Illustration by Chris Visions
My husband and I moved to Richmond in 2005, and as avid tennis players and volunteers for various causes related to the sport, we wanted to get to know the local tennis community. We researched online and found references to the Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center on the Boulevard. When we visited the building, though, it was locked, and we saw no signs of tennis activity. We thought Richmond could honor Arthur Ashe’s legacy in more visible ways.
So of course I attended the meeting on Oct. 9 about renaming the Boulevard in his honor. I was shocked to find out how little residents knew about Ashe’s legacy, with one speaker asking, “What has Arthur Ashe done for Richmond?”
The most important gift Arthur Ashe gave Richmond, I believe, was to demonstrate that a person growing up in a segregated Southern city could not only become a world-class athlete but also a world-class humanitarian. As Ashe himself put it, “If I am remembered only as a tennis player, I will consider myself a failure.”
Ashe used his influence and resources to help students in Richmond Public Schools. A strong believer in the power of education, he founded Virginia Heroes, connecting RPS middle school students with mentors. He hoped to provide Richmond children with “real life role models as examples of how positive, successful and fulfilling life can be.”
Ashe’s concern for underserved kids also drove him to co-found the National Junior Tennis League in 1969 with his tennis friends Sheridan Snyder, who played for U.Va., and Charlie Pasarell, a fellow hall-of-famer who played for UCLA with Ashe. NJTL was renamed National Junior Tennis and Learning in 2009 to better reflect its mission. Today, the USTA Foundation continues to administer and financially support a network of 350 NJTL chapters that annually reach more than 200,000 underserved youth nationwide. Studies show that kids who play tennis are less likely to engage in risky behaviors, less likely to be overweight and more likely to attend college.
Locally, the Mary and Frances Youth Center on the VCU campus is an award-winning NJTL chapter. During the 2017-18 program year, 674 elementary and middle school students from Richmond Public Schools participated in its after-school program, Lobs and Lessons, which not only provides healthy activities and homework assistance to children but also supplies VCU students with hands-on opportunities for community service. The chapter also holds summer camps and is the home of the Young Aces Open, a team tennis competition that draws participants from all Richmond public elementary schools and is believed to be the largest youth tennis event in the nation. NJTL also provides college scholarships to deserving high school students, with Richmond students receiving $16,000 in scholarships over the years.
Arthur Ashe was truly heroic when it came to helping others. His activism against apartheid in South Africa is well known. In honor of his efforts, a tennis center in Johannesburg was named after Ashe.
After suffering a heart attack as a young adult, Ashe became a national campaign chairman for the American Heart Association. He contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, after receiving infected blood during his second bypass surgery. Ashe delivered a speech at the United Nations on World AIDS Day in 1992, and he launched a $5 million awareness campaign.
On Sept, 10, 1992, even as his health was deteriorating, Ashe traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in a protest over the United States’ treatment of Haitian refugees. He was taken away in handcuffs for his part in the demonstration.
The unveiling of the Arthur Ashe Memorial Mural at Battery Park in conjunction with an Arthur Ashe Birthday Blast celebration brought over 200 people to Battery Park in July 2017. The mural features Arthur Ashe’s quote, “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.” His quote inspires me to honor Ashe’s memory in his hometown in whatever ways I can, whether I’m working to make low-cost and free tennis programs available to underserved youth or helping to create wheelchair tennis programs.
The largest tennis stadium in the world is named after Arthur Ashe, but he was much more than a tennis player, and that’s why I support renaming the Boulevard in his honor. He embodies human qualities to which we can all aspire. I know what Arthur Ashe did for Richmond. My question is this: “What has Richmond done for Arthur Ashe?”
Shima Grover began working on the local level with the United States Tennis Association in Michigan in the 1970s.
