8601300075
DETROIT FREE PRESS
860702
Wednesday, July 02, 1986
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1986, Detroit Free Press
AT LILY-WHITE WIMBLEDON, MCNEIL PROVES SHE BELONGS
WIMBLEDON, England -- It must be a hell of a feeling to be a black player
in a stadium filled with white fans and a white Princess and a white Countess
wearing white gloves, with white line judges and white officials standing all
around you.
But that was Lori McNeil's view from Court One on Tuesday at Wimbledon. And
it was her turn to serve. She had learned her tennis in a city park in
Houston, a place where, in the summer, you wait for the cement to lose its
heat before playing. A basketball game was usually going on the adjacent
courts there, and a lot of raucous yelling, but now, here at Wimbledon, it
was dead silent, and the No. 3 female player in the world, Hana Mandlikova,
was across the net, and more than 6,000 faces looked on, and by my count only
six were black -- one being McNeil's coach, John Wilkerson, and the others
family friends.
Tennis is a great sport. It's also lily white and always has been. You
don't think the country-club set that introduced it here back in the 17th
century was anything less than the privileged classes, do you? Hah. Even Henry
the VIII had a worker serve for him, so he wouldn't have to sweat.
Name one black female tennis star. You say Althea Gibson. She retired in
1958.
"Do you hear her name often?" someone would ask Lori McNeil after her
match.
"All the time," she would sigh.
Learning the hard way Lori McNeil is an enchanting 22- year-old woman
with a lilting voice and a shy, if not self- conscious, disposition. That she
is black is only secondary to her, but she and Houston friend Zina Garrison
and Camille Benjamin are the only blacks among the sport's top 60 women.
"Do you see yourself as an example?" she was asked afterward.
"Well, I don't think I can forget that I'm a black player," she said. "I
mean, everybody can see it. But I'd rather just be known as a player."
As McNeil fired serves across the net, Wilkerson, her coach, watched
nervously. It was Wilkerson who gave McNeil her first racket in 1974, part of
a free program he started in that city park, MacGregor Park, for minority
kids.
Nowadays, tennis stars don't come off the streets. They come from live-in
schools in Florida, and many travel with their mothers and some have private
masseuses. No money, no chance.
But Wilkerson was trying to change that. He was never a great player
himself, but he liked kids and he got to the park early and stayed until the
long summer evenings were over.
"It wasn't the way most of the women here learned the game," McNeil
admitted. "There were about 20 of us, girls and guys. We played one another.
The girls didn't wear dresses. Mostly we wore shorts, or whatever we had."
McNeil was fairly typical of the group. Her father, Charles McNeil, played
for the San Diego Chargers in the mid-'60s. In those days, however, your free
ride ended when you retired from your sport. So today, Charles drives a cab
and his wife, Dorothy, does clerical work in a hospital.
They couldn't afford to be here. Mrs. McNeil watched on TV at work. Mr.
McNeil was driving. A newspaper called them at home Tuesday night. "We wanted
to come over," Mrs. McNeil said, "but working people got to work."
Mandlikova battles back Lori McNeil beat Hana Mandlikova in the first
set. She played gutsy tennis, took the No. 3 player to a tie-breaker and won
with a slicing drop shot across the net. Then she lost it completely. Fell in
the next two sets, 6-0, 6-2.
Still it was a good show. A quarterfinal at Wimbledon -- the furthest
McNeil had gone here. Only Althea Gibson had gone further among black female
players. Another step forward.
And another back. The city has replaced Wilkerson's program with a
watered-down version -- "you have to pay for it now," he said. So today
there's one fewer place for poor kids with no tennis dresses to learn a
terrific game.
Tennis is always bemoaning the size of its audience. But the best sports
are the ones enjoyed by everybody. There is no deliberate racism here. Just
economic discrimination. In America, anyhow, tennis is mostly for pony-tailed
private schoolers and southern California golden boys.
"Maybe other black kids will watch me," McNeil said. "And think if I can,
they can."
She rubbed her arms, as if taking stock of herself. "I don't know. When I'm
out there I feel like I have a pretty big support group behind me. That pushes
me. So I'll keep trying."
The numbers are against her. But they have been for a while. Tennis will be
a lot better off when Lori McNeil takes home one of its titles. And when the
next player gazing up at Wimbledon isn't blinded by the white.
CUTLINE
Lori McNeil
TENNIS