Miami Herlad - Friday, February 7, 2003
Greg Cote, gcote@herald.com

They play the U.S. Open at Arthur Ashe Stadium now, verifying his place at the heart of the game.

The National Junior Tennis League, which he helped conceive in 1968 mainly to encourage children of color, has been a portal for the likes of Serena and Venus Williams and current U.S. Davis Cup player James Blake.

In Ashe's hometown of Richmond, Va., where segregation kept him from facing white opponents until he was 14, the city's famous Monument Avenue is a neighborhood improved. The statues of Confederate war heroes have been joined by one of Ashe, seen holding a racket in one hand, books in the other.

Ashe became a hero to many for being the first African-American to win the U.S. Open and Wimbledon, leveling symbolic walls in much the same way Tiger Woods did decades later in capturing golf's Masters. Unlike Woods, of course, Ashe's persona extended beyond the playing arena. He spoke out against racism, championed opportunity, and gave voice to AIDS victims after contracting the disease (from a blood transfusion related to heart surgery) that ended his life at age 49. So many African-American players are children of Ashe's inspiration.

"I can only dream that someday someone would con sider me in the same breath," says Blake, who plays a Davis Cup match today in Croatia -- and whose degree from Harvard would surely have pleased his education-minded hero. "I can only dream of handling myself with the same sportsmanship and grace."

MaliVai Washington, who in 1996 became the first black man since Ashe in a Wimbledon final, characterizes his role model simply: "He realized his purpose on Earth went far beyond hitting a tennis ball."

See, and feel, the ripples of Ashe's influence every day in Miami, where he lived for many years and honed his game as a teenager in Orange Bowl tennis events. Visit Moore Park, where Ashe used to teach and where the tennis center now bears his name. Speak with Kim Sands, proudly an Ashe disciple, carrying on, doing good.

Sands, born here, of Edison High, of the University of Miami, was fortunate to see so many shades of Ashe's humanness. He taught her to play, with lessons at the same park where Sands now instructs 40 to 60 kids a day.

"The way he taught me to serve is the way I teach today," she said Thursday.

Ashe convinced Sands, who didn't take up tennis until age 15, how good she was. At his urging she became UM's first black female athlete on scholarship. She coached the Hurricanes to five Big East titles in the '90s.

In between, Sands, now 46, played 11 years on the WTA Tour (1978 to '88), where she ranked as high as No. 31 internationally, in the same orbit as Evert and Navratilova, if not the same star.

Every year at the French Open, Ashe would gather the sport's always-too-few black players and treat them to dinner.

"It was always at the only soul-food restaurant right in the heart of Paris," Sands says, chuckling. "He was always there for me. A super, super human being. A brilliant brother, if I can say it like that."

Ashe's color-barrier-busting Grand Slam wins gave him his pulpit, which he elected to use. Few modern athletes of a stature to command such a forum choose to do so. Woods and Michael Jordan are prominent examples of stars content to confine their influence to games, not life. And that's no crime. Both men are terrific role models as is.

The choice is theirs.

It makes the void left by Ashe greater, though. It makes us miss him more and wish there were more athletes like him who understand their power to do good extends beyond touchdowns and slap shots, home runs and jump shots.

"He was a voice," as Sands puts it. "He wasn't just a black guy who made it and took his check and went home. He was an activist. A tasteful activist. Arthur was an ambassador."

Sands does her own work at Moore Park as a reflection of what she thinks would have pleased Ashe. The training center is open to anyone, though its heartbeat is as a conduit of opportunity for inner-city kids who want to be the next Arthur or the next Serena.

"It's a place to hit and giggle, or a place for kids who want to play high school tennis -- and also a place for dreamers who want to play on the lawns at Wimbledon," she says. "It's a place for everyone. That's what Arthur dreamed of."

Ashe once said: "I could never forgive myself if I elected to live without humane purpose, without recognizing that perhaps the purest joy in life comes with trying to help others."

As an epitaph, 10 years on, the words ring fine. And echo.

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