I Remember Arthur Ashe: Memories of a True Tennis Pioneer and Champion of Social Causes by the People Who Knew Him
Mike Towle
Arthur Ashe was a rare kind of American sports hero and trailblazer. An African American growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, by the age of six he demonstrated a natural gift for tennis, a sport that historically was dominated by whites. Ashe later went to UCLA on a tennis scholarship and won the 1965 NCAA individual championship while leading the Bruins to the team title. Two years earlier, in 1963, he had broken down a social barrier as the first of his race selected to represent the United States in Davis Cup play, and in 1968 he won the U.S. Open. Just one year later Ashe joined the Association of Tennis Professionals, an organization that remains one of the most influential sports bodies in the world.
As great a tennis player as Ashe was, his life transcended sports. Even though he was the top-ranked American male tennis player, in 1969 he was denied a visa to play in the South African Open. His subsequent call for the boycott of South Africa by the tennis tour and in Davis Cup play, which received international support in and out of sports, was a profound historical moment for raising the world's awareness of apartheid. Even as political and social activism became a more central part of his life, Ashe continued to excel as a tennis player, adding victories in the 1970 Australian Open and at Wimbledon in 1975 to his sparkling slate of on-court accomplishments.
Ashe retired from tennis in 1980, by which time he had already had the first of two heart surgeries. The second one, in 1983, had dire long-term consequences: he was given a transfusion with blood contaminated by the AIDS virus. He and his family managed to keep his condition secret until 1992, when, confronted by a newspaper with knowledge of his illness, Ashe reluctantly came forward to acknowledge his condition. He passed away at age 49 on February 6, 1993, but not until he had raised AIDS awareness to unprecedented levels, much as he had done with racial injustice decades earlier. In I Remember Arthur Ashe, his peers, friends, and many others close to him offer new and expanded remembrances of a great man and champion whose legacy is very much alive today.
"Next in the I Remember... series is I Remember Arthur Ashe, a collection of firsthand accounts by friends, colleagues, coaches, journalists, and others acquainted with Ashe in any number of ways. Edited by sportswriter Mike Towle, the book addresses not only the rarefied world of the tennis champion, but also the interplay between celebrity and race politics. Ashe, raised in a Southern, middle-class family and winner at Wimbledon and the U.S. and Australian Open tournaments, used his fame to spread awareness of apartheid and AIDS. The people who knew him lovingly chronicle his inspiring life." —Publishers Weekly
| MIKE TOWLE is a former sportswriter with The National and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. His books include I Remember Ben Hogan, I Remember Vince Lombardi, and I Remember Walter Payton. Towle is the president of TowleHouse Publishing and lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Holley, and son, Andrew. |
$9.99, Hardcover
ISBN-10: 1-58182-149-2 (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-1-58182-149-9 (Hardcover)
Hardcover Currently Available
