It Is Not Just The More Talented

Trust Has To Be Earned, And Should Come Only After The Passage Of Time.

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.

Later, I Discovered There Was A Lot Of Work To Being Good In Tennis.

I Keep Sailing On In This Middle Passage. I Am Sailing Into The Wind And The Dark. But I Am Doing My Best To Keep My Boat Steady And My Sails Full.

I Have Become Convinced That We Blacks Spend Too Much Time On The Playing Field And Too Little Time In Libraries.