Gibson: A great service
NEW YORK -- Three little words: It's about time.
Past time, really, but the US Tennis Association finally got around to celebrating the life of Althea Gibson last night. Would that it had happened while she was alive. However, it is still essential to remember what she did in a triumphant blaze, a blend of courage and talent as she changed the skin tone in a game that had been solidly white. Thus altering the game itself. Favorably.
It was good to unwrap the 127th US Championship (the Open since 1968) with a reminder of what Gibson, a poor kid out of Harlem, accomplished -- desegregating a sport that revolved around restrictive country clubs in her time.
The neighborhood did not collapse nor the lawn wilt beneath her sneakers in 1950 when the 23-year-old Gibson -- an advanced age for a rookie -- was grudgingly permitted to enter the US Championships at Forest Hills. Twenty-one years later she would be in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, but it wasn't a joy ride.
Ultra slim, nearly 6 feet tall, she was a splendid athlete with a concussive serve, piercing volleys. Fine. But pure athleticism wasn't enough to launch her over an invisible wall as imposing as Gibraltar: the barrier of racism. It took guts, which Gibson had in abundance. By 1950, that other sporting pioneer, Jackie Robinson, had been in a Brooklyn Dodger uniform for three seasons. Paul Brown had been hiring blacks such as fullback Marion Motley for his Cleveland Browns. Nobody tried to rough up Gibson physically, as happened in baseball and football. But those blacks had teammates. Althea was alone.
She suffered the insults, the deprivations and exclusions, the slights, indifference, and subtle hostility with little sympathy. And she also knew that if she didn't make it, or offended one of the starchy clubbies who ran the game, it might make it difficult for those who yearned to follow.
Serena Williams, who did tread the trail that Gibson blazed, said, "It's hard to imagine all the stuff she went through. But they couldn't break her. I always dreamed of being on the same level as her, to have the opportunity. She was a pioneer not just for female tennis, but all tennis."
Amen.
Fortitude served Gibson well. It had to, because in that amateur time, there was little money -- certainly not within her reach. Barred from the usual teen-age competitions, she wasn't ready for the big league at 23. Seven years of hard work spread over erratic gigs brought her up to No. 1 speed, ready to carry Wimbledon and the US at age 30, the golden anniversary of which was hailed yesterday. She repeated in 1958 . . . and then it was over. Pro tennis, hardly existing, had no openings for women.
Among Gibson's hardships were trying to find hotels that would take her in. She often slept in her car. Some clubs that controlled tournaments refused to invite her. That was the case with Longwood Cricket Club in Boston, scene of the US Doubles, until 1957 when a Wimbledon title and membership on the US Wightman Cup team softened attitudes. The same was true for the Essex County Club in Manchester, Mass., where she appeared at last in 1958.
Even though USTA officialdom, bowing to the entreaties of her mentor, Dr. Walter Johnson, a Lynchburg, Va., physician, OK'd Gibson to enter some lesser tourneys in 1950, the US Championships at Forest Hills seemed unlikely. At that juncture, her angel was Hall of Famer Alice Marble, whose eloquent lobbying in American Lawn Tennis Magazine swung the deal. "If we truly believe in sportsmanship, then Miss Gibson deserves to play," Marble wrote.
Play she did. Nervously departing Harlem, carrying two wooden rackets and a gym bag, she traveled by subway to the West Side Tennis Club for a three-day, two-match adventure. Up and down went her game, with signs of brilliance to come. They put her on a remote court for an easy first-round victory, but couldn't hide her for the second because it involved the reigning Wimbledon champ, Louise Brough.
"We were on the grandstand [secondary] court and it was jammed, about 2,000 people," recalled Brough, 84, over the phone. "I was not that impressed with her at first. But it got tense when she won the second set and we kept breaking each other's serves in the third. With her leading, 7-6, I was getting worried."
Whereupon providence took a hand. A fierce thunderstorm struck Forest Hills, a lightning bolt toppling one of the large concrete eagles from the stadium's upper rim. Waiting overnight for closure, Gibson was a "nervous wreck," and she lost the last three games of the continuation. Her day against Brough would come, though, a 6-3, 6-2 victory in the 1957 title bout.
The days of glory were soon over, and she died, a recluse, in 2003, unhappy about a divorce and her inability to have children.
Gibson was last seen in public 17 years ago, a dashing figure in a handsome pantsuit and big smile electrifying Wimbledon's royal box. She was there to cheer a disciple, Zina Garrison, in a final lost to Martina Navratilova.
"It was sad at the end," said Garrison. "She was sick, housebound. I think she was a little bitter at not getting the recognition she deserved."
It's too late to make amends, but it's important to try -- as happened last night -- and important to keep her deeds alive. Some time ago, discussing that 1950 killer storm, she mused, "Well, there I was, playing Forest Hills at last, and the lightning knocked down the big stone eagle. I thought maybe it was an omen that the times was a-changing."
She made them change. 