The chops of the girl of the Golden West. Compton California’sSerema Williams. An art deco poignancy, riding her steed into Puccini’s saloon, dominating what was once a masculine featinto her Cleopatra galloping tempo.
17 tennis championships, tying the record for the most in the open era of the woman’s game. A legend in the making, still performing on our minor planet’ courts, with a racquet upheaval here and there as she argues at “if in doubt, call it out” heist,undermining her concentration and swagger.
II
Hearing the “score” of John Nash, the mathematician ‘s crackup, his brain neurons crashing into symbolism and syllogisms. Russell Crouse identifying with the chaos, his neurosisoverwhelming his academic fervor, with colleagues, students and his wife.
A conundrum indeed! “A beautiful mind” on and off academiaand the tennis court.
III
Metamorphosing into cyberspace, leads one to suspect that appended apps, tablets. The smart phones and the melodious ding a ling electronics apps embody..
Who could have anticipated cybernetics would enthrall one’s neurons, while the calculus of humanity is diminished on the planet, wherever a player dare to scan.
The competitive cosmos into overdrive.
IV
Meanwhile the very experience into Compton and the cradle for Serena and her sister Venus; their father and coach, Richard.
Collecting old tennis balls, he looked askance at the cradle. Hislullaby was a tennis racquet, those fuzzy beat up balls and the Compton park tennis courts.
“How’d he done do it?” Soft spoken, his daughters inherited hisgenes. Day after day…. hours and hours, instilling a discipline into their routine & study habits. Their natures devouring whatever their coach and father, tossing up those second hand balls.
His own classroom of all year tennis: Bill Tilden, Alice Marble,Althea Gibson, Don Budge, Ellsworth Vines,
Billie Jean King. …the hand and eye coordination of Ucla’s Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe shacking ball after ball.
Billie Jean King. …the hand and eye coordination of Ucla’s Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe shacking ball after ball.
Sleeping, eating tennis day and night, the toddlers sacking their infancy as foundlings into drop shots, overheads, volleys, hitting to depth, cross court, down the line, their father coach throwing those used tennis balls until his student daughters made it a part of their souls and second nature.
V
Our own role, teaching at nearby North Long Beach’s Lindberg Jr. High, driving into the Compton red streetcar hub, feeling the tempo at Compton City College… their basketball fever year after year.
Could any spectator realize what was playing out at the park’s tennis courts, seeing father coach, tossing bal after ball to his pre kindergarten bred daughters ball after ball…forehand, backhand, serve, overhead …… (“let it bounce, use your smarts”) volleying at the net.
Cultivating a killer’s instinct as Richard in gathering up those used balls, saw Pancho Gonzales from the barrio and Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles, mature into a “controlled power”tactician from the other side of the tracks.
“Pancho” Segura from Ecuador, acquired a reputation as a steady teaching pro and all court competitor before open tennis invalidated the amateurs no “dinero” tennis ,losing its credibilityforever.
VI
Who’s to say that amateur game was light years behind professional spots. Bill Tilden making a living by giving lessons on that Hollywood Boulevard court, off the HollywoodRoosevelt Hotel. But Richard Williams shagging those beat up balls, carted them off to Compton and furthering his dream by indoctrinating those ballse into his daughter’s learning graphsand genesis.
Puccini’s heroine metamorphoses into the strong soprano of his “Girl from the Golden West”. But how long and how many operas did it take for his scores to evolve from the left bank of poverty and tuberculosis (“La boheme”) synthesis.
VI
The comeuppance of Serena Williams to evolve into the “Girl from the Golden West”, recognizes the moral underpinnings ofher all court “sweats”.
‘If in doubt, call it out”
The City that never sleeps, November 2, 2014
