2013.08.29 阿尔西娅-吉布森 黑人网球运动员

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Althea Gibson's Unfinished Legacy for Black Tennis Players
She broke barriers by rising to the top in 1957, but since then the sport has become exclusionary in new ways.

By Henry D. Fetter

AP
AUGUST 29, 2013
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Legendary tennis commentator Bud Collins once wrote that no tennis player had ever overcome more obstacles to become a champion than Althea Gibson. This year, rightly, the U.S. Postal Service is marking the U.S. Open tournament with a first-class “Forever” stamp honoring the African-American tennis great from the 1950s.

Gibson, born in South Carolina in 1927 and raised in Harlem, won the women’s singles titles at Wimbledon and Forest Hills (at the U.S. National Championships, the forerunner of today’s U.S. Open) in 1957 and repeated both feats in 1958. She was the first black champion, male or female, at those tournaments. At a time when top tennis was remained an amateur sport largely played at private clubs that excluded blacks (and in many cases Jews as well), Gibson had to fight just to be allowed to play in the United States’ national championship at all.

But that realm of prejudice and privilege provided a paradoxical opportunity for Gibson. Gibson overcame the initial barrier to entry when she became the first African-American allowed to play at Forest Hills in 1950, and from that point on, she faced a pool of rivals that was limited by geography and wealth.

Tennis, whose most prestigious events were open only to amateurs (as they would be until the “Open” revolution of 1968), was the preserve of a close-knit community of the socially prominent and those able to attract their patronage. A disproportionate number of its top American players were from Southern California. The sport’s lack of professional opportunities—especially for women—discouraged participation by the athletically talented looking for a chance to cash in on their skill someday; Gibson herself even had a professional golf career in the absence of a similar women’s professional tennis tour at the time. Gibson, at 5’11”, was tall for a woman player at the time (and taller than many of the top women’s players even today), and her strength and athletic ability allowed her to overcome the poor quality of her initial instruction in the game. As the Postal Service puts it, Gibson “was fast, had a long reach, and relied on a booming serve and precise volleys,” as well as the determination necessary to win her first major championships at the age of 30.

Gibson played decades before the pipeline to the top tennis ranks became populated by “teenagers ...who practice five or six hours a day."
By comparison, though, today’s “open” world of professional tennis may actually be more “closed” to those—like Gibson herself—without the resources or the time to devote to a full-time, top-flight immersion in the sport starting at a very young age.

Gibson played decades before the pipeline to the top tennis ranks became populated by, as The New York Times recently put it, “teenagers ...who practice five or six hours a day; who are home schooled in South Florida condominiums into which their families have moved from the suburbs of Boston or Lisbon or Moscow to allow them to play high-level tennis.”

Given such an environment, it is likely no coincidence that Gibson remains among the very few African Americans to have ever won Wimbledon or U.S. National/U.S. Open titles. Only Arthur Ashe among the men and the Williams sisters among the women have matched that record; there are virtually no promising prospects among the American men and few—if any—among the women who are likely to add to that roster of champions (apologies to Sloane Stephens if or when I am wrong). So when the Postal Service says that Gibson “blazed a trail for a future generation of African-American players, such as Arthur Ashe and sisters Venus and Serena Williams,” the “such as” is tantamount to “all” when it comes to listing those who followed her trail to the top.

But whatever obstacles big-time tennis continue to present to minority youngsters trying to emulate Gibson’s success, the stamp honoring her is certainly a welcome recognition of a great champion. So buy the stamp, and maybe use it to mail letters to Time-Warner Cable and CBS urging them to resolve the dispute that will otherwise prevent so many cable subscribers from watching the finals of the U.S. Open this year—where the odds-on favorite Serena Williams could honor Althea Gibson’s legacy by hoisting a trophy once again.

Henry D. Fetter is the author of Taking on the Yankees: Winning and Losing in the Business of Baseball and has written widely about the business and politics of sports.




