SERENA WILLIAMS, ARTHUR ASHE AND GROWING UP
Anietie John Ukpe
November 12, 2009
Serena Williams, 28, held a press conference after her "shocking display of profanity and vitriol" in the United States Tennis Open Semi-Final defeat to comeback mom, Kim Clijsters, 26, and tried to excuse her actions by stating that she was still a young person. The press reports, which followed, focused more on her initial unapologetic stance and gave the aspect of her claim to "being young" minimal attention. No one seemed to ask "if Serena is still young at twenty-eight, then what is Melanie Oudin at eighteen?"
No one seemed to remember that at nineteen years of age, Joan of Arc had accomplished enough in life to be named the patron saint of France. She was unjustly tried and executed at nineteen and she died a very responsible woman who never claimed in her defense to be a "young person." And she led men in several battles and won many of them. Though she died a teenager, she died with the mind of an adult.
At 28, Alexander the Great had conquered all the then known world and was at the helm of his power and glory. He began his conquests at nineteen, when his father, Philip of Macedon, died and he never looked back nor saw himself as a young person until his sudden death at 30.
At 26, Kim Clisjters, is married with a kid and does not see herself as a young person, but rather as a mature adult with responsibilities. She has never posed semi-nude as Serena did recently. At 28, Roger Federer is married with a set of twins and has never announced to anyone that he is still a young person. At 27 Justine Henin has been married and divorced and has never considered herself a young person nor used age to justify a misdeed. She has never posed nude for any magazine either.
At twenty-eight, Serena Williams could hold any office in the United States of America - but then she is a Jehovah´s Witness and does not vote in elections and may not know this embarrassing truth. But still what has age got to do with it? Perhaps upbringing has a lot more to do with it, than age. Or how else can one explain her recent appearance on the cover of a magazine semi-nude? Not to mention her expertise at profane language.
Of course the "ever young" Serena Williams on a later date apologized over her outburst. Hear her, "My reaction was 100 per cent, 200 per cent, wrong. But I do think my reaction showed a lot of people that I´m not perfect, that I am human and that I do make mistakes. The important thing is that you learn from your mistakes and are able to move on from them."
Wrong, our dear Serena! Unfortunately, we knew long ago that Serena Williams was not perfect, and that she was human and that she makes mistakes (sorry, I mean, blunders). She was, perhaps, the only one who did not know this about herself, and she would have been more correct if she said something like, "But I do think my reaction showed me that I´m not perfect, that I am human and that I do make mistakes." Perfect!
Still young at 28? Sure you can still be young at 28, if all you have ever done in life is chase down tiny little green balls and hit them as hard as possible across a net, and then have some tutorials on how to use profane language in ways that would make uncouth sailors go green with envy. She is still "young" and that is why she recently appeared semi-nude on the magazine cover.
After this nude magazine appearance, she beat it to London to promote her autobiography. This shows an odd sense of proportion. A woman who considers herself "young" does not wait to get "old" before telling her story to the world! Autobiographies are supposed to be written by people who have completed their lives´ races or are close to completing them. Couldn´t she have finished playing tennis before writing her story? One wonders whether biographies were meant for twenty-eight year olds with teenage minds, who are yet to settle some psychic accounts and resolve some psychological conflicts.
One cannot blame Serena Williams though. She was "programmed" and "configured" by Richard Williams, her father, to play and win tennis in default mode. Richard Williams had earlier experimented with Venus Williams and "programmed" her to be civil and win, but discovered that she turned out like a German Shepherd, nice and elegant but lacking strong enough territorial instincts. She was ever-smiling and elegant and too sweet-natured for William´s plan. So he decided to give the next one, Serena, the Rotweiller orientation. Things went right, and the tennis kingdom ended up with a tennis player with something akin to a pitbull personality. William had unwittingly designed a perfect, but increasingly difficult to control, tennis cyborg!
Now she has come out with a book. So what on God´s green earth would be interesting about a life spent from age three hitting tennis balls? And as if that were not enough of a concern, we now have to add taking nude pictures for magazines to it! You begin to wonder which father would want his daughter to read a book written by a woman who poses nude in magazines, curses with ease. Talk less of wanting his daughter to have such controversial character as a role model?
