were well informed. A few days previously, at a meeting in midtown Manhattan, Gregson and Jorgensen had informed me that I was finished. I made it clear that I wanted to stay on, but they had made up their minds.

At noon on the day after the
Times
story appeared, I called Gregson in Arizona and tendered my resignation. I underscored my continuing loyalty to the Davis Cup competition by accepting the essentially ceremonial position of vice-chairman of the Cup committee.

Not long afterward, Tom Gorman, an old friend and
former Davis Cup player, was named to replace me. I wished him well, although I was a little hurt by the headline of an editorial (by Steve Flink) in
World Tennis
magazine: “Can Gorman Raise the Cup From Ashe?” Had I really brought it so low? Looking back on my career as captain, I can point with some pride to my record of 13 wins against 3 losses. I am also proud to be only the second captain in thirty years to lead the U.S. team to consecutive victories (1981 and 1982). However, as I had led some of the most talented teams ever fielded by the United States, we should have done better, and some of the blame must rest on my shoulders.

To be more effective, I suppose, I should have been more gregarious at times, and at other times more aggressive. I should have tried harder to impose my will on the players. But I couldn’t do that, and I have to live with the consequences. I accepted the fact that as much as I want to lead others, and love to be around other people, in some essential way I am something of a loner.

Nevertheless, that knowledge did not make me more reclusive. My setbacks in connection with the Davis Cup helped me to understand that to be effective, I would have to step more boldly into the spotlight, especially if I wished to be effective in the crucial area of social and political progress. My Davis Cup captaincy was a rich, challenging, and also satisfying experience, not least of all because of that simple lesson.

AS I HAD
hoped, my captaincy in the Davis Cup proved to be a bridge—albeit one with some broken planks, and one that sometimes swayed ominously in the wind—between my glory years as a player and the obscurity of retirement. The Cup kept me in the public eye and in the sports pages much longer than I otherwise would have been. This exposure probably also brought me a few endorsements and other financial opportunities that I would not otherwise have earned. I was lucky, I knew, to have had this bridge; as I have said, the sudden darkness of retirement is for some professional athletes, including tennis players, a shock to the nervous system from which they never completely recover.

However, my Cup captaincy did not fully satisfy my desire to make the most of my retirement years, or give me an entirely settled perspective on my new life. In the first place, I had been less than triumphant as a leader, after my initial successes. More important, even the most impressive record in tennis would not have stilled certain disquieting feelings that ran deeper in me than patriotism or sporting fame. I am an African American, one born in the iron grip of legal segregation. Aside from my feelings about religion and family, my innermost stirrings inevitably have to do with trying to overcome racism and other forms of social injustice, with the search for dignity and power for blacks
in a world so often hostile to us. Not the tennis court but the arena of protest and politics would be the single most significant testing ground for me in the middle years of my life.

A DAY OR
so after the announcement that I had resigned from the Davis Cup captaincy, I received a telephone call from the sports editor of
Jet
magazine.
Jet
, a sister publication of the better known
Ebony
, is a lively little magazine of news about the African American world. Like most journals and newspapers devoted to black Americans, it examines most developments with a focus on race and politics.

“Arthur,” the editor began, “according to various reports, including
The New York Times
, you didn’t want to give up the captaincy. Is that true?”

“I think it’s fair to say that. No, I did not want to give up the captaincy. No one wants to go out on a losing note.”

“You were forced out?”

“Yes, I was forced out, I suppose,” I answered, “although it certainly was done according to law.”

“Do you think that politics had anything to do with it?”

“What do you mean by politics?” I asked.

“I mean your interest in human rights. For example, your ongoing opposition to the practice of apartheid in South Africa?”

I thought about the question, but only for a moment. I did not want to misrepresent the situation and embarrass the United States Tennis Association, but I also did not want to avoid telling the truth.

“I think so,” I answered. “I believe that my role in publicly protesting against apartheid probably had something to do with the USTA deciding not to ask me back for next year. Some people probably think I’ve gone too far.”

“Did the president tell you that?”

“No, he didn’t. No one at the USTA said so to my face. But I’ve heard so from other sources.”

“Could you tell us about these sources? What did they say?”

“No,” I replied. “I can’t tell you about them and what they said. I was given certain information on a confidential basis, and I can’t reveal anything more. Besides, I don’t believe that politics was the only reason, so I don’t want to make too much of what I was told.”

The story duly appeared, headlined “Ashe Says Activist Role May Be Part of His Ouster as Davis Cup Team Captain.” Happily, it was accurate and fair. I certainly did not want to exploit the situation and make Randy Gregson and the USTA appear to be villains in a political drama. However, I sincerely believe that Gregson and others in the USTA saw me as someone far more concerned with politics than a Davis Cup captain should be. And by politics, I’m sure they meant “radical” politics.

I was then, and I am now, no radical, but many people in the tennis leadership, as in other sports, are terrified of taking a stand on political affairs, or on controversial questions of social justice. Although certain exceptions come to mind, the prevailing political ambience of tennis has always been a wealth-oriented conservatism of the kind associated in this country with staunch Republicanism and exclusive country clubs. The idea of apartheid in South Africa undoubtedly is abhorrent to some of these people, but the idea of demonstrating in the streets against it might be even more abhorrent, in practical terms. I respect many of the values of conservatism and Republicanism, but I hate injustice much more than I love decorum.

The previous January, I had been arrested in Washington, D.C., while taking part in a demonstration against South Africa. Quietly, innocently, South Africa had come into my life on an exquisite June afternoon in 1968, at the Queen’s Club in London. For forty years or more, and until recently, the Queen’s Club tournament was notable among tennis lovers mainly as the last competition for top players in Britain before Wimbledon; Queen’s offered the final chance to hone one’s skills on grass courts before participating in the premier tournament in the world. In the clubhouse, I was sitting next to John Newcombe in a meeting with a group
of top players, all bound for Wimbledon. Only two months after the first open tennis tournament, we were talking primarily about the possibility of forming an association of professional tennis players, a kind of trade union, and about the reception we could expect from various governing bodies around the world. The first open Wimbledon was at hand. The first U.S. Open would be held later in the summer.

One of the South African players, Cliff Drysdale, mentioned that the first South African Open would be held in the fall. He and his compatriots, top players like Frew McMillan and Ray Moore, were eagerly looking forward to the competition, which hoped to attract a stellar field to Johannesburg.

Turning to me, Drysdale said casually, “They’d never let you play.”

I was startled. “Is it
that
bad?”

“Oh, the Lawn Tennis Association would let you play,” Cliff explained. “I’m pretty sure of that. In fact, they would love to have you come. But you would need a visa to enter South Africa, and the government would never let you have one.”

“Are you serious?”

“Try them. You’ll see.”

The following year, 1969, I mailed an application for a visa to allow me to play in the Open. My application was rejected.

At that time, South Africa was not a major political issue for American voters, white or black, or indeed for many people outside South Africa itself. The United Nations had not yet voted to impose social and cultural isolation on the nation of apartheid. Portugal still held the territories of Mozambique and Angola, which served as effective buffers between South Africa and independent black Africa. South Africa still played in the Davis Cup. In fact, it would win the Cup in 1974, when India defaulted in the final rather than compete in sport with South Africa. The bloody Soweto student uprising of June 16, 1976, which transformed
the image of South Africa for many people, and which I learned about while I was at Wimbledon, had not yet taken place.