by James Blake
After four wins, Rama’s team easily beat its next competitor. They would play the championship game the next morning. This time they would play in front of the community, and their friends and family. Rama’s family had never seen her or her team play soccer in a game. On the morning of the final, Rama and her teammates were incredibly nervous. As she walked with her family to the field, her father said, “Don’t be nervous. It’s only a game. Just do your best.” But Rama was worried that she would lose. “No you won’t,” he told her. “Just stay focused.” His reluctance for her playing was forgotten and in its place there was a pride that his daughter was the best player on the team.
When they arrived at the field, friends and family packed the sidelines. The girls from the other soccer programs were there, to cheer them on. And the boys were also there, excited to see their first girls’ soccer game. The support from the community was overwhelming. As the teams lined up and prepared to start the game, you could see the nervousness on Rama’s and her teammates’ faces. They were anxious to be playing in front of such a large crowd. As the teams took their places on a makeshift soccer field in the middle of the desert, under the bright sun, a hush settled over the crowd. This was for them a moment like no other. Girls were playing other girls in soccer, and the whole community was there to cheer them on.
At first, the girls were clearly nervous. But they soon forgot the screaming crowd and focused on the game and became lost in it. Rama’s team played well. Fighting for the ball, the opposite team took the lead and fought to keep it. Rama’s team lost 1–0, and it was heartbreaking. The girls cried and tried to comfort each other. But in the end they knew that day ultimately was not about winning. Rama and the other girls proved to their community: girls can play sports, and they can play well.
Rama’s father struggled to describe his feelings on that day as he watched his daughter on the field. “I was surprised. I never thought she was that good. I had a feeling I can’t describe. I can’t really express it.” That day Rama and her teammates earned the right to call themselves soccer players. Although still surrounded by the upheaval of war, the lessons learned on the soccer field, from the coaches and teammates, have left an indelible mark on Rama and her teammates, and on all the girls on the teams. Their experiences have changed them, transformed perceptions, and inspired them and others. But mostly it has shown them that they can do and be anything, even athletes. It has shown them not only the power of sports, but also their own power and resilience, and gave them hope in an unlikely place. That day, those girls on the field quietly created change by changing perceptions of what girls are capable of.
Creating Change, Quietly
Martina Navratilova is the epitome of a natural activist. She stood up for what she believed in at a huge personal risk. She was and still is outspoken, and was an activist simply by being herself, at a time when most professional athletes were still closeted. Navratilova didn’t know if she would see her family again when she defected from Czechoslovakia. When she became a naturalized US citizen, she felt that she was finally free to speak out. She knew she could lose sponsorships or fans, or that public opinion might turn against her, but she didn’t have to fear for her life or her family’s life the way she might have back in Czechoslovakia. She has never shied away from any issue. She freely spoke about what was on her mind in interviews, and when the questions started veering away from strictly tennis to topics with wide-ranging effects on society, she spoke out about those with her usual honesty and straightforwardness.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1956, Martina Navratilova began playing tennis at a young age, and was one of the most dominant female tennis players in the world in the late seventies and early eighties. Later in life, she became active in the gay rights movement. Tennis was a part of Navratilova’s DNA. Her grandmother Agnes Semenska had been an international player who had upset the mother of Vera Sukova, a 1962 Wimbledon finalist, in a national tournament.
Navratilova started at a very young age, then very quickly refined her game and rose up through the ranks. At four she was hitting tennis balls off of a cement wall. By age seven, Navratilova was playing regularly, spending hours on a court each day, working on her strokes and footwork. Navratilova began taking lessons at nine from the Czech champion George Parma, and she blossomed under his coaching. At age fifteen, she won the Czech national championship. In 1973, at sixteen, she turned pro and began competing in the United States. Navratilova defected to the United States when Czechoslovakia was under Communist control when she was eighteen. Leaving Czechoslovakia cut her off from her family, but it was also the start of her phenomenal tennis career. In 1978 she beat Chris Evert and won her first Grand Slam tournament at Wimbledon. Her second Wimbledon win came a year later with another victory over Evert. Navratilova’s third Grand Slam title came at the Australian Open in 1981. By the early eighties she was the most dominant women’s player in tennis.
During Navratilova’s on-court success she was open about her sexual orientation. “I never thought there was anything strange about being gay,” she wrote in her 1985 autobiography, Martina. Along the way, her public perception “advanced from animosity to acceptance to adulation.” Her left-handed playing style, intimidating physicality, and power on the court set her aside from all the other female athletes. Navratilova was a poster girl for tomboys and girls who were not girly-girls but who were powerful and athletic and were proud of it.
Navratilova was one of the first tennis players who went against the mainstream perception of what female players should look like, or how they should play. Chris Evert, the darling of the tennis world at that time, was ultrafeminine and lithe. Meanwhile, Navratilova, European, almost 5’8”, and at her heaviest 167 pounds, once caused tennis authority Bud Collins to describe her as “the Great Wide Hope.” Almost polar opposites, Evert and Navratilova were often pitted against each other professionally and physically. But despite the media backlash and negative attention, Navratilova simply played her best and silenced her critics on the court.