There are so many elegant women in tennis one would want his daughters to emulate. Women who are great on the court and away from the court. Women who may not win all the games but keep winning our hearts. Icons like the delectable Venus Williams, the elegant Justine Henin, Kim Clisjters, Elena Dementieva…the list goes on. Women who when they win, smile sweetly at the crowd and wave to the spectators. Serena punches her fist and snarls at her opponents after victory, before going to the net to shake their hands and wave to the crowd.
Serena is a good example of what happens when you train your child to believe that winning is the only thing. And you fail to tell her this instructive story of Arthur Ashe.
In the 1975 Masters Tennis Tournament in Sweden, Ashe played the Romanian, Ilie Nastase, then known as "Nasty Nastase" because of his on-court antics and foul language. He cursed and taunted Ashe like a demented man during the game. Finally Ashe quit the game and walked off the court saying, "I have had enough. I am at the point where I am afraid I´ll lose control." The umpire warned him that if he left, he would default the match. Ashe replied, "I don´t care. I´d rather lose that than my self-respect." The day after the unfortunate cursing incident, the tournament committee came to a surprising decision; they defaulted Nastase for his unsportsmanlike conduct, and awarded the match to Ashe. Ashe won the game and won our hearts. What´s more? Ashe did this when he was just 32, but his reaction, according to those who knew him, would have been the same if the incident occurred when he was 28. Serena´s, perhaps, would have matched Nasty Nastase curse for curse, profanity for profanity.
But lets get back to the "ever young" Serena. The president of the International Tennis Federation, Francesco Ricci Bitti, has given a clue that Serena Williams will not be barred from playing in any Grand Slam and would rather be fined. Thank God he was not in charge in the Ashe vs Nastase match because he would have opted for Nastase to be fined heavily, instead of awarding the match to Ashe, who simply quit the it. Listen to Rici, as reported by the media "I don't think (an Australian Open ban) would make much sense, because it would penalize the people handing out the punishment. For the Grand Slam committee to exclude her from a Grand Slam doesn't seem likely. A significant financial penalty makes much more sense. But it has to be significant enough for the fans (to appreciate) it."
Well, the ITF would simply set a precedent and determine for the world the real monetary value of a curse, and signify that it is not for a habit the poor should indulge in. Those who can afford it, will continue the tradition as set by sweet Serena…the teenage (sorry, I mean young) 28-year-old woman. ITF would also have proved the ancient Chinese proverb that "crisis and opportunity are different sides of the same coin" by making profit from profanity. All these may not make Serena grow up, but then one wonders whether she is really interested in growing up. For like the baseball great, Chili Davis, said, "Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional"
No one seemed to remember that at nineteen years of age, Joan of Arc had accomplished enough in life to be named the patron saint of France. She was unjustly tried and executed at nineteen and she died a very responsible woman who never claimed in her defense to be a "young person." And she led men in several battles and won many of them. Though she died a teenager, she died with the mind of an adult.
At 28, Alexander the Great had conquered all the then known world and was at the helm of his power and glory. He began his conquests at nineteen, when his father, Philip of Macedon, died and he never looked back nor saw himself as a young person until his sudden death at 30.
At 26, Kim Clisjters, is married with a kid and does not see herself as a young person, but rather as a mature adult with responsibilities. She has never posed semi-nude as Serena did recently. At 28, Roger Federer is married with a set of twins and has never announced to anyone that he is still a young person. At 27 Justine Henin has been married and divorced and has never considered herself a young person nor used age to justify a misdeed. She has never posed nude for any magazine either.
At twenty-eight, Serena Williams could hold any office in the United States of America - but then she is a Jehovah´s Witness and does not vote in elections and may not know this embarrassing truth. But still what has age got to do with it? Perhaps upbringing has a lot more to do with it, than age. Or how else can one explain her recent appearance on the cover of a magazine semi-nude? Not to mention her expertise at profane language.
Of course the "ever young" Serena Williams on a later date apologized over her outburst. Hear her, "My reaction was 100 per cent, 200 per cent, wrong. But I do think my reaction showed a lot of people that I´m not perfect, that I am human and that I do make mistakes. The important thing is that you learn from your mistakes and are able to move on from them."
Wrong, our dear Serena! Unfortunately, we knew long ago that Serena Williams was not perfect, and that she was human and that she makes mistakes (sorry, I mean, blunders). She was, perhaps, the only one who did not know this about herself, and she would have been more correct if she said something like, "But I do think my reaction showed me that I´m not perfect, that I am human and that I do make mistakes." Perfect!
