Ode to Arthur Ashe defeating Jimmy Connors in the 1975 Wimbledon Final

I watched the match on a Zenith floor console from the basement of my home in Oregon City.

Five years later my beagle would shit on the carpet inches away from the Zenith broadcasting Ronald Reagan’s acceptance speech at the Republican Convention.

It was the only time Tex took a shit in the house.

He knew what was coming.

The rest of us didn’t.

The oddsmakers knew you would lose. You had no chance. Your smooth serve and volley game and subtle slices stood no chance against the T-2000 trampolining cannonballs from the baseline. You weren’t playing Stan Smith or Ken Rosewall. You were playing a punk on grass!

Your composure, your dignity, your journey from the segregated courts of Richmond stood no chance against profanity, crotch grabs and simulated masturbation after a wayward forehand.

I’ve read both memoirs—yours plainly states truth, the other arrogant, phony justification.

One a classic, the other toilet paper when all the trees have vanished.

How did you win Arthur?

I know there is a lesson for all of us in your victory.

If only America had learned it.

Now it’s far too late.

You, the greatest sportsman in American history, squaring off against the second worst sportsman in American history. (McEnroe number one, never to be eclipsed.)

You shot straight down the middle.

You gave him no angles to pass you.

No one had ever played him way that way before.

Tactics over torque.

Patience over power.

Class over crass.

Deftness defined.

He was too stupid (or hungover) to adjust and was soon shaking your hand across the net, the truly last decent gesture left in the world of sports. I wonder why it’s still hung on.

6-1, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4.

Not even that close.

No athlete is like you anymore.

You helped end Apartheid.

He won the 1974 South African Open.

You would have never played in Saudi Arabia.

All the tennis pros do now.

Every American athlete today is Jimmy Connors.

American culture is Jimmy Connors, not you, Arthur.