Do Not Feel Sorry For Me If

I Have Always Drawn Strength From Being Close To Home.

Drummed Into Me, Above All, By My Dad, By The Whole Family, Was That Without Your Good Name, You Would Be Nothing.

Every Time You Win, It Diminishes The Fear A Little Bit. You Never Really Cancel The Fear Of Losing; You Keep Challenging It.

There Were Times When I Asked Myself Whether I Was Being Principled Or Simply A Coward.... I Was Wrapped In The Cocoon Of Tennis Early In Life, Mainly By Blacks Like My Most Powerful Mentor, Dr. Robert Walter Johnson Of Lynchburg, Virginia. They Insisted That I Be Unfailingly Polite On The Court, Unfalteringly Calm And Detached, So That Whites Could Never Accuse Me Of Meanness. I Learned Well. I Look At Photographs Of The Skinny, Frail, Little Black Boy That I Was In The Early 1950s, And I See That I Was My Tennis Racquet And My Tennis Racquet Was Me. It Was My Rod And My Staff.

When We Were Together, I Loved You Deeply And You Gave Me So Much Happiness I Can Never Repay You.