You Learn About Equality In

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 Know I Could Never Forgive Myself If I Elected To Live Without Humane Purpose, Without Trying To Help The Poor And Unfortunate, Without Recognizing That Perhaps The Purest Joy In Life Comes With Trying To Help Others.

Having Grown Up In A Segregated Environment In The South I Know What It's Like To Be Stepped On, I Know What It's Like Also To See Some Black Hero Do Well In The Face Of Adversity.

There Is A Syndrome In Sports Called 'paralysis By Analysis.'

I Take The Good With The Bad, And I Try To Face Them Both With As Much Calm And Dignity As I Can Muster.