Days of Grace

by Arthur Ashe

  Talking to various historians, I discovered why this subject had been neglected: academic snobbery and timidity. People, especially men, are passionately interested in sport; yet sports history is often considered beneath the notice of serious historians. Most publishers were also unwilling to subsidize such basic research by awarding a substantial advance to a scholar. Eventually, however, I more than covered my investment, which suggests that many people want to know this story. Proud as I am of various other accomplishments and successes, I take a special pride in being regarded, since the publication of the three volumes that make up A Hard Road to Glory, as an authority on the subject of African Americans in sport.

  “MONEY MAKES ME happy.” Who would make such a crass remark? I did, in my book Portrait in Motion, written with Frank Deford. But the truth is that I’m glad I have enough money to live comfortably, and I enjoyed adding to my bank account as I earned money on the tennis court and in various business deals when I was a professional. I was not born poor, but my father was hardly rich. I long ago decided that, on the whole, I much prefer having money to not having it. In that sense, it makes me happy.

  On the other hand, I also learned a long time ago what money can and cannot do for me. From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.

  Along the way, as I went about the business of making money and then trying to keep it so that I could retire one day with peace of mind, I learned some wrenching lessons about the interplay between dollars and common sense. I will not pretend that my experience can provide lessons to everyone, or even to many people. In some respects the world of sport has changed, and my experience means little. Moreover, not many people earn large sums of money in the first place, much less for hitting or kicking a ball. Still, I would like to share what I have learned.

  I came along too early in the open era of tennis to collect any of the huge prizes awarded in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of these prizes are extraordinary. For example, in December 1992 the Grand Slam tournament in Germany awarded two million dollars to the winner (Michael Stich of Germany) and one million dollars to the runner-up (Michael Chang of the United States). However, I earned a fair amount in my time. Even more important, I have kept much of it. I have done so because of prudent management and a relatively modest way of life compared to my income.

  The fields of sport and entertainment are creating many instant millionaires in America and Europe today, and especially many black millionaires. I wonder about all this money being made by young people, and how it is being spent. If I were asked, on the basis of my own experience, to advise these men and women about money (and the advice may hold for people who have much less money), I would say the following: First, decide on a plan. Set financial goals and priorities for yourself. Second, get the best minds you can afford to help you with legal and financial matters. These experts tend to make money for you with their expertise, rather than take money from you with their large fees. Third, in recruiting such people, do not be prejudiced or sentimental about such matters as gender, skin color, facial features, or social class. Good lawyers and financial experts come in all colors, genders, and backgrounds. Fourth, read before signing any contracts, but then stick to the agreements you sign. Resist the urge to try to wriggle out of financial arrangements and obligations. A wise person decides slowly but abides by these decisions. Fifth, be prudent in your generosity. In fact, although charity is important, dispense with generosity if you must; deal first with your primary responsibilities.

  For some athletes and entertainers, generosity is their gravest problem. Among boxers, for example, Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson were legendary for their charity toward all, which they often expressed in hundred-dollar tips. At one point, Louis owed the U.S. government four million dollars in income tax, which the government forgave (it had no hope of ever collecting this money). If I remember correctly, Joe eked out a living near the end of his life as a greeter in a Las Vegas casino. Sugar Ray Robinson also made a fortune but died a relatively poor man. The problem continues, and often it begins with individuals who regard a professional athlete in the family as a cash cow. Late in 1992, Sports Illustrated ran an instructive story about the gifted basketball player Dominique Wilkins. An open, trusting man, Wilkins had been supporting at least six members of his family, who allegedly did little or nothing to help themselves. When Wilkins finally married, and his wife put a sudden stop to the bleeding, everyone involved was hurt. But that is the kind of tough decision someone has to make.

  I do not mean that one should avoid helping family members. I have helped to put two cousins through graduate school; that is money well spent. One should also help friends in need, but carefully. Even with the care I take, I can still think of half a dozen people who allowed the issue of repayment of a small loan to disrupt our friendship. For a thousand dollars each, two different friends compromised my respect for them. Over the years, I have had to write off several bad loans to friends. Most professional athletes and entertainers suffer in this way, but black athletes probably suffer more than others. Certainly it is an old problem. I remember being startled to read about a black boxer who complained bitterly about people who “put the touch on you,” as he phrased it. This was George Dixon, the first black man to be a world boxing champion, in the 1890s.

  In at least one way, I am in a peculiar category among athletes in the United States. My generation was probably the last in which young athletes made large amounts of money and were also college graduates. Just as the open era transformed my sport, so did free agency transform the other sports and reduce the incentive for a superior athlete to finish college, or even to take it seriously. This trend has affected both blacks and whites, but blacks have been hit harder. It seems fair to say that many either have never finished their degree requirements or, frankly, were such poor students that they would not have been admitted to college but for their athletic skill and the unscrupulousness of many schools. Often, even with rich contracts, these athletes are on their way to being paupers. Not only are they naïve in handling legal and financial matters; they often lack the one quality that might save them: the ability to interact in a prudent, respectful way with their lawyers and financial managers. Many young athletes are probably doomed, tragically, to return to the poverty from which sport almost saved them.

