Why me?
Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. (July 10, 1943 – February 6, 1993) was a First-ranked professional tennis player and the only African-American male, ever to win the US Open, the Australian Open, and the Wimbledon - the three Grand Slam singles titles.
Arthur started his game with a puny physique and his coach Johnson helped fine-tune Ashe's game and taught him the importance of racial socialization through sportsmanship, etiquette and the composure that would later become an Ashe hallmark.
To have hailed from times when racial discrimination was at its peak, it is no normal 'attitude' that Ashe carried along to become the inspiring Superhero. In 1979, despite his active lifestyle, Ashe suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple-bypass surgery. His return to tennis was stalled by the onset of recurring chest pains, causing him to officially retire in April 1980.
In 1983, Ashe had to undergo a second round of heart surgery, during which he received a blood transfusion to expedite the recovery process. In 1988, Ashe was hospitalised once more, this time after experiencing paralysis in his right arm. After much testing it was discovered that Ashe was HIV positive, the belief being that he contracted the virus during the second heart bypass surgery in 1983.
Wanting to be the master of his own destiny, he chose to reveal the news himself rather than let the newspapers do it for him. From all over the world, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: “Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease”? Ashe's spontaneous reply to the “WHY ME” was:
“The world over, 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi-final, 2 to the finals… When I was holding a cup, I never asked GOD 'Why me?' And today in pain I should not be asking GOD 'Why me?"
No wonder that this attitude of 'Why me' for all the right reasons put Ashe truly on a different league. Ashe became a vocal campaigner for AIDS awareness. He set up both the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the defeat of AIDS and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health. He died on 6th February 1993 from AIDS-related pneumonia when he was just 49. The US Open honoured him in 1997 by naming their new primary show-court, and it is still the largest tennis stadium in the world, in his honour. Ashe was truly unstoppable and certainly an only one of his kind.