Still young at 28? Sure you can still be young at 28, if all you have ever done in life is chase down tiny little green balls and hit them as hard as possible across a net, and then have some tutorials on how to use profane language in ways that would make uncouth sailors go green with envy. She is still "young" and that is why she recently appeared semi-nude on the magazine cover.
After this nude magazine appearance, she beat it to London to promote her autobiography. This shows an odd sense of proportion. A woman who considers herself "young" does not wait to get "old" before telling her story to the world! Autobiographies are supposed to be written by people who have completed their lives´ races or are close to completing them. Couldn´t she have finished playing tennis before writing her story? One wonders whether biographies were meant for twenty-eight year olds with teenage minds, who are yet to settle some psychic accounts and resolve some psychological conflicts.
One cannot blame Serena Williams though. She was "programmed" and "configured" by Richard Williams, her father, to play and win tennis in default mode. Richard Williams had earlier experimented with Venus Williams and "programmed" her to be civil and win, but discovered that she turned out like a German Shepherd, nice and elegant but lacking strong enough territorial instincts. She was ever-smiling and elegant and too sweet-natured for William´s plan. So he decided to give the next one, Serena, the Rotweiller orientation. Things went right, and the tennis kingdom ended up with a tennis player with something akin to a pitbull personality. William had unwittingly designed a perfect, but increasingly difficult to control, tennis cyborg!
Now she has come out with a book. So what on God´s green earth would be interesting about a life spent from age three hitting tennis balls? And as if that were not enough of a concern, we now have to add taking nude pictures for magazines to it! You begin to wonder which father would want his daughter to read a book written by a woman who poses nude in magazines, curses with ease. Talk less of wanting his daughter to have such controversial character as a role model?
There are so many elegant women in tennis one would want his daughters to emulate. Women who are great on the court and away from the court. Women who may not win all the games but keep winning our hearts. Icons like the delectable Venus Williams, the elegant Justine Henin, Kim Clisjters, Elena Dementieva…the list goes on. Women who when they win, smile sweetly at the crowd and wave to the spectators. Serena punches her fist and snarls at her opponents after victory, before going to the net to shake their hands and wave to the crowd.
Serena is a good example of what happens when you train your child to believe that winning is the only thing. And you fail to tell her this instructive story of Arthur Ashe.
In the 1975 Masters Tennis Tournament in Sweden, Ashe played the Romanian, Ilie Nastase, then known as "Nasty Nastase" because of his on-court antics and foul language. He cursed and taunted Ashe like a demented man during the game. Finally Ashe quit the game and walked off the court saying, "I have had enough. I am at the point where I am afraid I´ll lose control." The umpire warned him that if he left, he would default the match. Ashe replied, "I don´t care. I´d rather lose that than my self-respect." The day after the unfortunate cursing incident, the tournament committee came to a surprising decision; they defaulted Nastase for his unsportsmanlike conduct, and awarded the match to Ashe. Ashe won the game and won our hearts. What´s more? Ashe did this when he was just 32, but his reaction, according to those who knew him, would have been the same if the incident occurred when he was 28. Serena´s, perhaps, would have matched Nasty Nastase curse for curse, profanity for profanity.
But lets get back to the "ever young" Serena. The president of the International Tennis Federation, Francesco Ricci Bitti, has given a clue that Serena Williams will not be barred from playing in any Grand Slam and would rather be fined. Thank God he was not in charge in the Ashe vs Nastase match because he would have opted for Nastase to be fined heavily, instead of awarding the match to Ashe, who simply quit the it. Listen to Rici, as reported by the media "I don't think (an Australian Open ban) would make much sense, because it would penalize the people handing out the punishment. For the Grand Slam committee to exclude her from a Grand Slam doesn't seem likely. A significant financial penalty makes much more sense. But it has to be significant enough for the fans (to appreciate) it."
Well, the ITF would simply set a precedent and determine for the world the real monetary value of a curse, and signify that it is not for a habit the poor should indulge in. Those who can afford it, will continue the tradition as set by sweet Serena…the teenage (sorry, I mean young) 28-year-old woman. ITF would also have proved the ancient Chinese proverb that "crisis and opportunity are different sides of the same coin" by making profit from profanity. All these may not make Serena grow up, but then one wonders whether she is really interested in growing up. For like the baseball great, Chili Davis, said, "Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional"
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