"Little Venus and Serena Williams grew up in Compton, practicing
with dead balls on cracked public courts surrounded by drug dealers
and drive-by shootings, broken people and broken glass. The Williams
family got out of Compton in September of 1991, and much of the rest
is history.
Richard Williams brought his daughters along slowly by contemporary standards, limiting their early tournament appearances and then cutting back Venus' appearances even further when her grades dropped below an A+ average. Richard has appeared somewhat inconsistent in his utterances over the years, but he has consistently insisted that education is more important than money or tennis.
Then something unexpected happened. It turned out that Richard Williams was right, and the experts were wrong. Venus and Serena Williams are the first sisters to each win a Grand Slam. When they met in the finals of Florida's Lipton Championships in 1999 it marked the first time that sisters had reached a final since Maud Watson knocked off her older sister Lilian at the inaugural Wimbledon in 1884.
Richard Williams is the son of a Louisiana sharecropper, his wife Oracene ("Brandi") hails from neighboring Mississippi. While there are many wonderful things about those southern states, neither has ever been considered a haven for ambitious black people whose intent is anything other than to shamelessly grovel before the long-established pecking order. Say what you want about Richard Williams, no one has ever accused him of groveling.
If Louisiana and Mississippi aren't the promised land, it's at least as difficult to make a case for Compton, California. Compton is the Mecca of black gang violence, drug dealing and addiction, prostitution and broken dreams. In greater Los Angeles where hopelessness is a way of life, probably nowhere is more hopeless than Compton. The legendary rap group N.W.A. celebrated the enclave's vices as virtues on their critically celebrated 1987 opus "Straight Outta Compton," but a sober reading of even that seminal work reveals a cycle of life inevitably ending in jail or early death.
Compton is not known for producing world class tennis players." From an Article in Zoom Tennis
If the apothecary(as in Exodus 37:29) is right, the ingredients whether bitter or undesirable will eventually produce a powerful result! Trust God not the situation!
Richard Williams brought his daughters along slowly by contemporary standards, limiting their early tournament appearances and then cutting back Venus' appearances even further when her grades dropped below an A+ average. Richard has appeared somewhat inconsistent in his utterances over the years, but he has consistently insisted that education is more important than money or tennis.
Then something unexpected happened. It turned out that Richard Williams was right, and the experts were wrong. Venus and Serena Williams are the first sisters to each win a Grand Slam. When they met in the finals of Florida's Lipton Championships in 1999 it marked the first time that sisters had reached a final since Maud Watson knocked off her older sister Lilian at the inaugural Wimbledon in 1884.
Richard Williams is the son of a Louisiana sharecropper, his wife Oracene ("Brandi") hails from neighboring Mississippi. While there are many wonderful things about those southern states, neither has ever been considered a haven for ambitious black people whose intent is anything other than to shamelessly grovel before the long-established pecking order. Say what you want about Richard Williams, no one has ever accused him of groveling.
If Louisiana and Mississippi aren't the promised land, it's at least as difficult to make a case for Compton, California. Compton is the Mecca of black gang violence, drug dealing and addiction, prostitution and broken dreams. In greater Los Angeles where hopelessness is a way of life, probably nowhere is more hopeless than Compton. The legendary rap group N.W.A. celebrated the enclave's vices as virtues on their critically celebrated 1987 opus "Straight Outta Compton," but a sober reading of even that seminal work reveals a cycle of life inevitably ending in jail or early death.
Compton is not known for producing world class tennis players." From an Article in Zoom Tennis
If the apothecary(as in Exodus 37:29) is right, the ingredients whether bitter or undesirable will eventually produce a powerful result! Trust God not the situation!
No comments:
Post a Comment