阿尔西娅-吉布森为黑人网球运动员留下的未完成的遗产
她在1957年打破了障碍，登上了顶峰，但从那时起，这项运动又以新的方式变得具有排他性。

亨利-D-费特报道

美联社
2013年8月29日
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传奇的网球评论员巴德-柯林斯曾经写道，没有任何网球运动员比阿尔西娅-吉布森克服了更多的障碍而成为冠军。今年，美国邮政局为纪念美国网球公开赛，特意为这位20世纪50年代的非裔美国网球名将设计了一枚一等 "永久 "邮票。

吉布森1927年出生于南卡罗来纳州，在哈林区长大，1957年在温布尔登和森林山（美国全国锦标赛，今天的美国公开赛的前身）赢得了女子单打冠军，并在1958年重复了这一壮举。她是这些比赛中的第一个黑人冠军，不论是男性还是女性。当时，顶级网球仍然是一项业余运动，主要在私人俱乐部进行，黑人（在许多情况下也包括犹太人）被排除在外，吉布森不得不为获准参加美国的全国锦标赛而奋斗。

但这种偏见和特权的领域为吉布森提供了一个矛盾的机会。1950年，吉布森成为第一个被允许在森林山打球的非裔美国人，克服了最初的进入障碍，从那时起，她面对的对手受到地理和财富的限制。

网球，其最有声望的赛事只对业余选手开放（直到1968年的 "公开赛 "革命），是一个由社会知名人士和能够吸引他们的赞助的人组成的紧密社区的保留地。它的顶级美国球员中有相当多的人来自南加州。这项运动缺乏职业机会--特别是对女性而言--阻碍了那些有运动天赋的人的参与，他们希望有朝一日能靠自己的技能兑现；吉布森本人甚至在当时没有类似的女子职业网球巡回赛的情况下有了职业高尔夫生涯。吉布森身高5英尺11英寸，对于当时的女选手来说是很高的（甚至比今天的许多顶级女选手都要高），她的力量和运动能力使她克服了最初在比赛中的不良指导。正如邮政部门所说，吉布森 "速度快，距离远，依靠轰轰烈烈的发球和精确的排球"，以及必要的决心，在30岁时赢得了她的第一个主要冠军。

吉布森在进入顶级网球行列的管道变成 "每天练习五六个小时的青少年 "之前打了几十年。
不过，相比之下，今天的职业网球 "开放 "世界对那些像吉布森一样没有资源或时间从很小的时候就开始全职沉浸在这项运动中的人来说，实际上可能更加 "封闭"。

正如《纽约时报》最近所说的那样，吉布森在进入顶级网球行列的管道变得充斥着 "青少年......他们每天练习五六个小时；他们在南佛罗里达州的公寓里接受家庭教育，他们的家人从波士顿、里斯本或莫斯科的郊区搬到那里，让他们打高水平的网球。"

鉴于这样的环境，吉布森仍然是极少数曾经赢得温布尔登或美国国家/美国公开赛冠军的非裔美国人之一，这可能不是巧合。只有男子中的阿瑟-阿什和女子中的威廉姆斯姐妹能与这一纪录相提并论；美国男子中几乎没有有前途的选手，而女子中可能加入这一冠军名册的选手也很少，甚至没有（如果我错了，请向斯隆-斯蒂芬斯道歉）。因此，当邮政局说吉布森 "为未来一代非裔美国人球员开辟了一条道路，如阿瑟-阿什和维纳斯和塞雷娜-威廉姆斯姐妹 "时，"如 "就等于 "所有"，当它涉及到列出那些跟随她的足迹走向顶峰的人。

但是，无论大牌网球赛事对试图模仿吉布森的成功的少数族裔年轻人构成何种障碍，纪念她的邮票无疑是对一位伟大冠军的认可。因此，请购买这枚邮票，也许还可以用它来给时代华纳有线电视公司和哥伦比亚广播公司写信，敦促他们解决争端，否则将使许多有线电视用户无法观看今年的美国网球公开赛决赛--在那里，最受欢迎的塞雷娜-威廉姆斯可以通过再次捧起奖杯来纪念阿尔西娅-吉布森的遗产。

亨利-D-菲特是《与洋基队交锋：棒球生意中的输赢》一书的作者，并广泛撰写有关体育生意和政治的文章。