Robert Lipsyte and Peter Levine wrote in Idols of the Game, “As a lesbian, Navratilova expanded the dialogue on issues of gender and sexuality in sports. In the years that she and Chris Evert were locked in their fierce rivalry to be Number One, sports fans saw it was possible for two very different women, physically and emotionally, different in lifestyle and playing style, to both be great champions—and friends.”
Though she learned tennis playing on the slow clay courts of Czechoslovakia, Navratilova was not interested in the slow-moving, baseline-anchored woman’s game of the time. Instead, her game was one of a ferocious serve, powerful volley, then lightning speed as she rushed the net. Her emotional outbursts were stunning and may have been the precursor to Serena Williams’s. Navratilova won three major singles titles before she was twenty-five, an age when many women players are ready to retire. She finished with eighteen titles, including four US Opens, three French, and two Australian. Adding in her thirty-eight doubles titles, Navratilova won fifty-six Grand Slam championships. Only the Australian Margaret Court has won more majors. And she is seventy-four.
Navratilova’s influence, however, went far beyond the court.
In July 1981, soon after being granted US citizenship, she took the bold step of telling the truth when asked about her sexual preferences and said she was bisexual. Navratilova was also vocal about her affair with the author Rita Mae Brown.
“Martina was the first legitimate superstar who literally came out while she was a superstar,” said Donna Lopiano, the executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation. “She exploded the barrier by putting it on the table. She basically said, this part of my life doesn’t have anything to do with me as a tennis player. Judge me for who I am.”
Although Navratilova’s honesty cost her millions in endorsement opportunities because of corporate homophobia, she never backtracked or tried to fade into the background. On the contrary, even today, Navratilova speaks out for what s
he believes in. When US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest “dumb and disrespectful” in an interview with Katie Couric for Yahoo News, Navratilova spoke out against Ginsburg’s comment. The New York Times reported that “while [Navratilova] also thinks Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality ‘may be somewhat disrespectful,’” she believed that athletes like him should be praised for speaking out on social issues—not shamed for it—especially when they do so in a peaceful way, as Kaepernick did. “So many athletes are afraid to use their platform to do the right thing and speak what they feel, and that’s very depressing. . . . Sure, they are afraid of insulting people and losing money because of it, and everyone wants to make the maximum amount of money in their lifetime. But at the expense of who you are? I don’t know. That just wasn’t in my DNA.”9 A few days later, Ginsburg issued a statement apologizing for her comment. “I should have held my tongue,” the statement read. “Barely aware of the incident or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh. I should have declined to respond.”
Navratilova was never afraid to speak openly about what she felt needed to be changed in society. She publicly criticized George W. Bush for his conservative policies when he was president. She was also vocally critical of Bill Clinton for his “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military, which she felt neither addressed nor solved the issue. Navratilova also advocated for children’s rights, animal rights, and gay rights and marriage equality.
Navratilova continues to speak up for human rights. In October 2016 at an event at the US State Department to discuss how to improve human rights at large international sports events, Navratilova called on entities like the International Olympic Committee and FIFA to ensure that their events are safe and open to everyone, without discrimination, and said doing so was a responsibility such organizations couldn’t continue to shirk.
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
Martina Navratilova has never shied away from any issue. She spoke openly about what was on her mind in interviews. I was excited to speak with Navratilova about sports activism for many reasons. During such a highly political time in America, a time filled with so many polarizing issues, Navratilova’s perspective—as both an immigrant who is now an American citizen, and also a longtime advocate and activist—would be enlightening, to say the least.
Navratilova made time to speak with me when she returned from vacation, right after the immigration ban was making headlines. I was not surprised that she had as much to say about the ban as about the importance of athletes speaking out about social justice. I wanted to begin by finding out what started Navratilova on the road to activism and if she ever felt that perhaps she had been too outspoken.
As usual she began with her trademark directness. “I became an activist just by being out, but I didn’t actively look for it; it was by virtue of being who I was, where I was from. When I came here to the US as a political asylum seeker, it was an act of activism already. Being outspoken didn’t happen until the nineties, when I really got behind the LGBT movement and became more involved in it. But I’ve been speaking out on various issues for as long as I can remember, whether it’s the environment, animal rights, or kids. I had a children’s foundation, Martina’s Kids Foundation, back in the early eighties in Texas and I’ve always been outspoken.
“I remember getting into hot water speaking out about Magic Johnson. It’s terrible that Magic has HIV. He’s like a hero. I’ve met him and thought he was an amazing guy but what I said publicly at the time was, if a female athlete had contracted AIDS by sleeping with hundreds of men she’d be labeled a whore rather than a hero. I got such crap for that. And this is pre-Twitter. I would have had to get off Twitter if it existed back then. But that’s how I was. I never skirted anything. It’s not that I was so much of an activist as that I answered questions or even brought up subjects in press conferences, about tennis or whatever I was going through at the time. Journalists would then ask me more questions outside of the tennis realm or the sports realm. So I just always spoke what I thought, and I guess that in itself was an act of activism because so often during press conferences athletes don’t talk about things outside of the game they just played.”