  From the start of my professional career, when I left the Army in 1969, I have been fortunate to have as my lawyer and manager Donald Dell. Over the years, certain people, especially blacks, have ventured to criticize me for relying so heavily on Dell.

  “You call yourself a role model for young blacks,” one friend snapped at me not long ago, “but you have a white man handling your money?”

  “I don’t call myself a role model,” I replied. “And I don’t have a white man handling my money. I have Donald Dell, who happens to be white.”

  “There’s no difference, Arthur. None at all.”

  “Yes, there is!”

  “I’m surprised,” he went on, “that you don’t have a white wife!”

  “Well, if I had one, it would be my business and my business alone, wouldn’t it? And she would be my wife, first and foremost, who happened to be white.”

  Some blacks and some whites also insist that I could do much better with a different manager, no matter what his race. They say that Donald is not astute enough, by which they probably mean not greedy enough. I tend to chuckle when I hear such criticism, because I am quite satisfied with the way my finances have worked out over the years. I am tempted to chuckle even louder when I see how poorly some of these same critics of Dell’s are doing financially.

  I am quite sensitive to the fact that blacks must try to support other blacks, including black professionals, because we are shut out from so many fields by racism. Try, for example, to find an African American real-estate agent among the prominent real-estate firms in Manhattan, or a black waiter or waitress in a leading Manhattan restaurant. But one cannot let skin color alo
ne determine the choice of an expert. In my case, when I started earning large sums of money, I knew of only one black agent in the sporting world. (He had been a classmate of mine at UCLA.) By the time I turned professional in 1969, I was committed to Dell. I had known Donald’s parents since I was a teenager, when his brother Dickie and I competed in the same tournaments; and I played under Donald as captain on our Davis Cup team in 1968 and 1969.

  I did not start off with a total commitment to Donald as a lawyer and manager. Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time. Eventually that trust in Donald became like granite. Perhaps someone else could have gotten more for me in this deal or that; but more money is not the deciding factor for me in choosing a lawyer or manager, and it shouldn’t be for anyone. My whole career has been built, I now see, on seeking and following good advice, and on working with other people rather than striking out on my own into territory others knew better. In starting out, I invested, literally and metaphorically, in a community effort with other tennis players who were as uncertain as I was in 1968 where professional tennis was going. All that we were sure about was that we had one another, and wanted to help shape the future of the sport.

  In 1969, I rejected an offer of $400,000 over five years to turn myself over to the management of one of the major entrepreneurs then emerging in tennis. At that time, $400,000 was an extraordinary amount for a professional athlete in the United States, and especially to someone coming out of the Army with precious little cash in his bank account. Still, I refused the money and threw in my lot with a group of other players to help form an organization called Players Enterprises Incorporated (PEI). I laugh to think of today’s tennis players cooperating in this way; but we made it work, at least long enough for us to affect the growth of open tennis. All the money we earned as prizes or for playing exhibitions went to PEI. In turn, it paid our expenses and also a salary based on the size of our individual contributions to the pool. The company also made it easy for us to stage exhibition matches, which earned us more money; and, as employees of a company, we saved on taxes. Perhaps most prudent of all, PEI also set up retirement and trust funds that would take care of us once we left the professional game.

  Dell and his partner at the time in ProServ, Frank Craighill, provided legal advice to PEI. Then, when ProServ expanded into other areas of sports management, I became one of its top clients. My trust in Donald solidified. Between 1976 and 1986, for example, he and I worked without a formal agreement between us. In 1986, changes in the federal tax law mandated a written agreement between clients and financial managers. I think the law is a good one, but the piece of paper we co-signed is much less important to me than the feeling of trust we share. I did not have to immerse myself in the minutiae of money management, but allowed Donald and his colleagues to help me meet my goals. To facilitate matters, I assigned a limited power of attorney to certain officials at ProServ. (Except in rare circumstances, no one should assign a general power of attorney to anyone.)

  From early in our arrangement, I was put on a budget. I would enthusiastically recommend a budget for anyone, especially professional athletes. Based on my estimated income for the coming year, I was assigned a certain amount of money, and the rest of my money was off limits to me, unless I insisted. This is an invaluable arrangement, to which the most sensible professional athletes adhere. Michael Jordan, for example, lives on a budget, although his annual income exceeds my total net worth, and perhaps even the net worth of several small nations. (Michael’s agent is the highly respected David Falk, who used to be my lawyer when he worked at ProServ.) I try never to exceed my budget, and one way I do so is by remembering certain realities of purchasing. If you buy a car that sports a sticker price of $40,000 (and I wouldn’t), you really pay at least $60,000 for the vehicle, depending on your tax bracket. That is the amount of money you must earn so that, after federal and other income taxes and other fees and expenses, you can buy the car. In every practical sense, the price tag should be $60,000.

