With What We Give, We

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.

I Have Tried To Keep On With My Striving Because This Is The Only Hope I Have Of Ever Achieving Anything Worthwhile And Lasting.

Seven Out Of 10 Black Faces You See On Television Are Athletes. The Black Athlete Carries The Image Of The Black Community. He Carries The Cross, In A Way, Until Blacks Make Inroads In Other Dimensions.

Someone Once Told Me That God Figured That I Was A Pretty Good Juggler. I Could Keep A Lot Of Balls In The Air At One Time. So He Said, "let's See If He Can Juggle Another One."

...i Spent Many, Many Hours In...libraries. Libraries Became Courts Of Last Resort, As It Were.