When Navratilova commented on Magic Johnson, she was using her platform to call out a double standard that people in the public eye don’t often do. She was pointing out that half of the population would have been treated differently had they been in the same position or circumstance—had it been a woman and not a man. In being as outspoken as Navratilova was, would she have had the same kind of ideas without her platform as a professional athlete? Her answer didn’t surprise me.
“Yes. I would have found a way on a different level, but I would still be doing the same thing, or maybe something else, but I would be actively involved in something as I have been. I spoke out about issues, but I have also done a lot of charitable work. Because of the platform we professional athletes have we can do more good, we can reach more people. I’ll play tennis for charity and make $50,000 for an hour of my work, so it’s almost cheating. I was just reading about these women who ran from New York to Washington in protest in January. They hoped to raise $5,000 and they raised $100,000. But they ran two hundred or something miles, which is phenomenal. So we athletes with our kind of platform are kind of cheating.”
Navratilova was referring to Alison Mariella Désir and Talisa Hayes, two women runners from Harlem. They ran the 240 miles from New York City to Washington, DC, right before the 2017 presidential inauguration to raise funds for Planned Parenthood. I was curious as to why Navratilova felt that being able to do good by doing something she loves like playing tennis felt a little like cheating. This was not a perspective I’d encountered during my talks with activist athletes.
“In a way, yes, it is a little like cheating,” she answered. “Because it is so easy for us to reach our audience. As athletes I feel that yes, we do more, and get involved more than just the everyday Joe Blow or celebrities, actors, actresses, and other high-income, high-profile people. I think athletes do more than their fair share as far as giving their time and raising money for charity. For instance, James, you interact so closely with your fans and see a greater cross section of society as an athlete than a movie star. Actors make a movie then see their fans only during a premiere, or at an event, as opposed to the constant and instant interaction with fans that athletes have when they play tournaments and matches. Also sports, particularly tennis and golf, are so democratic. Those sports are just about how good you are and have nothing to do with anything else. It’s purely based on your merit, and maybe because of that we feel that it is fair and we want to be fair-minded people.”
Because I retired from professional tennis in 2013, before my incident with the NYPD, I am in many ways lucky. Any advocacy or activism I do now does not affect my play during a professional tour. Did Navratilova’s activism or her speaking out or even being out ever affect her play, particularly while she was at the top of her game?
“Being out made me free. It freed me up,” Navratilova answered, then paused, as though thinking back all those years to when she first immigrated to the United States. “When I left my country, that was the biggest pressure cooker ever, being out. Leaving Czechoslovakia and my family, not knowing if I would ever go back and see them, was pressure because when I left it was a one-way ticket. After that, everything was kind of a piece of cake. Being gay was not anything I was ever worried about. When I realized I was gay, it was literally like, oh that’s what that was. I thought my life will never be as easy as I wanted it to be, but that’s what it is and that was literally the amount of thought I gave it.
“I never felt I had to justify myself and I never felt ashamed or anything, but it was a freeing thing to not have to not talk about it. Or have to say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I had n
ever really said that about anything, whether it was politics or causes. I had always spoken out. So not to speak out about who I am was hard. And I didn’t say anything because I was covering for other people who I was with who were in the closet. Initially I couldn’t come out because I might not get my citizenship; that could have disqualified me back then. But the irony was I left my country so I could be free, but I wasn’t really free until I was completely out. Now I don’t have to hide anything at all, so it was really freeing.
“I think it made me a better tennis player because I didn’t have any extra energy going anywhere except to my tennis. But at the same time it did make people cheer against me after I came out. There was no doubt about that. Now I would have a bigger fan base or it would be a wash. Then, maybe five percent of people approved of homosexuality. Everybody else was very negative. It did affect me when I was playing, especially when I was winning. I was never the home team. I get jealous to this day of Nadal and Federer, you know, Jesus, the crowd is always cheering for them. [Laughs.] They’re the home team everywhere they go. I never had that until the very end of my career. But by then I wasn’t winning as much anymore and people were more accepting of gays. So, it was a plus on one side but a minus because I really wanted to have that support or fifty-fifty.
“Looking back now, I don’t think I realized what a positive effect it had on me to be out. Not that I ever really hid it, but I didn’t have to even think about it anymore or watch what I said or didn’t say. It was really since 1984 that it became much easier for me all the way around.”
If anyone has advice on advocacy and speaking out for what you believe in, it would be this longtime activist and outspoken champion. Did Navratilova have any advice for athletes today who have something they are passionate about, who have a cause that is dear to them, or who feel the need to speak out about social justice or inequality? Also, did she think today’s activist culture is different than it was in the seventies and eighties, when she was playing professionally?