  Between 1970 and 1986, I did not even own a car—that is, except for a certain Rolls-Royce, a 1924 Silver Ghost, I spotted one morning in Australia and fell in love with. I told myself that it was a sound investment. Well, it wasn’t, not for me. I brought it back to the U.S. but never drove it. I finally sold it (at a slight loss) to a friend in Richmond.

  I spend very little on clothing. I own only four sport coats, five suits, and five pairs of shoes. They are all items of fairly high quality, but it makes sense to pay more for high quality. I am frugal, as are most professional and ex-professional tennis players. (As players, we receive so many things free, including tennis clothing, shoes, and racquets, that we tend to choke at paying for anything.) However, I rarely hesitate to pay for an experience, whether it is a concert or a vacation to an exotic land. And I try not to impose my own frugality on my wife and daughter, for I see it more as a habit than a virtue.

  Perhaps I have left the impression that I am a model of prudence in handling money. Let me dispel that notion, at least a little. From bitter experience, I know that my ability to make money on my own as an entrepreneur or a venture capitalist is limited. My college degree in business and the advice and management of ProServ have not prevented me from making a mess now and then of some idea. I was adventurous on the tennis court, and I have some of that fire in me where money is concerned; sometimes I haven’t been able to keep the fire under control.

  My first major business venture on my own, outside of tennis, had a magical appeal to me: it involved Africa. I have never been excessively romantic about the Motherland, but Africa is where most of my ancestors came from and I longed for a chance to build a lasting bridge of my own to the continent. In 1979, in partnership with a friend from Richmond who not only held an M.B.A. but also shared my enthusiasm for Africa, I started a trading company, International Commercial Resources. To the chagrin of Dell and my other advisers, almost all of its capital came directly from my pocket.

  We were cautious, very cautious. We began our adventure by negotiating with the government of Liberia, which seemed the safest, most stable place in Africa for an American to do business. Its connections to the United States run deep; in 1821, sponsored by the American Colonization Society, a boatload of freed slaves from the United States reached the area to begin a systematic process of repatriation of Africans who had been slaves or the descendants of slaves in America. In 1847, Liberia formally established itself as an independent state but kept its special ties to the United States. Many of those ties persist today: for example, its official currency is the U.S. dollar.

  Our main dealings were with an efficient and apparently principled government administrator, Charles Taylor, who was himself a confidant of the president of Liberia at that time, William R. Tolbert. In an agreement reached with the government, our company was hired to supply the nation with various essential goods and services. We signed our agreement, and I settled back to receive a decent return on my investment. I never saw a penny of the money again. In 1980, Tolbert’s government was overthrown in a violent coup led by a master sergeant, Samuel K. Doe, and Tolbert was murdered, along with several members of his family. By the end of the decade, Liberia was immersed in such bloody strife that half the population fled the country in terror and at least 20,000 people died. The leader of one of two armed factions opposing Samuel Doe was none other than our contact, Charles Taylor. In 1990, Doe himself was killed. In 1992, Taylor’s forces were accused of murdering six American nuns living near Monrovia, the capital. Liberia, an economist friend told me, is now close to being a “pre-Somalia” state.

  I lost a six-figure sum on that venture. The key to business speculation, I am told, is to risk only the money you can lose without batting an eye. ProServ was not worried, but, believe me, I batted an eye.

  My Liberian disaster did not extinguish the fire of entrepreneurship in me. However, my next independent business venture was far more modest. With my good friend Doug Stein, I stepp
ed into the clothing import business in gingerly fashion. Doug and I decided to found a company, STASH—a combination of Stein and Ashe—to sell clothes wholesale. He had friends in the rag business (as the clothing industry is called in New York); and I also had friends in the rag business, including connections to certain major department stores. We could not miss. However, no doubt spooked by my Liberian fiasco, I panicked at the first sign of trouble. This time I lost only a thousand dollars. After Liberia, it actually felt like a profit.

  My last memorable business venture was sentimental, like my Liberian gamble, and even more costly. It involved family—my brother, Johnnie Ashe, a warrant officer in the U.S. Marines, with experience in construction. We decided to build an apartment complex in Jacksonville, North Carolina, that would serve Marines in the Parris Island-Camp Lejeune complex. I would put up much of the money in cash and personally guarantee bank loans to cover other costs. Cautiously, we made the decision to build the complex in various stages. My brother put his experience as a Marine engineer to good use and oversaw the construction of the first stage, then the second. I flew down to the site frequently, and came to enjoy the sound of hammering and sawing. To me, it sounded like money—the money I was about to make. However, the project meant more than money to us; it was a brotherly venture. Accordingly, we named the complex Cordell Village, after our late mother, Mattie Cordell Cunningham Ashe.